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ADDENDUM
Genuinely remarkable to see one of the authors of the 2019 report touted as providing ‘evidence’ of the alleged problem in Unis simply dismissing the relevance of the fact that it misrepresents the ‘case’ that would appear to be most central to its argument
1/ https://twitter.com/RWynJones/status/1361683772186497024
Genuinely remarkable to see one of the authors of the 2019 report touted as providing ‘evidence’ of the alleged problem in Unis simply dismissing the relevance of the fact that it misrepresents the ‘case’ that would appear to be most central to its argument
1/ https://twitter.com/RWynJones/status/1361683772186497024
Even though in the report itself, the authors claimed as a central virtue of their work the alleged fact that they “sought to move beyond abstract questions of free speech to concrete cases”. Have a look yourself
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https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Academic-freedom-in-the-UK.pdf
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https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Academic-freedom-in-the-UK.pdf
And despite the fact that the case which they so comprehensively misrepresent – contrary to the report’s claims, Germaine Greer was *not* de-platformed at Cardiff – is a ‘concrete case’ illustrating the robust support of my institution for free speech
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But as well as this, it’s also interesting to consider why @Policy_Exchange have left this paper uncorrected on their website?
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They will certainly have long been aware that their 2019 report comprehensively misrepresents what occurred in Cardiff.
The Uni has been making this clear to all and sundry, and some media outlets have issued corrections as a result
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The Uni has been making this clear to all and sundry, and some media outlets have issued corrections as a result
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Yet @Policy_Exchange have not done so, and now that uncorrected report is being cited as a key part of the (in fact, very slender) evidence-base underpinning the UK govt’s case in support of its new policy
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Simultaneously, outriders like David Davis MP cite the alleged Cardiff de-platforming of Germaine Greer as a prime example of the alleged problem. Have a look here
7/ https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2021-01-19/debates/A245BD12-7C20-4D6E-BD87-C73D1ABC6182/FreedomOfSpeech(Universities)
7/ https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2021-01-19/debates/A245BD12-7C20-4D6E-BD87-C73D1ABC6182/FreedomOfSpeech(Universities)
Without speculating on how and why this happened, it is simply undeniable that in their 2019 report for the @Policy_Exchange, Simpson and Kaufmann blatantly misrepresented what occurred in relation to Greer’s talk at Cardiff. It went ahead with robust support from the Uni
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I'd argue that the failure by those responsible to correct this egregious error has allowed the myth of Greer's de-platforming to continue to propagate
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This to the point that it's become a central plank of the case in favour of the tsunami of further regulation/bureaucracy with which the UK govt is proposing to burden England's already overburdened universities.
(With spillover, I'm afraid, to Wales...)
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(With spillover, I'm afraid, to Wales...)
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But, sure, the real problem here is people like me doing what academics are meant to do, by pointing to inconvenient truths about the so-called evidence base…
/FIN
/FIN
