A number of academics and commentators congratulated the university for “a win for freedom of speech.”
Professor Stephen J Toope, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, said he welcomed the result.
“Rigorous debate is fundamental to the pursuit of academic excellence and the University of Cambridge will always be a place where freedom of speech is not only protected, but strongly encouraged,” he said in a statement.
Three Amendments
Firstly, the original statement said that the University expects its staff, students, and visitors to be “respectful” of the differing opinions and diverse identities of others.Ahmed’s amendment replaced the word “respectful” with “tolerant.”
Writing about the amendment, the Campaign for Cambridge Freedoms (CCF) said that the university has no right to demand academics to be respectful towards all beliefs and practices.
The second amendment, the CCF said, was to make it harder to force university societies to disinvite speakers whose remarks may be controversial.
The amendment to this section added clarity to the limited reasons a speaker can be cancelled.
“Any speaker who has been invited to speak at a meeting or other event, on University premises or at the Student Union, must not be stopped from doing so unless: they are likely to express unlawful speech, or their attendance would lead the host organisation to breach other legal obligations, and no reasonably practicable steps can be taken to reduce these risks,” the amendment reads.
The third amendment replaced a vague and broad range of grounds on which the university can refuse or impose conditions on a meeting or event with specific narrow exceptions.
The CCF said that it would restrict “the circumstances in which the university itself can ban speakers.”
Past De-Platforming Incidents
In October, Cambridge students demanded the university’s Clare College to fire Kevin Price, a porter at the university.Price, who was also a Labour councillor of Cambridge City Council, had resigned from the council and the Labour Party because he did not want to support a Liberal Democrat’s motion that “began with the words: ‘Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Non-binary individuals are non-binary.’”
“[It is] foolish to pretend that there are not widely differing views in the current debate or that many people, especially women, are concerned about the impact on women’s sex-based rights from changes both in legislation and within society and who fear, not only that those rights are under threat, but that they are unable to raise legitimate questions and concerns without a hostile response,” he added.
The former councillor also criticised the public information pack produced with the motion, which says it “should use its own communication channels to counter transphobic reporting in the national media.”
Price called the pack unbelievable.
“Coverage of government consultations, responses, and issues around potential legislation is not transphobic but the role of journalism,” he said.
In July, Historian David Starkey lost his honorary fellowship at the Fitzwilliam College of Cambridge University after he made a controversial comment on a podcast.
In March, 2019, Cambridge University’s Faculty of Divinity rescinded a visiting fellowship offer made to Canadian psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson.
Peterson said the discussion of a visiting fellowship, which “would constitute an opportunity of clear mutual benefit,” started in Nov. 2018, when he visited the university and invited to speak to a full auditorium of students.
