The OSFL debate is not about censorship, but about our right to express dissatisfaction about an event happening at our university.
The OSFL debate is not about censorship, but about our right to express dissatisfaction with an event happening at our university
Last week, students at Oxford University objected to a ‘debate’ hosted by a pro-life group entitled ‘This House Believes Britain’s Abortion Culture Hurts Us All.’
We’ve since been called Nazis and/or Stalinists, politically correct fascists, but most commonly, enemies of free speech.
This indicates a misunderstanding of what free speech actually entails. Some twitter users might be surprised to hear that actually, we understand that in a liberal society free speech is of course a fundamental right – but we also believe that this right can be dramatically misinterpreted.
If we accept the definition of freedom as the ability to perform an action without external constraint, then free speech is the ability to express opinions without government censorship. Free speech gives every individual the political right to speak without the state intervening.
We have a right to express our dissatisfaction about something happening in our university; Tim Stanley, Brendan O’Neill, and pro-life organizations have the right to express their dissatisfaction with the cancellation of their event.
It might be useful at this point to recap what actually happened, a narrative which has been drowned out by free-speech sensationalism. We organized a counter-event to voice our dissatisfaction with the framing of OSFL’s debate, and the exclusion of women’s voices from an issue about their bodies and choices.
We did not originally call for the event to be shut down by the college – we had intended to implement the no platform ourselves by popular protest. Ultimately, Christ Church decided to withdraw their platform and OSFL were forced to cancel the debate themselves when they could find no alternative venues to host their event.
No venue is obliged to host any debate, and the fact that no alternative venue was found does not constitute a violation of free speech.
We objected to the debate pre-supposing Britain’s ‘abortion culture’, a phrase that exposes the ‘objectivity’ of the debate to be pre-loaded with the anti-choice rhetoric of shame. It implies that abortion is a normalized and harmful social trend, creating associations with genuine social phenomena like ‘rape culture’.
This is a misleading implication which overwrites the experience of women, trans and non-binary people.
The right to be able to speak freely does not oblige anyone, especially not a private institution, to provide you with a platform – a means by which a person is able to talk, write, or otherwise communicate their opinions to an audience. Free speech is our right, but a platform is not.
One twitter user accused us of ‘intellectual cowardice’ for refusing to engage with the debate on OSFL’s terms, an attitude of entitlement which was incredibly common.
The right to say whatever you want, within the law, does not mean that any organisation must give you space to say it.
By choosing to host a speaker, an institution is always to some extent endorsing the terms of the debate, and vouching for the participants’ qualification to speak on a certain issue – O’ Neill and Stanley have little relevant lived experience to recommend them to speak about abortion other than their own opinions.
In Tim Stanley’s article, which has miraculously evaded the censorship of Oxford feminists to reach tens of thousands of readers, he refers to our ‘authoritarian’ mindset, our wish to ‘eradicate contrary ideas.’
This is a vast overstatement of the scope of our action: a small group of students do not have the right or the power to repress. Let’s consider the fact that Stanley was writing about his censorship in a national newspaper: he was denied a platform on one evening, at one specific place, in our university.
He is a powerful journalist with many platforms of his own. Criticism levelled at us has been characterized by the absence of any recognition of this balance of power.
Brendan O’Neill, among others, criticizes this generation of students for not being radical enough, for shrinking away from rather than challenging the establishment’s ‘orthodoxy’. The irony is that he is the establishment – and over the past week we have challenged his entitlement to speak for and over women.
To quote Tim Squirrell’s article on the OSFL controversy ‘We are challenging the claims of privileged men to have the right to speak wherever they want, whenever they want.’
I’m yet to read an objection to our opposition to OSFL’s debate that hasn’t been written by a cisgender white man. This generation of students and activists is standing up and saying that, for too long, men have spoken over women, trans and non-binary people, just as white people have spoken over people of colour.
My generation is saying that we should understand how this act reinforces oppressive power structures and social hierarchies. And although this may be a repulsive idea to some, sometimes this involves rethinking our right to speak at all times, for all people, on any topic.
Niamh McIntyre and Anna Burn are students at Oxford University. Follow Niamh on Twitter
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96 Responses to “Free speech is a right, but a platform is not”
Just Visiting
It wasn’t clear what you meant by:
> It’s always something subject to moral values, for any particular location.
> Your argument is that if you allow one debate you must allow them all.
> Which is ridiculous.
I think a number have people here have made that very argument and would not agree with your suggestion that it is ridiculous – e.g. read BasementBoi above.
The law does limit free speech (incitement to violence etc): but outside of that, debate of any subject is allowed under free speech.
damon
You never did get what I said about the quenelle.
I said the football player was a prat and should have been told not to do it again. Maybe even fined by his club. A week’s wages I think I suggested. But what we didn’t need was a circus – and CST and Boards of Deputies trooping in and out of FA headquarters to explain to the football men what this gesture meant.
You just saw that as ”defending Anelka”.
You may be thick, or just wilfully sectarian.
Do you even understand this point of view, about the latest racism row in football? About the Wigan chairman and their new manager?
The thing with you is, you’ve never helped discussion of ideas move on, on this rather slow and clumsy medium.
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/if-dave-whelans-a-racist-then-im-a-chinaman/16260#.VHtXpmhFAsI
I made a comment on that article myself.
Do you understand the points made, even if you disagree with them?
I think, like what I said about the quenelle, it’ll go over your head.
That was a problem on HP all the time. Many of the people who comment on it aren’t as clever as they think they are.
Left free
This article misses the point.
We objected to the debate pre-supposing Britain’s ‘abortion culture’, a phrase that exposes the ‘objectivity’ of the debate to be pre-loaded with the anti-choice rhetoric of shame. It implies that abortion is a normalized and harmful social trend, creating associations with genuine social phenomena like ‘rape culture’
The point of a debate with two side is that you can disagree with the motion if you wish. The motion was not illegal or hateful, but you can argue it is in debate. This article actually suggests we should limit free speech on the basis of gender. I would remind the authors that this country, like so many others, has a bad enough history of doing that already…
The points of view expressed above are perfectly valid but there is confusion between what you don’t like (that it was to be hosted by a pro-life/anti-abortion group) and what it’s okay to have cancelled. I realise you claim you didn’t push for cancellation, but nor do you appear to mind it. Would that really be your view if the College had cancelled a debate organised by a pro-choice group?
Lamia
I haven’t ‘invented’ them, they have been documented for years at sites like:
http://tifrib.com/
http://www.studentrights.org.uk/
http://hurryupharry.org
http://www.pinknews.co.uk
http://tifrib.com/ alone details the preachings of 40 hate preachers. Go and educate yourself.
but ignore the issues which surround “pro-life” groups and violence.
What issues? Scores of anti-abortion speakers, who advocate violence, speaking at our universities? Where? When? Point me to a list of them.
your organisation – I note the we – is undoubtedly sore that they decided not to go ahead,
The ‘we’ referred to the public. I’m not a member of any political or social organistion, let alone any one remotely connected with abortion, and have never even attended a talk, debate or protest for or against.
I’m pro-choice, in any case. As is Brendan O’Neill, and I was defending him and Tim Stanley not for their views (I could hardly be supporting two opposing views) but because they haven’t broken the law or incited lawbreaking or violence. They can both be berks but neither are in the same realm as the Islamist hate preachers whose existence you affect to be unaware of.
your self-admitedly Islamophobic and anti-University agenda
I didn’t and do not admit anything of the kind. Apparently now it’s ‘Islamophobic’ and ‘anti-university’ for a gay person to object to universities hosting Islamist preachers who advocate discriminating against or murdering gay people. Funnily enough I’m really not keen on such people. The fact that you see the Islamist homophobes as the victim of prejudice is really quite sad. Evidently, had I objected to a university Christian Society hosting a homophobic preacher who advocated my murder that would make me an anti-Christian bigot.
Honestly, being anti-University would be the more likely cause for the cancellation if you’ve talked in that way before.
Again, that doesn’t make any sense. I had nothing to do with the proposed debate, and had no interest of going to it. I was simply commenting on the internet about levels of freedom of speech in universities and double standards pertaining to it. Evidently you are paranoid as well as an apologist for selected homophobes.
damon
I see you’re too involved with your macho war stories to have gotten back to me about the quenelle and whether you actually understood the points made in that Spiked article I linked too.
The one about the racism scandal at Wigan football club.
From what I gather from you, you’d not get it all, and just think that the guy writing that piece was ”defending racism” in the same way as you took me to be defending Anelka or defending the gesture he made.
But what can you expect from thick sqaddies?
Not much.
That was the big problem with Harry’s Place. Too many people who were educated enough, but just kind of stupid and narrow minded at the same time?
I never said I defended the quenelle. Just that the footballer doing it wasn’t such a big deal. And that it was a far more complex issue than the English FA could be expected to get their heads around.
If things weren’t to decend into farce – like they have now, with even Mario Balotellli getting into bother for posting a tweet about the Mario Brothers video game where he made jokey comments about being a black man jumping and an oblique reference to Jewishness and grasping at coins. He was raised by a Jewish woman from the age of three.
But because the FA has backed itself into a corner over PC attitudes to race etc, the only thing they can do is bring charges.
But you still won’t get why I ”defended Anelka”.