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An interesting point arising from the discussion of John Finnis on @BBCr4today. (Finnis’ views on homosexuality have led to calls for his dismissal.)
The student representing those wanting Finnis to be removed made the point (in effect) that students were the customers and they didn’t want the service they were buying to include lectures by Finnis.
I have no idea whether the claim about what students want is true. But the point illustrates a dilemma for free market/classical liberals.
If you believe in both free markets and in free speech, what do you do when customers/students use their market power (they don’t want to hear Dr A, holding view X, as part of their course) to make it impossible to retain Dr A (or to allow him to continue teaching view X).
FWIW, my instinct is to resist such pressure. Free speech - especially, here, academic free speech - trumps what students want to hear.
But that’s partly because I don’t see universities as a market in which the only criterion is “what does the customer want?”. Markets have and ought to have their limits (see eg Sandel’s work).
But that view runs contrary to the steady marketisation of university education over the last decades.
