Many countries in the West have laws protecting free speech. No-platforming violates those protections.
The argument
Universities no-platforming speakers is in violation of our country's belief in free speech, and the objection rests on what a university is for and on where the authority to judge speech actually sits. The first point concerns the institution's role. The universities' job is not to censure or stifle opinion; it is to promote the exchange of ideas and philosophies. Those two functions are not merely different but opposed, since an exchange of ideas is precisely the process that deciding in advance which ideas may be heard brings to an end. A university that removes a speaker has not exercised its function cautiously — it has substituted a different function for it. The second point concerns competence. It is not up to universities to decide what ideas are offensive, or even illegal; that is the job of parliament. Their role is simply to provide a platform for free speech. The law makes this explicit rather than leaving it to institutional preference: under the Education Act no.2 of 1986, universities are legally prohibited from stifling free speech, though this does not apply to student unions. The third point answers the obvious objection, which is that some speech genuinely does cross a line. The argument does not deny this; it relocates the decision. If anybody is deemed to be engaging in hate speech, or expressing discriminatory, racist or anti-Semitic opinions, then it is the responsibility of the police to bring charges against that person — a process with evidence, standards and appeal, none of which a no-platforming decision involves. For universities to no-platform speakers is therefore for them to violate somebody's free speech while assuming a power that belongs elsewhere. Under no circumstances should they be permitted to do so.
Context
Parliament has clearly defined laws on what constitutes hate speech and falls outside the legal boundaries of free speech. By law, everything else is protected under our principles of free speech.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Free speech isn’t just about speech it is about context. We are free to say anything we want in the right context. But we are not free to say anything we want in any context. Anti-war protestors picketing a dead soldiers funeral would technically be legal, but is it just? No. A university with a significant transgender community is not the right context for a speaker that disagrees with trans rights. There may be another university where the student body is not as diverse that would be a more appropriate setting for that speaker. Each university should be free to offer a specific context, and only accept speakers that express opinions fitted to that context. The government actually acknowledges this in other spaces. Its 2014 Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPOs) allows local authorities to penalise individuals if their conduct has had “a detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the locality”. It is this order that would allow a council to prevent a far-right, anti-immigration group marching through an area with a significant immigrant population.
Rejecting the premises
Rejecting P1: Free speech isn’t just about what you say, it is also about where you say it.