Report Emphasizes that Safeguarding Free Speech in Universities Requires More Than Just Regulation

The study says that while universities can implement measures in an attempt to protect freedom of expression, only a clear theory of change that links interventions to outcomes, combined with randomised control trials to test their effect, will ultimately reveal what is effective.

The report reviews the academic literature on four types of measures that could potentially merit further research and highlights survey data which reveals between 61% and 71% of students say they support such measures, which include:

Classroom discussion guidelines and geography. Co-created by teachers and students, discussion guidelines can be useful in establishing norms of debate in the classroom and minimising conflict, while helping students feel more attached to their groups.

“Contact initiatives”. These provide opportunities for polarised groups to come together outside of the classroom to discuss divisive issues and listen to one another.

“Active listening training”. Better listening has been found to build trust and understanding, reducing conflict and helping people feel more at ease when expressing their opinions.

Codes of conduct. Required by the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, such codes have been adopted by 99 higher education institutions in the United States and aim to promote mutual respect while allowing the expression of all ideas.

Professor Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, said:

“The Free Speech Act has focused attention on free speech in universities and put legal and regulatory responses at the centre of the discussion. But our new report shows that the debates around the act, while often technical, are far from neutral, where starting points on broader ‘culture war’ issues hugely colour assessments of the scale and nature of the problem. This means that the challenge to free speech in universities is often either overstated or too readily dismissed, when the reality is it’s not nearly as bad as often made out, but there is enough of a signal in the trends to suggest that positive interventions to support free speech should be a focus.

“The challenge is that current efforts to support free speech tend to be a series of disconnected individual initiatives, with little evidence of what actually works in different circumstances. If we’re really interested in supporting free speech in universities, giving students the environment and tools that they need, we need to invest in understanding this better.”