Warning: this article contains hogwash. It claims universities--as a whole, as administrations, as institutions--can't take a stance on anything on which some of its members dissent.
It's about Middlesex U rejecting the race report, of course. 1/
spiked-online.com/2021/04/30/uni…
It's about Middlesex U rejecting the race report, of course. 1/
spiked-online.com/2021/04/30/uni…
Despite the specificity of the rejection of the race report, the argument at play is more general and can be applied to other topics. My uni recently took a stand--in response to government directive, no less--that it will fully open and have face-to-face classes in September. 2/
I don't have to imagine it, I know that there is vigorous dissent amid faculty about this decision. What if I said: because the uni adopted this official stance towards opening, thereby accepting the nature of the pandemic as managed at that stage, this diminishes free speech. 3/ 
That would be a very silly argument.
The fact that the uni makes a statement one way or the other about a government race report or a government decision on face-to-face teaching says nothing about that state of free exchange of ideas among faculty, let alone diminish it. 4/
The fact that the uni makes a statement one way or the other about a government race report or a government decision on face-to-face teaching says nothing about that state of free exchange of ideas among faculty, let alone diminish it. 4/
Universities wouldn't ever be able to issue any official statement on anything at all. There will always be faculty who dissent. Just follow them on Twitter and you will see. 5/
"In a very real sense, the university has now effectively ended debate. Why risk questioning a viewpoint your employer has already endorsed as correct?"
That is a very silly claim to make. 6/
That is a very silly claim to make. 6/
Most dissenting discussion I have seen and participated in at my uni has been BECAUSE and AFTER the uni issued an official statement. Those statements are used as an opportunity to dissent, to criticize, to comment on what you just learned was happening, to gripe about it. 7/
Jim Butcher wouldn't have written an op-ed in *Spiked* if Middlesex hadn't issued a statement against the report, opening the floor for him to make his rather bad argument. 8/
Jim Butcher: "To that end, Middlesex could have invited the race report’s authors to debate the report’s critics. That would have reflected the spirit of academic freedom. Instead, Middlesex and others are crushing this freedom." 9/
Nah. The report itself is one salvo in a debate. The detailed statement by the Middlesex Anti-Racism Network Steering Group is another. Your op-ed, Jim, is a third. And on and on. The debate is already happening. In very familiar channels. You just don't want to see it. 10/
Which raises the question: If dissent to the statement by the Anti-Racism Network Steering Group is what you desire to make space for, @JimButcher2, are we going to hear the actual substance of your dissent? 11/
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