Cambridge student: ‘Free speech will be lost if students are too afraid to listen’

A Cambridge University student has warned that free speech at universities will be lost if students fear listening to people whom ‘woke’ activists object to, saying “there will be no-one left to listen”.

Detransitioner Charlie Bentley-Astor, who studies English, highlighted the pressure on students by some staff and fellow scholars not to attend a lecture by gender-critical author Helen Joyce at Gonville and Caius College.

Bentley-Astor said: “If the current culture of shame and intimidation has left people too afraid to even listen, what then is the future of free speech? Apathy and atrophy go hand-in-hand.”

Apathy

The detransitioner explained that pressure from student-representatives within Colleges to boycott Joyce’s lecture, along with “baseless claims” that attending it enabled “genocide”, created a “culture of self-doubt” among students.

She said: “Many students intending to attend the debate backed out. They had seen the posters being torn down and heard their professors denounce the event with absolute self-assuredness. Students feared the professional repercussions they would face in this era of ‘cancellation’, were they to be seen entering the venue by ‘friends’ or colleagues.”

Bentley-Astor warned that it is “not enough that a few brave students make it through the protests and strive beyond the noise and intimidation to hear what a fellow human-being has to say. The ability to congregate, listen and discuss must be frictionless. Protesters have a right to speak, but they do not have a right to prevent others listening.

Protesters have a right to speak, but they do not have a right to prevent others listening.

“Those students willing to defend these twin freedoms of listening and speaking are presently in a minority. The real rot is not with those students who intimidate and silence and shame others, but those who are apathetic towards issues of deplatforming and censorship.”

‘Essential’

Last month, Philosophy lecturer Professor Arif Ahmed said that free speech training needs to be an “essential part” of university education.

The Cambridge professor is set to host sessions at Gonville and Caius College this term, designed to help students understand the importance of tolerating alternative points of view.

He was recently criticised by Caius’ Master, Prof Pippa Rogerson, for inviting gender-critical author Helen Joyce to speak at the College. Sociology Prof Manali Desai apologised to students for any “distress” caused by a faculty email advertising the event.