IN theory academia should be at the forefront of defending the free exchange of ideas but there are signs that the opposite is the case and for self-proclaimed ‘progressive’ academics there is a growing attempt to actually close down debate.

In a month or so a new academic journal will be launched entitled the Journal of Controversial Ideas. Worryingly, this journal not only does what it says on the tin – that is, publish controversial ideas – but the articles will be anonymised so that none of us will know who has written them.

The founders of the journal see a growing intolerance from both the right and the left regarding certain academic ideas or perspectives, whether about abortion rights, arguments about transracialism (the idea that you can identify as a different race), questions about transgenderism, or those promoting ideas that have been labelled as racist or even fascist. As a result the Journal of Controversial Ideas will use pseudonyms to protect the freedom of academics to make their arguments public.

Having faced a mini Twitter storm at my own university (perhaps a Twitter shower is more accurate), following an article I wrote about transgenderism, I can appreciate where the founders of this journal are coming from. It’s not the most pleasant of experiences having a section of students and activists questioning your right to express an opinion or to suggest that you need to be ‘re-educated’ or to be ‘taken out’!

Other academics have faced similar and more extreme forms of intolerance when attempting to carry out research or express opinions about this topic. Indeed a letter signed by a number of academics demanding their right to academic freedom has recently been published in an attempt to counter the censorious nature of the trans ‘debate’.

It seems that to be a student activist today almost automatically means you will be on the side of censoring ideas rather than discussing them. What is far more worrying however, is the growing number of academics who have joined their number and are calling for the closing down of academic and public debates.

Earlier this month King’s College London Student Union published a statement regarding Joanna Williams, a guest speaker at an event, aptly titled, ‘Endangered Speech’. Williams, who the Student Union define as a classical liberal has herself questioned aspect of transgenderism, challenged what she sees as the excesses of the #MeToo movement and made broader criticisms of modern day feminism. As a result, the union argues that there is a high risk that her ‘advocacy of freedom of speech’ will result in ‘attacks on transgender people (especially transgender women) and their right to exist’. They continue, arguing that ‘there is a line between sharing a view and advocating for the dismissal of an entire demographic’. They conclude, with no sense of irony or the absurd that the invitation of Joanna Williams to speak ‘is not an encouraging start for a series of talks on free speech’.

The most worrying aspect of this tale of censorship is not what the students have said and done but the fact that a significant number of academics signed their petition to have Williams no platformed and to cancel the debate. One of the closing lines of the petition read: ‘Not supporting women, trans and non-binary people kills, and Williams knowingly endorses this’. It would be nice to sit down with a few of these academics and get them to explain this sentence to me. Do they really believe that Joanna Williams expressing her liberal views about these issues kills or that Williams knowingly endorses this? The only death I can see here is of the intellect.

Joining this shameful episode we have a similarly censorious sentiment being expressed by academics regarding a debate due to take place in London on December 6 that was to be entitled Is Rising Ethnic Diversity a Threat to the West. Writing in, what one can only assume is the oxymoronically titled Open Democracy, a letter signed by around 230 academics (note, no students needed this time), calls for the ‘public figures’ involved to consider how they are providing a white supremacist perspective with a ‘veneer of respectability’.

The authors and signatories of the letter insist time and again that they understand exactly the importance of open debates and that they wouldn’t dream of closing down discussion, all while labelling the speakers as borderline fascist sympathisers or at the very least, dupes who are helping to mainstream far right wing ideas.

It appears by using this title or indeed by having this debate at all the speakers, like former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips, or politics professor Matthew Goodwin, are showing no concern for the public implication of what effect this might have. By questioning multiculturalism, the letter writers explain, the debate ‘automatically targets communities already suffering from discrimination as part of the ‘problem’’.

Again, with no sense of irony, they then protest that they are not closing down the debate, rather, ‘the debate shuts itself down’. Why? Because it is about ethnic diversity as a potential problem rather than many other issues in society that could be seen as problems. By so focusing on this issue, the debate has been framed by ‘racist presumptions’.

To my knowledge neither Phillips nor Goodwin nor the other speakers, Claire Fox of the Academy of Ideas, newspaper columnist David Aaronovitch or another politics professor, Eric Kaufman, are racist. Indeed, one of the ironies of this letter, is that one of the main reasons the organisers and individuals involved will feel the pressure to conform, is because they would not want to be associated with racist ideas let alone with the outlook of white supremacists.

Thus far the debate is still on, although the organisers have changed the title to Immigration and Diversity Politics: A Challenge to Liberal Democracy, but to no avail. This was ‘too little too late’ our censors tell us, because the starting point of the discussion ‘contributes to far right ‘dog whistling'.

What we have here, in essence, is a letter signed by academics including some from Edinburgh, Glasgow and, my own, Abertay university, that shamefully attempts to put pressure on public commentators, academics, the organisers and those who are hosting the discussion, to stop what they are doing lest the dog-like public hear the whistle of an open debate about immigration. Heaven forbid that academics should be involved in discussing controversial ideas, or take seriously the idea of academic freedom and the importance of a free open debate.

Given all of this it is perhaps no wonder that the Journal of Controversial ideas has been created. But this is no solution. Academics engaging with and publishing controversial ideas must feel as free to put their name to them as the academics who co-sign letters seeking to close any debate they fear questions political correct assumptions. If academics do not embrace the right to think, publish and debate ideas freely, they relinquish their privileged role in contributing to the advancement of human knowledge and understanding.