Students have been setting up “speakeasies” to challenge lad culture bans.
Universities including Edinburgh, Manchester and London School of Economics and and Political Science (LSE) have created free-speech groups in order to oppose bans and campaigns that universities and student unions have implemented.
And some students have even been setting up events and debates in order to argue that some of the universities prohibitions are in breach of censoring free speech.
A “speakeasy” group at LSE have plans to hand out leaflets listing dozens “of the most controversial ideas” in order to encourage students to hold debates over them.
One of the proposals include a plan to allow Robin Thicke’s hit single Blurred Lines to be played around campus despite several universities banning the song in 2013 after claims were made that the lyrics promote rape.
In the past their university rugby club have also banned newspapers from the campus which they believe promote lad culture.
And two students were threatened with expulsion after wearing t-shirts about Jesus and the prophet Muhammad.
Charlie Parker, a politics and philosophy student at LSE, said: “There’s a really censorious atmosphere on campus. It feels like you are walking on eggshells the whole time in terms of what you can and can’t say.”
Milo Yiannopoulos, founder of an online magazine that argues that rape does not exist, will take part in a debate with feminist academics in Edinburgh next month, organised by a new free-speech group.
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