Campus censorship is a ¡°multi-headed Hydra¡± whose different interests and agendas ¡°coalesce around the theme of cancellation¡±, a Melbourne webinar has heard.

Alan Davison, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney, said cancel culture was a multifaceted problem demanding a multifaceted response. ¡°It¡¯s supercharged through social media and the fear of cancellation. It¡¯s supercharged by a neo-corporate university [culture] that doesn¡¯t want dirty press. It¡¯s supercharged [in] some disciplines by ideological conformity¡­amongst the academic cohort,¡± he said.

¡°Left alone to their own devices, [people] might happily stone or behead each other. But it serves their purposes to be on the same bus of cancellation at the same time.¡±

The webinar, part of a?-funded project to map ¡°viewpoint visibility¡± in Australian universities, examined the philosophical development of free expression and recent efforts to silence people at universities and elsewhere.

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Examples included the sacking of James Cook University physicist?Peter Ridd, personal attacks on?high-profile epidemiologists?during the pandemic, the hounding of Muslim Australian??and a campaign against New Zealand academics who?differentiated between traditional knowledge and science.

The webinar also examined UK policy debates connected with the UK¡¯s Free Speech Union and a University of Cambridge rule change requiring staff and students to?be ¡°respectful¡± of other people¡¯s opinions.

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Project leader Geoff Sharrock said it was difficult to obtain meaningful data about attitudes to free expression at universities. Surveys particularly struggled to distinguish whether self-censorship was driven by fear of retaliation or ¡°positive¡± factors such as regard for others.

He said Australia¡¯s Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching had introduced new survey questions quizzing students on whether they ¨C and staff ¨C were free to express themselves. ¡°I¡¯m not sure you could tell, if you¡¯re a student, whether academics are free to express their view or not in any meaningful way,¡± Dr Sharrock said, adding that the questions did not delve into factors like subjects¡¯ sensitivity or where discussions were taking place.

Data from free market thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs, such as a 2019 finding that?, posed similar contextual issues. ¡°Is that in class, in cafes or in a group? Is it something you strongly believe and want to discuss, or is it just a bit of polite reticence?¡±

Overseas research offers more context, with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education¡¯s??of 20,000 US students finding they were relatively comfortable discussing controversial topics with classmates but wary of expressing unpopular opinions on social media.

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While??has revealed strong and stable support for universities¡¯ role in facilitating untrammelled exchanges of views, it has also exposed an??for students to stay silent for fear of being criticised by peers or causing ¡°psychological harm¡±.

The UK¡¯s ³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ Policy Institute has found that the proportion of undergraduates who believe academics should be sacked for teaching material that ¡°heavily offends some students¡± has?more than doubled in five years.

In a?, Dr Sharrock said his discussions had highlighted the ¡°wider socio-cultural contexts¡± affecting free expression in Australian universities. ¡°On many topics, public discourse in liberal democracies has become polarised and tribalised¡­University communities are not immune from these mass society dynamics.¡±

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com