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So at this King's thing Michael Barber just discussed this:
It's from "The Coddling of the American Mind" and is an example in the book of a problematic university speech code.
It was clumsy, but here's what it actually said
MB gave the example as if it was cotemporary. Jacksonville State actually rewrote it. Seventeen years ago.
Meanwhile - avoided in person but in the written version - it's even more amusing than the stuff in the Times today...
You'll see the example threshold for concern is 1 in 250 events cancelled. Well I have good news. His own regulator's figures have it as 1 in 1,124. And most of those will be for procedural reasons rather than about views or ideology.
What was odd was his section 1 of his lecture was basically about access and participation. But he can't apparently see any link between the kind of hostile environment that can be created by some people's behaviours impacting A&P defended on the basis of his part 2 (free speech)
Anyway as I said earlier https://twitter.com/jim_dickinson/status/1351895218061271043?s=20
Now I can't believe what I'm hearing. A student asks him what about discrimination, students of colour and duty of care. The answer was effectively "it's not the uni's job to protect you from offence". Which is an extraordinary response really.
Why does a black student studying physics have to be "exposed" to people who want them out of the university? And isn't a precursor to learning and debate feeling "safe" in terms of others' behaviour?
I must also point out that in the lecture MB used the PX finding that only 52% of academics said that they would feel comfortable “sitting next to a known Leave supporter at lunch”
Important to interrogate. Only 14% expressed discomfort, without either switching the question around or comparing to wider society. It was 0% of 18-24 year old staff.
The other “neither agree not disagree” third were probably either thinking “there hasn’t been anywhere for staff to sit and have lunch on our campus since 1996” or maybe “I haven’t actually had time to have lunch in this job since 1996.”
Is this question accompanied by one on sitting next to a remainer? Is it compared to wider society? Is it compared to other workplaces, or other periods of time in history? Nope.
I'm still reeling about this though. The fact that OfS actually collects these stats isn't some bit of wonkery detail. It's fundamental to the regulator's role in relation to the Prevent duty.
He'll have seen the stats at this meeting he chaired item 13.1 https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/about/board-papers/ofs-board-meeting-27-november-2019/
