A Cambridge Professor has said that students should have to sign a free speech waiver before being admitted to colleges and universities.
Professor Arif Ahmed thinks that free speech on campus could be protected by compelling students to sign a form, agreeing that they will be exposed to material and ideas, that they find disturbing and shocking.
According to The Telegraph:
Prof Arif Ahmed was forced to smuggle pupils into a talk by Helen Joyce, the gender-critical author and journalist, because of opposition from trans activists.
The event was also criticised by the master of the Caius College, where it took place, and the senior tutor, although they did not attempt to block it from taking place.
Speaking on The Telegraph’s Planet Normal podcast, he said that universities had to be places of rigorous academic debate and discussion and that students should be forced to agree to that before enrolling.
He said that consent was a key factor in protecting academics from attacks on their free speech, which could be achieved through a compulsory waiver.
“Just as when you step into a boxing ring, you may consent implicitly or explicitly to being harmed, and in the more tangible it will be a sense of having been punched in the face,” he told the podcast.
“Having what I would regard as a waiver that you signed when you started university saying, ‘I accept that I will come across material that is disturbing and shocking and I accept that that’s part of my education’, could be useful in university life.
“Because it means nobody can be disciplined then for disseminating that kind of material and nobody would have grounds for complaint at being shown or being taught legal material that they find offensive or shocking.”
If students later withdrew their consent, Prof Ahmed said, they would have to withdraw from their course.
