Academics For Academic Freedom

Academics for Academic Freedom and LM network associate.

Academics for Academic Freedom (AFAF) is a group of academics led by Dennis Hayes who support the creation of laws to ensure that academics were free to 'question and test received wisdom, and to put forward unpopular opinions'. They argue that this freedom should be protected by law 'both inside and outside the classroom', whether or not it was part of their area of academic expertise and 'whether or not these (issues) were deemed offensive'.. The group is associated with the libertarian anti-environmental LM network. AFAF was launched in late 2006 and have received steady media coverage since mid 2007. Two of its UK speakers, Stuart Derbyshire and Dennis Hayes have written for other LM network entities. Early signatories to its statement included a high proportion of associates of the LM network. For example, at least five of the first ten and nineteen of the first sixty five signatories were associates

The main thrust of the AFAF argument is that academics should have an 'unrestricted liberty' to put forward offensive ideas, and that legal cover should be granted to academics in this respect. However the Education Reform Act of 1988 covers the right to academic freedom of expression. In section 202, Paragraph 2(a), the act states that University Commisioners must regard the need:

'to ensure that academic staff have freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges they may have at their institutions'

Statement of Principles

The AFAF statement on academic freedom is as follows:

We, the undersigned, believe the following two principles to be the foundation of academic freedom:

(1) that academics, both inside and outside the classroom, have unrestricted liberty to question and test received wisdom and to put forward controversial and unpopular opinions, whether or not these are deemed offensive.

(2) that academic institutions have no right to curb the exercise of this freedom by members of their staff, or to use it as grounds for disciplinary action or dismissal.

In a letter to the THES, Andrew Morgan described the campaign as 'embarrassingly silly and profoundly un-academic'. He argued that:

'The guiding assumption of the statement is that a degree in one subject, together with a job teaching or conducting research in that subject, should confer a special licence to respect and protection in the espousal of views and opinions on anything whatsoever'.

Morgan concluded by arguing 'To add a test of academic employment as the basis for free speech is to threaten open society and offers only the opportunity to march back boldly to a pre-renaissance age'.

History

The roots of AFAF lay in the controversy surrounding Frank Ellis at Leeds University. In the summer of 2006, Ellis who taught Russian suggested that there was a link between ethnicity and intelligence. Ellis supported the work of Richard Hernnstein and Charles Murray and argued that there was a 'persistent gap' in IQ levels between black people and white people. Ellis was suspended from the university but argued that calling him a racist was 'an attempt to close down any discussion' and an attack on his freedom of speech.

The Ellis case was to be described as 'the classic case study of the tensions between the law and university regulations on one hand, and unfettered freedom of expression and the rights of vulnerable minorities on the other'. Many people argued at the time taht a university should be above censorship and capable of rebutting false doctrines and it was following this debate that AFAF emerged.

When the AFAF group first began to receive media attention in December 2006, some reports described them as a body created to counter the culture of 'political correctness gone mad', the group were quoted as supporting the right for academics to be given 'unrestricted liberty to be offensive without fear of sanction'.

In March 2007 students at Oxford University campaigned against Oxford professor David Coleman because he had helped to found MigrationWatch. Dennis Hayes condemned the students on behalf of AFAF arguing that 'Students who once fought for challenging the state on things like war are now fighting against free speech'.

Case Studies

Frank Ellis and Leeds University in 2006

Dr. Frank Ellis was working as a tutor of Russian at Leeds University in 2006 when he was involved in a controversy over his views on ethnicity and intelligence. Ellis argued that black people have a lower average IQ than white people. Students protested against his views and created a petition which received over 500 signatures all agreeing that Ellis should be sacked. Ellis had cited Richard Hernnstein and Charles Murray's Bell Curve theory which concludes that ethnicity can play a part in IQ levels.

Ellis argued that he became interested in the issue of censoring sensitive debates through his studies of the media under Soviet and post-Soviet regimes, he attacked critics who had branded his views racist by describing tham as 'an attempt to close down any discussion' and an attack on his freedom of speech. He argued that:

'These days a racist is anything you don't like - it's a hate word. I have no strong feelings towards black people either way.'

Ellis took early retirement after he was suspended from Leeds University for his comments. According to The Guardian, he had also argued that 'women did not have the same intellectual capacity as men'. In 2010 Ellis criticised the expansion of higher education and its effect on academic freedom at Leeds University:

Higher education is now expected to be inclusive which means that it must host a miscellany of pseudo-intellectual misfits – gender studies and black studies are two obvious examples - which are hostile to notions of intellectual rigour, objective truth, evidence and, above all, as this author can personally attest, to free speech and academic freedom. Gender studies and black studies have no place in a university: they are little more than grievance factories; they should be targeted for immediate closure. Vice-chancellors, university secretaries, the heads of departments and schools, who do not defend the essentials of a university for reasons of ideological and financial expediency, or who fail out of plain cowardice to confront the charlatans, cease to preside over a university.

It was following the Ellis case at Leeds University that AFAF was set up.

David Coleman and Oxford University in 2007

Although AFAF were set up following the Ellis case at Leeds University, they were up and running in 2007 when a controversy arose surrounding professor David Coleman's founding of MigrationWatch. Coleman is a professor of demography at Oxford University and helped set up MigrationWatch in 2001. Oxford Student Action for Refugees contacted the vice-chancellor of Oxford University urging that he should 'consider the suitability of Coleman's continued tenure as a professor of the university'. The motion was supported by a petition signed by students.

Coleman reacted to the complaint by arguing that:

'it is a shameful attempt of the most intolerant and totalitarian kind to suppress the freedom of analysis and informed comment that it is the function of universities to cherish. I am ashamed that Oxford students should behave this way. It is the signatories who will bring the university into disrepute and it they who should reconsider their membership of this university'.

Anti-racism campaigner Teresa Hayter has refused to share a platform with Coleman in the past and she lent her support to the petition arguing that she did not believe coleman should be a professor at Oxford. The students were also complaining about Coleman's affiliation with the Galton Institute (formerly the Eugenics Society), however Coleman dismissed this criticism arguing that:

'There are aspects of eugenics that are regularly practised by the medical profession today, for example abortion of foetuses that show signs of severe disability. Other aspects are deplorable.'

Teresa Hayter said that she refused to share a platform with Coleman in the past because of his links to the Galton Institute. She said:

'I objected to Prof. Coleman because of his connection with eugenics. He is against immigration to this country and for eugenics. The implication is that he is a racist. I have not talked to him about this because he is not willing to talk about his connection to eugenics.'

Coleman's case drew the support of AFAF. Dennis Hayes argued that 'Students who once fought for challenging the state on things like war are now fighting against free speech. It comes to something when students would rather see an academic sacked than stand up and debate these issues with him'.

Statement Signatories

A partial list of LM associates who have signed the statement is set out below.

• 1. Professor Dennis Hayes Professor of Education, University of Derby
• 2. Professor Gavin Poynter University of East London
• 5. Professor James Woudhuysen De Montfort University
• 6. Dr Helen Reece Reader in Law, Birkbeck College, University of London
• 9. Dr Stuart Derbyshire ‘Rigorous discussion is the only road to truth’. Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of Birmingham
• 13. Dr Shirley Lawes Institute of Education, University of Kent
• 14. Professor Frank Furedi University of Kent
• 17. Dr Chris Gilligan, University of Ulster
• 21. David Bowden University of Exeter
• 25. Colin Searls Associate Dean (Learning and Teaching) Faculty of Art. University of Plymouth
• 30. Wendy Earle PhD student, Institute of Education, University of London
• 32. Philip Cunliffe King's College London
• 36 Maria Grasso DPhil Sociology, University Of Oxford
• 39. Dr Philip Hammond Reader in Arts, Media & English London South Bank University
• 40. James Panton Lecturer in Politics St John's College, Oxford Co-founder and Campaigns Director, The Manifesto Club (www.manifestoclub.com)
• 41. Dr Ellie Lee University of Kent ”One of the most important things students can learn at University is how to argue and debate. Campus life seems to now almost entirely lack a culture of debate and argument however. As university teachers, we need to play a part in re-invigorating campuses, and get away from the dull and boring definition of what we do as ‘transferring skills’.”
• 43. Alan Hudson Director, Leadership Programmes for China University Lecturer University of Oxford
• 59. Kathryn Ecclestone Professor of Post-Compulsory Education, Oxford Brookes University
• 65. Dr William Durodie Cranfield University
• 108. Alex Standish Senior Research Fellow St Chad's College, Durham University
• 212. Dr Jim Butcher Canterbury Christ Church University
• 221. Kevin Yuill Senior Lecturer in American Studies, University of Sunderland
• 222. Graham Barnfield University of East London
• 230. Munira Mirza PHD student, University of Kent
• 231. Dr Ken McLaughlin Manchester Metropolitan University
• 234. (and 336.)Dr Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen Reader, Department of Geography, Hull University
• 256. Dr Alex Standish Western Connecticut State University
• 311. Professor John Fitzpatrick Director Kent Law Clinic University of Kent, Canterbury
• 313. Sara Hinchliffe, University of Sussex
• 314. Dr Tiffany Jenkins post grad University of Kent at Canterbury
• 315. Sean Bell MA in Journalism and Society at the University of East London
• 320. James Heartfield University of Westminster
• 321. Dominic Standish University of Kansas/CIMBA Adjunct Professor CIMBA campus in Asolo Italy
• 328. Dr Helene Guldberg Open University
• 349. Claire Fox Director Institute of Ideas
• 354. Patrick Hayes Henley Management Centre
• 373. Alex Hochuli London School of Economics
• 405. Dr Cheryl Hudson Rothermere Institute, University of Oxford & Vanderbilt University
• 411. Michele Ledda Leeds University Aluumnus
• 429. Kenan Malik Author and Senior Visiting Fellow, University of Surrey
• 522 Paul Thomas Sheffield Hallam University Alumnus

AFAF campaigns for the "Right to Offend" and opposes the No Platform for Racists and Fascists policy.

Its campaigns are promoted in other LM entities such as the Battle of Ideas and Spiked.

An offshoot is Student Academics For Academic Freedom.

Affiliations

The Free Society

Contact

Website: AFAF

Facebook: AFAF