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25 Feb, 4 tweets, 1 min read
But AFAF, who you cite in your policy exchange report, repeatedly treat student protests in their “banned list” as an an attack on academic freedom. Including many cases where the event being protested goes ahead.

So is student protest free speech or an attack on free speech?
Fwiw my view is the context abs specifics matter. A violent or disruptive process which threatens or shuts down others is a priori a more credible example of threatening free speech. A non-violent expression of opposition is not.
But that’s kind of the point: the AFAF list pays no attention to context abs classifies wildly different kinds of student protest as “banning”.
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More from @robfordmancs

Rob Ford Profile picture
27 Feb
Good to see Cardiff University standing up to Williamson and the misleading Policy Exchange report.

Still no sign of any apology from Policy Exchange or @epkaufm for misleading the Education Secretary and the nation for their error
@epkaufm Instead they snuck a correction into their report in the middle of the night, without acknowledgement. Since then they have continued to insist they did nothing wrong. This is not how research is supposed to work.
@epkaufm "Riordan says Cardiff wrote to Policy Exchange in 2019 asking for a retraction, and Mansfield promised to write a footnote correcting the mistake, but did not do so. After criticism on social media, the thinktank added a footnote last week to say the event had taken place."
Read 4 tweets
Rob Ford Profile picture
23 Feb
What's remarkable about this "banned list" - much cited by those claiming a free speech crisis - is how most of the events on the list either (a) do not involve a ban and/or (b) do not involve activities/decisions of unis or other academics:

afaf.org.uk/the-banned-lis…
This is why the detail matters - this list is cited in the Policy Exchange report now used by the govt as a "list of no-platforming and other academic controversies", with the claim it shows a rising trend of such instances. So it matters if many are nothing of the sort.
And many aren't:
Clark, Feb 2021 - not banned, and critics not academics or institutional
Phelps, Feb 2021 - not banned, cancelled due to a controversy not relating to fellow academics or the institution
Todd, Feb 2021 - not banned, and critics not academics or institutional
Read 22 tweets
Rob Ford Profile picture
22 Feb
I wonder if the German health authorities will now reassess their decision to not give AZ vaccine to under 65s, thus sending a signal to their citizens that the AZ vaccine was less effective. A signal which has depressed take up. This was presented as "prudent" at the time.
Illustrates how default bureaucratic patterns of risk assessment can go horribly wrong in a high uncertainty pandemic environment. Yes, it probably is "prudent" to wait for more data in normal circs.
But if, with a pandemic raging, you signal to citizens that something is less effective and safe, and they respond (understandably) with greater vaccine hesitatancy/refusal, then you put lots of extra people at risk, for longer. That is the *less* prudent choice.
Read 8 tweets
Rob Ford Profile picture
21 Feb
“Unless you criticise everyone your motives for criticising anyone are suspect” is really not a v strong argument on its merits. Even less so from a self-appointed “academic free speech champion” seeking to marginalise critics seeking to hold someone to act for making things up
I anticipated yesterday that Kaufmann and Goodwin would behave like this - it is unfortunately a long established pattern of behaviour with both of them.
I previously responded to the libel of which I am again one of the evident targets a few days ago. Readers should be aware that when others behaves to Goodwin as he behaves to them, the result is angry emails invoking legal threats. “Do as I say not as I do”
Read 7 tweets
Rob Ford Profile picture
18 Feb
Two things can be true at once:
1. There is an issue with hostility some academics have faced on some issues
2. Another academic who himself uses threats of legal action to bully colleagues into silence is not a good faith champion of the free speech cause
I have kept quiet about Matthew's recent outpourings on here but as my estwhile co-author has now seen fit to portray me as an enabler of oppression I think I have a right to reply. So I will.
I consider Matthew to be a colleague and a friend, and we had a longstanding agreement not to engage in disputes on twitter. I disagree with much in the article @UOzkirimli wrote on his research in @openDemocracy but I strongly support his right to express such critical views
Read 15 tweets
Rob Ford Profile picture
18 Feb
One of the authors of the Policy Exchange report on academic free speech thinks it is "ridiculous" to expect him to accurately portray an incident at Cardiff University in his study, both in the reporting and in a question put to a student sample.
Here is the incident Kaufmann incorporated into his study, as told by a Cardiff professor who was there. As you can see, the incident involved the university intervening to *uphold* free speech principles:
Here is the first mention of the Greer at Cardiff incident in Kaufmann's report. It refers to the "concrete case" of the "no-platforming of Germaine Greer". Any reasonable reader would assume that refers to an incident of no-platforming instead of its opposite.
Read 18 tweets

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