Today the Minister of State for Education, Sam Gyimah MP answered questions regarding the importance of free speech on university campuses.

“We want our universities to be bastions of free speech where the free exchange... the free and robust exchange of ideas thrives. I am very encouraged that the Office For Students has made it very clear that as a regulator it will be encouraging free speech at our universities and if they intervene it will never be to restrict it…. We want free speech, we want diversity of opinion, we want diversity of thought and we also need civility in debate where people do not easily take offence or too easily give offence. And that is why I’m working with the Equality and Human Rights Commission and key stakeholders to come up with a new set of guidance on free speech to deal with the dizzying array of regulations that wreckers on campus can exploit to frustrate free speech.”

CARE gave evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which highlighted the main free speech challenges at universities.

CARE remains concerned that current definitions of extremism are being wrongly applied to nonviolent individuals and groups instead of to those who could draw people into terrorism. This has led to many speakers and groups being ‘no platformed’ and to their views being excluded from public debate because they were considered offensive by some, despite the fact they were by no means illegal.

Sadly people of faith and prolife groups were frequently no platformed or had undue burdens placed on them which made hosting events difficult, frustrating their freedom of speech on campus.

CARE's Director of Parliamentary Affairs Dr Dan Boucher said:

“Universities must be a place of free speech, where different ideas can be explored, otherwise they run the risk of turning into mindless echo chambers.

“Vague or poorly defined definitions of extremism continue to marginalise people of faith from speaking out in the public sphere.”

CARE welcomes the Government’s commitment to addressing the problem of free speech on university campuses.

New guidance on clarifying all the rules around free speech will be published this Autumn.

To read more on CARE's work on extremism please click here.