I TRY to avoid writing about “the culture war”. It has very little to do with culture for a start, and the war is largely conducted by sanctimonious creeps on Twitter. However, sometimes the human casualties of these absurdist conflicts cannot be ignored – especially in Scotland’s universities, where freedom to disagree is being crushed by a form of bureaucratic Stalinism.

The no-platforming of gender-critical feminists and other non-conforming speakers by student unions is bad enough. No-one is actually harmed by this proto-censorship, apart from the students depriving themselves of the opportunity to learn. But things have taken a truly sinister turn in recent weeks.

The lives of students like Lisa Keogh at Abertay, and lecturers like Dr Neil Thin at Edinburgh, are being destroyed by crack-handed inquisitions applying Monty Python concepts of justice. Lisa Keogh’s advocate, Joanna Cherry MP, has rightly condemned Abertay’s violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.

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Highly-paid university principals should now be held to account for failing to defend free speech. Ms Keogh’s only crime was to express a wholly-respectable opinion in a debate. She insisted that “women have vaginas” – an observation that is only a heresy to advocates of non-binary dogma.

Dr Neil Thin was suspended from his role as a senior lecturer in anthropology for criticising the risible decision by Edinburgh University last year to “cancel” Scotland’s greatest philosopher by striking his name from the David Hume Tower. This for a footnote to an article in 1748 that was disparaging about non-white races.

Dr Thin was echoing the views of Scotland’s leading historian, Sir Tom Devine. As former Rector of Edinburgh University I also expressed my dismay at this stupefying act of intellectual philistinism, which has made Edinburgh University an international joke. They had been intending to rename it “Julius Nyerere Tower” until someone pointed out that the late president of Tanzania was a homophobe as well as a dictator.

I pointed out that its new official name, “40 George Square”, celebrates King George 111, an ardent imperialist who was responsible for an unprecedented expansion of British colonialism. But they didn’t get it.

Many academics were horrified at the Hume Tower affair, but they kept silent, terrified of culture warrior retribution. Dr Thin also had the temerity to question whether a campus event called “Resisting Whiteness”, which involved people of colour only, didn’t look just a bit like “segregation”. This elicited howls of protest at his “racism”.

Any self-respecting institution of higher learning would dismiss such accusations as ridiculous. But principal Peter Mathieson suspended Dr Thin, following claims by students that his remarks were “problematic” and “offensive”.

What he should have done was censure the students who had called Dr Thin a racist, when he is clearly nothing of the sort. I have looked at the social media comments made by Dr Thin, and none of them could be regarded by any reasonable person as expressing racism. He said what any open-minded person would say about an event which was quite literally segregated on the basis of race. His support for Sir Tom Devine is what every self-respecting academic should have done.

I don’t particularly blame the students of BlackED for mounting a daft, attention-seeking campaign. That’s what students do. But I do blame the university authorities for responding to it and validating what was in reality a campaign of intimidation and abuse against a member of staff. These extreme anti-colonialist and non-binary dogmas are usually referred to as “woke”, but they would be more accurately described as the sleep of reason. Universities are supposed to challenge dogmas and subject political ideas to rigorous criticism. Yet the university authorities seem to be falling over themselves to encourage these infant Robespierres with their empty slogans and pseudo-scientific jargon.

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Over at Abertay University, principal Nigel Seaton last week defended his decision to conduct a disciplinary investigation into 29-year-old-mature law student Lisa Keogh for saying that “women have vaginas”. This was in a debate where she was invited to state how she defined “woman”. She said that, in her opinion, it was essentially based on biology and a woman’s reproductive physiology. She also said that “men are stronger than women” on account of their sex, and that male-bodied transwomen should not be competing in women’s sporting events. These are views that would be endorsed by the vast majority of adults, and indeed by America’s leading transgender advocate, Caitlyn Jenner.

Abertay’s response should have been to dismiss objections to her expressing these opinions in open debate. Yet, principal Seaton has authorised a disciplinary investigation into Lisa Keogh, threatening her with expulsion on the grounds that her views may be “offensive” and “discriminatory”.

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He appears to believe that the university is under a legal obligation under equalities legislation to investigate complaints about comments that supposedly violate the protected characteristic of “gender reassignment”.

Principal Seaton is wrong. Equalities legislation does nothing of the sort. In fact, it upholds Lisa Keogh’s right to express her gender-critical opinion. This was made absolutely clear last month by Baroness Falkner, the new chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The views of feminists like Lisa Keogh are in no way discriminatory or hate speech. She said that it is “entirely reasonable” to believe that women are defined by their sex and no-one should be “penalised or abused” for saying so. “Someone can believe that people who self-identify as a different sex are not the different sex that they self-identify,” she said.

Arguably, it should be Abertay’s principal under investigation for conniving in this witch-hunt. In a dignified and restrained interview on BBC Woman’s Hour last week, Ms Keogh, a mother of two, explained the distress she’d suffered being forced to defend herself against this Kafkaesque inquisition. In the midst of sitting her law exams she has had the threat of expulsion hanging over her. Not to mention the abuse she has received from student activists calling her “a typical, cis white woman” and much worse.

These misguided and unlawful actions by university principals are creating a hostile environment in Scotland’s universities. It extends far beyond Edinburgh and Abertay.

The threat of sanctions or stressful disciplinary procedures is chilling debate and making lecturers hesitate to discuss controversial issues. Yet this is precisely what any university teacher should be doing. As for research, if academics are looking over their shoulders at Twitter, nothing truly original will ever get done. Just a lot of advocacy research designed to confirm whatever prejudices are acceptable on social media.

If universities do not enforce freedom of speech and opinion they cannot perform their proper function. Scottish taxpayers expect them to do teaching and research – not pursue vendettas against wrongthink. Taxpayer-remunerated principals like Peter Mathieson, earning twice the Prime Minister’s salary, are violating their own university charters, which uphold academic freedom and also free speech provisions of international conventions like the ECHR.

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Nor do university bosses, minds addled by culture war, realise the reputational damage these cases are inflicting on their institutions. Edinburgh University used to get rectors like myself to schmooze rich, potential donors and wealthy American parents willing to pay exorbitant fees. I’d now be inclined to tell them to keep their money, and stop funding hate.