The Limits to Freedom of Speech at Universities
“Cancel culture” is only one of the various problems
Debates about freedom of speech at academia flared up after the cancellation of an event at Victoria University of Wellington in May where the chief executive of the Free Speech Union, Jonathan Ailing would have participated. The cause of the cancellation was allegedly that Ailing had a track record of triggering violence owing to his former collaboration with Julian Batchelor, the organiser of the “Stop Co-Governance” events all around New Zealand. The coalition government was quick to announce its plan to secure freedom of speech at universities, and according to their plans, universities should develop policies for free speech, and these policies would be preconditions of their government funding. Regarding the debate it is crucial to note that the government’s plan might not be the best tool to facilitate free speech at academia, also, it reflects a poor understanding of the existing blocks to free speech and academic freedom at Western universities, including New Zealand.
Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
If universities implement policies to secure free speech at campuses and in academic research, that might not resolve the already present problems. The opposing right and left-leaning political views both have a debating strategy in place, and these strategies would barely be affected by such policies. It is also unlikely that any of the opposing sides would give up their debating methods. The right-leaning debating strategies are problematic because their key reference is eventually power. Even though their arguments appear to be based on common sense and logic (e.g. one law for all), eventually, this is what facilitates their pursuit of power. The libertarian ACT Party has this reference point, too; however, for them, it is masked as economic efficiency. Practically, economic efficiency supports their own pursuit of power. Neither the conservative parties of the coalition government (the National Party and New Zealand First) nor the libertarian ACT have ideals such as just society or social fairness in mind when they debate. Nevertheless, they do not avoid debates.
The left-leaning parties are the ones that facilitate cancel culture (avoiding debates) and have arguments about why debates should not occur. The root cause of this debating strategy is victimhood mentality and their preference for equity in power positions. When the flaws of their argumentations are pointed out, they just avoid further debates. Also, because they do not want to face losing an argument based on logic, they accuse their opponents of racism, sexism or whatever condemned attitude. While their opponents spend time clarifying themselves, the media cycle moves forward, and without meaningful debates, the conversation leads nowhere. Another technique of the left-leaning parties is to raise the possibility of the debates leading to violence. They use this last resort of argumentation to cancel the debates. Meanwhile, they are the ones responsible for the violence (see, for example, the case of Posie Parker in 2023); because the argumentation to avoid violence cannot be critiqued, the debates do not happen.
Because both sides regard their argumentation methods as successful, they will unlikely give it up. Therefore, the chances that the conditions for freedom of speech will improve by requiring universities to implement certain policies are minimal. Once the debates get politicised, the two main debating methods would mutually block one another. Not to mention that the problem of cancel culture is just one of the possible reasons why freedom of speech and academic freedom might be limited.
The types of limits to freedom of speech in academia
It is crucial to differentiate the four types of limits that may block freedom of speech in academia. Interestingly, the initials of the concepts describing the limits types are all p-s: personal, paradigmatic, political, and principled.
Defining the principled types of limits to freedom of speech in academia is easiest. We need to consider potentially disastrous natural hazards that are not made public because a possible public hysteria might cause more damage than the dangerous event itself. Similarly, we can be certain that academics are aware of various possible hazards and phenomena that are not discussed in academia because they might cause more harm than benefits. This type of limitation is systemic. There is no reason to believe that specific topics can be discussed in certain regions and not in others.
The personal limitations are related to the university teachers’ pride (and sometimes narcissism). I have encountered cases at various universities where lecturers stopped the discussions because they were losing arguments. Also, because research fund applications are judged by academic peers, there is no guarantee that a fair outcome would happen in such applications because the judging academics might feel their own pride threatened by the applicant. Regarding this problem, the good news is that the personal limitations of freedom of speech and academic freedom are not systemic. Researchers might apply for other funds or submit drafts of their planned publications to other journals. Eventually, they can find ways around their unnecessarily proud academic peers.
The third reason why freedom of speech might not be secured in academia is a potentially systemic problem: the entrenchment of a scientific paradigm. Thomas Kuhn described this phenomenon in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. A scientific paradigm comprises a certain theoretical stream and its numerous assumptions. A scientific paradigm (e.g. Newtonian physics) defines its possible research topics and applicable methods. Although a paradigm is related to politics because it can be entrenched by the tangible political and economic advantages its application might bring about, I regard highlighting it as a separate type of limitation of freedom of speech in academia as relevant. The example I use to illustrate this problem is from economics.
After the middle of the 1980s, neoliberalism has been the ruling economic regime. It is based on the pursuit of monetary efficiency. This is a paradigm within economics. Efficiency can be expressed only in quantified, short-term monetary gains. Some representatives of this school of thought believe that what cannot be quantified does not even exist. Therefore, they deny the relevance of such everyday and ordinary phenomena, such as love or friendship, not to mention abstract social concepts, for example, business morals, social justice, or equality. Therefore, research into these topics is rarely accepted in economic departments.
The number of successful counterarguments against neoliberalism is growing. For example, the dynamic games theory can argue that any agent who does not behave morally in a transaction loses long-term chances for prosperity. However, these models are good as references to microeconomics. In macroeconomic terms, neoliberalism still offers more tangible advantages. Nevertheless, in the coming decade, it is possible that the theory of dynamic games can triumph over neoliberalism, especially if economic inequalities grow in Western societies. Then, neoliberalism will face a similar challenge to classical liberalism between 1929 and 1933.
Finally, it is important to describe the political limitations of academic freedom. The phenomenon of cancel culture is just a vague limit. The public knows about it because the opposing left and right-leaning parties debate it. However, there are limits which are based on bipartisan agreements in Western countries. These bipartisan agreements are most often related to foreign and security policy issues. A relatively neutral example of this limitation is the politics of the 1918-1920 Spanish flu. The name of the disease came from the bipartisan agreements in countries at war. Even though the military leadership in the United States, France, and Great Britain knew about the disease, they banned all media publications about it so that the military morale was kept intact. Because Spain was neutral during the First World War, the media could report about the flu. However, the virus's origin was not Spain, and it was likely a farm somewhere in Kansas.
As this short description explains, the current coalition government does not comprehensively understand the various limitations in academia; therefore, any of their planned solutions can not significantly affect the conditions of free speech and academic freedom.
A grace period in Central Europe between 1989 and 2004
There is a unique and incredibly fortunate background why the author of this piece could learn about these possible limits to freedom of speech. Between 1989 and 2004, in Central Europe, there was a fantastic grace period when freedom of speech in academia could flourish. There were various reasons why this period could take place and why this period could practically eliminate the personal, the political, and the paradigmatic blocks to free speech in academia. (I believe that the principled reasons were applied by both the Western Bloc and the Communist Bloc during the Cold War, so there was no change after 1989 regarding the principled reasons.)
With a weakening Soviet Union, where the openness started in 1985, the freedom of speech was not questioned by any political parties. There was euphoria in the Central European societies, and both the political and the scientific elites intended to learn the international best practices after the ideological directives of socialism. This intention to learn about the best practices resulted in a situation where all the personal, the paradigmatic, and the political limits disappeared.
The former socialist scientific elite felt that they were unable to adapt to the new challenges and to learn the international trends. They retired and let the early career academics take their places. The young generation of academics were also aware of the situation, namely, their work was based on a learning curve and they did not pose any personal blocks to discussing social issues.
Owing to the learning phase of academics, the various research institutions did not yet adhere to any established paradigm, so the openness in finding research areas was at a high level. The openness to learn attitude was present in the government, too. For example, the first government after 1990 in Hungary was also called the “historian government” because many of the ministers were academics. Because the Central European societies had to transition after 1945, the then-emerging communist regimes chased the former political elites from these countries. After 1989, the incoming political elites had a clean slate. They could easily separate themselves from former elites. This made it possible to discuss all sorts of foreign policy topics, even highly controversial ones that might reveal problems in the countries’ foreign policy traditions.
There were two specific reasons why social equity problems did not appear as a significant problem. First, these societies did not have colonies, so their political elites never had a role as a dominant, colonizing administration. Second, within the Communist Bloc, gender equality was taken seriously, and practically, males and females had transparent and close to equal incomes. For these reasons, meritorious selection processes at organisations took place, and academic progression and career development were also mostly based on meritorious grounds. The issues of identity politics, such as feminism, LGBTQ+ policies or ethnic minority problems, could never feed into strong political agendas. Cancel culture could barely get any momentum.
The grace period was over after the Central European countries joined the European Union in 2004. At the time, the European Committee, the main initiative body of the European Union, was led by a left-wing politician, Jose Manuel Barroso. He helped left-wing political parties in the Central European countries at the beginning. As a response, the right-wing political parties attempted to get other patrons from abroad. Unfortunately, most of them found Russia and Putin. Therefore, those universities that had closer ties with right-wing political parties started blocking critical thinking at universities, and gradually, religious education took place in secondary schools too. The competing left- and right-leaning political parties created a divide, however, unlike in Western countries, the freedom of speech at academia was limited by the right-wing parties in Central European countries.
The chances of freedom of speech at universities in New Zealand
The bad news comes in this section. Similar to other countries, personal limits (pride) are not systemic. However, the paradigmatic and political limits are relatively strong, and these limits are unlikely to change soon.
Among the paradigmatic limits, it is relevant to note that New Zealand is a follower of universities of other Western countries and behaves as a periphery for the epicentre of scientific research of the United States and the United Kingdom. Hence, all the constraints that are defined by the universities of these countries are relevant here, too. The problem is aggravated by the fact that New Zealand researchers do not often travel to Continental European countries, such as France or Germany, so they have minimal chances to challenge the paradigmatic limits of their scholarship. Within social sciences, the paradigmatic limits are even stronger because these are somewhat infected by a political phenomenon, Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism. This concept refers to the beliefs that owing to their democratic institutions and their relative success in previous world wars, Anglo-Saxon country leaders might think that their interests are universally good. Therefore, the paradigmatic limits are strong in social sciences because those research topics outside these countries’ political interests will unlikely be accepted in fund applications.
Concerning the political limits, this opinion piece already mentioned „cancel culture” and its consequences. However, the public knows about these possible limits because domestic political opponents have varying interests regarding „cancel culture.” However, those limits of freedom of speech at universities that are rooted in bipartisan agreements are significant and even mostly unknown to the public. They encompass foreign policy issues. Here, I do not intend to provide a detailed list of „taboos,” namely, those topics that can barely be mentioned in universities. Suffice to raise only the problems that are related to the Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism. Similarly to their American or British peers, New Zealand academics in political science believe that New Zealand’s interests are universally good. This belief then necessarily leads to contradictions. For example, in 2018, the country was promoting free trade in the Pacific region, and the diplomacy was deeply disappointed when the Trump-led United States withdrew from the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership that would have been a free trade agreement among the signatories. However, at the same time, New Zealand banned overseas investors from purchasing New Zealand properties so domestic market participants could define real estate prices. This step was purely contradictory to the principle of free trade.
The reasons why it is unlikely that the paradigmatic and political limits would change in the future are multifaceted. Owing to the war in Ukraine and the vast migration to Continental European countries, these countries are not popular destinations for New Zealand students for overseas studies. Therefore, the paradigmatic limits of both natural and social sciences will unlikely be challenged in New Zealand. It is also unlikely that New Zealand’s foreign policy interests would change so significantly that the „taboo” topics can be discussed soon.
There was a debate that was cancelled in May, later it was held indeed. I don’t think the piece alleged that Ayling himself triggered violence. On the Platform there were various interviews where left - leaning interviewees said the free speech shall not happen if that triggers violence. One of the interviewees indeed referred to violence happening on the “stop co-governance” events. However, when Sean Plunket went into details, the interviewee could not mention anything for which Batchelor might have been responsible.
Best wishes
Some very basic errors exist in this commentary. Ayling did participate in the panel; he wasn’t cancelled. Also, no one has ever alleged any form of him ‘triggering violence’, nor any collaboration with Batchelor.