Ahmed ‘in listening mode’ as English free speech rules come in

The academic tasked with protecting free speech at English universities has told the sector that he and the Office for Students are “in listening mode” as they put flesh on the bones of a national complaints system.

Arif Ahmed, who was appointed England’s first director for freedom of speech and academic freedom in June, was due to set out his ambitions for the controversial role in a speech at King’s College London on 9 October.

He told Times Higher Education in advance of the speech that political impartiality was his top priority and that there was “no question whatever” that regulation “has got anything to do with culture wars or any political agenda”.

He said free speech regulation – which will include new duties for universities, colleges and students’ unions and a complaints scheme from August 2024 – was “not going to work unless it both is and is seen to be completely impartial”.

Professor Ahmed is a philosopher who joined the regulator from the University of Cambridge and whose own free speech credentials were burnished when he helped to overturn the university’s “vague, subjective and restrictive” free speech policy in May 2021.

He said the OfS was “in listening mode” as it interpreted the free speech role handed to it by May’s Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, which has been criticised as a “badly drafted and pretty vague” law.

One of the longstanding criticisms of his new role is whether it should exist at all. National Student Survey (NSS) figures show that most students feel free to express their opinions on campus.

Professor Ahmed said he wanted English universities to host more adversarial debates in “carefully specified conditions”, and to see students set essays in which they argue points they are likely to disagree with.

Cancelled events were not a good measure of expressive freedom, he said, while the complaints box would hopefully catch subtle and overlooked forms of self-censorship. “There are cases that are highly publicised...but there are many cases which get much less reporting, we suspect,” he said.

He will measure his own success through responses to the new free speech questions in the NSS, he said, and by analysing the shifting topics, volumes and themes of complaints that come in from students, academics and guest speakers from next year. “There’ll be, I’d expect, variations over time both in the volume but also in the pattern of concerns,” he said.

Asked how he would protect his personal impartiality, the freshly minted public servant said he would be mindful of how and where he spoke and in any dealings with the sector.

Professor Ahmed said the OfS would hold events later in 2023 with universities, students and students’ unions to hear them out on the complaints system. It plans to publish guidance on the system by the end of the year.

He said the OfS would “take very seriously” concerns about freedom of speech within the regulator itself, which had been raised during a House of Lords inquiry into its work.

He is set to say in his King’s speech that the regulator will be “broadly viewpoint neutral” and to praise the role of diverse views in shaping and enriching students’ university experience.

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com