{"id":255265,"date":"2025-11-10T17:34:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T17:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/255265\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T17:34:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T17:34:14","slug":"is-academic-freedom-at-risk-in-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/255265\/","title":{"rendered":"Is academic freedom at risk in the UK?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week was a bad press week for Sheffield Hallam University after it was revealed<\/a> they paused research into human rights abuses in Xinjiang because of a run-in with Beijing. Following research by Professor Laura Murphy on Uyghur forced labour, the university experienced threats against its China-based staff and blocked access in China. The university\u2019s insurer pulled back and then university administrators barred her from continuing the work, at which stage Murphy threatened legal action for violation of academic freedom. The university has reversed its decision, albeit only after an unnecessary struggle. A shocking story for some, but not for us, and indeed the many other UK academics who came forward<\/a> this week with similar stories.<\/p>\n

People often ask me about \u201ccancel culture\u201d on campus. My usual response is: yes, it\u2019s a problem but you know what\u2019s also problematic and not talked about nearly as much? Chinese influence. We\u2019ve been shouting about this for ages, and have dug deep via reports<\/a>, follow-ups<\/a> and panel discussions. As was the case with Sheffield Hallam, the influence is usually exerted through stick and carrot: the stick = harassment of students and staff, the carrot = access to China\u2019s lucrative market. Given the growing number<\/a> of Chinese students in the UK and the proliferation<\/a> of UK joint institutes in China, we urgently need to address this problem. China is an incredibly important story. It can\u2019t be airbrushed.<\/p>\n

Questions about academic freedom aren\u2019t confined to China-related issues or to cancel culture, as another academic freedom story from this week reminded us. This one concerns SOAS<\/a>, who next June plan to host a conference by a group called Brismes, a well-respected UK-based organisation within the field of Middle Eastern studies. SOAS isn\u2019t just renting a space to Brismes. They\u2019ve issued the call for submissions on their own site too. As part of that call, participants are asked to declare whether their university is \u201cbuilt on captured land\u201d. Several organisations that campaign for academic freedom have accused them of breaking free speech rules. They\u2019re right to make the accusation. It\u2019s a thinly veiled attempt to exclude Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian academics, who either might not support the framing or might find themselves in jeopardy if they do.<\/p>\n

I have issue with compelled speech, as I\u2019ve written about<\/a>. It mirrors the tactics of authoritarian regimes, not open democracies. And in a university environment, it\u2019s especially problematic. They should be about dialogue not dogma. Sadly such ideological purity tests (as one academic I spoke about this story called it) aren\u2019t unique<\/a> to SOAS or to this specific issue, which I reference to provide context not justification.<\/p>\n

Of course there are usually other universities people can speak at, just as there might be other universities one can research China\u2019s human rights abuses. But is that the point? Any university closing its doors to academics \u2013 whether out of fear of losing funding or because of demands for thought conformity \u2013 is bad, made all the worse because it\u2019s part of a broader pattern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week was a bad press week for Sheffield Hallam University after it was revealed they paused research…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15398,59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-255265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-academic-freedom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}