I share a lot of the concerns of the authors here, and the findings are broadly in line with other reports finding growing threats to academic freedom arising from campus culture. But I also have some problems with this report...

1/11 https://twitter.com/Policy_Exchange/status/1290197194310447104

1. It's heavily based on a YouGov panel survey which arguably isn't representative of working academics. E.g. a third of respondents are retired. This seems to skew results considerably. It doesn't help the cause to use easy/cheap but flawed research methods.

2/11

3. I agree govt intervention is reqd to protect academic freedom, but NOT "viewpoint diversity". This is a stupid slogan imported from the US culture wars, either to co-opt "diversity" or mock wokies ("the only form of diversity they don't like is viewpoint diversity!!1").

3/11

Viewpoint diversity is not a good end in its own right. I do not want a Biology department where Prof X teaches evolution, Prof Y teaches Creationism and Prof Z teaches everyone that truth is a colonial Western construct.

4/11

The end we want is truth. The argument for academic freedom is that, by allowing people to explore and exchange ideas freely, we are more likely to approach the truth than if everyone thinks alike.

5/11

Thus, what matters is not enforcing "viewpoint diversity" but rather creating a culture in which free, radical and unconventional thinking is cultivated and celebrated, so that, through debate, we can get closer to the truth.

6/11

Framing the issue as "viewpoint diversity" is simply to buy into and fan a culture war in which the problem in universities is said to be "lefties" persecuting right-wing scholars and students, who need "diversity quotas" of their own.

7/11

Enforcing "viewpoint diversity" would mean hiring people on the basis of their intellectual beliefs. But discriminating for OR against someone on grounds of their intellectual views is as wrong as doing so on grounds of sex, ethnicity, sexuality, etc.

8/11

3. The report says nothing about the main *institutionalised* threat to academic freedom: the government's Prevent duty. This chills debate on campus, interferes with teaching and events, and poisons relationships between students and staff.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n10/karma-nabulsi/don-t-go-to-the-doctor

9/11

This is again typical of the culture wars. The right bashes wokies' censoring them; the left throws Prevent back in their face - and neither admits to their own faults. The govt can never be taken seriously on academic freedom until it scraps the Prevent duty in HE.

10/11

4. The report also says nothing about threats to academic freedom arising from university regulation, notably the REF, the grants system, and rampant managerialism and bullying. This again makes it decidedly partial.

11/11