Last
updated: March 2007
Oxford
Don in free-speech row
After
students called for an Oxford Don to be sacked due to his links to a
charity devoted to the selective breeding of humans and a migration
think-tank, an MP has stepped in to defend academics right to free speech.
Liberal
Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, Evan Harris said that provided
the views of David Coleman were ‘legal and delivered lawfully
he had every right to express them without fear or retribution from
his employer.’
A professor of demography, Coleman has become the third academic in
eight months to become the centre of a row over free speech.
Professor Coleman has heavily criticised the students that are trying
to get him dismissed, accusing them of bringing the university into
disrepute and saying that freedom of informed debate, comment and analysis
is something that academia should cherish.
Members of the Student Action for Refugees (STAR) group launched a petition
calling on the university to ‘consider the suitability of Coleman’s
continued tenure as a professor of the university in light of his well-known
opinions and affiliations relating to immigration and eugenics.’
The petition referred to the don’s honorary consultant role with
the migration watchdog and thinktank, MigrationWatch UK.
STAR also focused on his membership of the Galton Institute, a charity
focusing on eugenics.
Professor Coleman told Cherwell, “Under no circumstances will
I refrain from using my academic title.”
“It is a shameful attempt of the most intolerant and totalitarian
kind, to suppress the freedom of analysis and informed comment which
it is the function of universities to cherish.”
“I am ashamed that Oxford students should behave in this way.
It is the signatories who will bring this university into disrepute,
and it is they who should reconsider their membership of this university,”
he added.
A student who helped organise the petition, Kieran Hutchinson Dean,
said that STAR did not expect the university to comply with the groups
demands that they sack Professor Coleman.
“By offering interviews as a ‘professor of Oxford University’
he lends credibility to his political viewpoint.”
“The main point of the petition is to raise awareness of his views
and affiliations amongst students. We do not expect anyone to agree,
but think that it is an interesting and important debate to have,”
he said.
MP Dr Harris said it was important that academics maintain their right
to free speech. In a letter to Cherwell he wrote, “As long as
he (Coleman) does not claim to speak on behalf of the university, he
is at liberty to set out his academic background.”
“The price of us all enjoying academic freedom and free expressing
is that we provide those freedoms even to those with whom we disagree,
and this campaign is illiberal and totally counter-productive.”
