Free speech isn’t under threat. It just suits bigots and boors to suggest so

Or so Leftist journalist Martha Gill says.  Martha ia an Oxford graduate so one would expect a cogent argument from her -- but most of her article is just a sneer. I have however excerpted below the bit that is an argument of sorts. All she does in it however is erect a straw man.  She says, yes, people have been blocked from speaking but the views of those who do the blocking "are not reflective of the feelings of most students".

Big deal! What most students think is not the issue.  It is whether or not free speech is in fact blocked  -- and Martha admits that it is. But all that blocking of conservative speech just does not bother her.

Her second argument is that there is no absolute free speech.  There are always some discussions that societies ban.  But who is to decide what is banned?  She avoids that issue. Does the opinion of a few radical students suffice as a criterion?  Are they entitled to decide what political speech should be banned?  It would appear that the opinion of a coterie of radical students is indeed sufficient for her.

So she has not remotely made the argument in her heading above.  All she has done is reveal herself as a self-satisfied Leftist bigot with no committment to free speech


But is free speech really under threat? The first thing to say is that the scale of the problem in universities has been exaggerated. The practice of denying people speaking slots over their views has rightly caused concern, but every single instance has also attracted vast coverage in national papers, giving the impression of an epidemic. They are not reflective of the feelings of most students.

In 2018, a YouGov poll found British students were no keener to see speakers banned than the general public. In the US, a Knight Foundation survey found students were less likely than the overall population to support restrictions of free speech on campus, and Jeffrey Sachs, the US political scientist, found that there had been no “generational shift” in tolerance. There is also the fact that this handful of noisy zealots is only interested in a couple of topics. Minority rights, to be specific. They are unlikely to turn their sights, say, to physics, economics or music.

Most importantly, free speech defenders are muddled about what is happening. They see millennial snowflakes doing something dangerous: taking the first steps down a slope that begins with wanting to be warned when books include rape scenes and ends in communist Russia. But they forget that even in free countries speech has always been limited by social rules, not least the one about simple politeness.

If you are rude to a lecturer, for example, you might expect to be thrown out of a classroom. If you are rude about a minority group, they might try to stop you being invited to speak at their university. If you say something people don’t like, they might say something you don’t like back. Countries without free speech tend to have it written into law or otherwise enforced by the state. We are not quite there yet.

Free speech advocates also misunderstand the motivation of those who might want to shut down a debate: they see this as a surefire mark of intolerance. But some debates should be shut down. For public dialogue to make any progress, it is important to recognise when a particular debate has been won and leave it there.

SOURCE