When academics fail to argue for their freedom, how do they expect students to treat university as anything more than the first step on the career ladder? Matthias Kuntzel's attempted lecture was shut down because some students got offended and the university leadership failed to stand up for the value of hearing things they don't like.
We set up Student Academics for Academic Freedom in part to support our lecturers but also to show that not all students are more concerned about petty vanities than actually engaging with ideas.
For the sake of both lecturers and students we must ensure that nothing, not inclusivity, not religion, not even fear of extremism, should be enough to justify destroying the very basis for what we do.
Richard Reynolds
University of East Anglia