Students once embraced the freedom to be adults. Now they have become ban-happy self-regulators afraid of growing up.
When news emerged last week that two students from the London School of Economics had been banned from wearing ‘Jesus and Mo’ cartoon t-shirts on a stall at the university’s freshers’ fair, it was only the most recent act of censorship carried out by students’ unions.
At the latest count, the students’ unions at six universities have banned the song ‘Blurred Lines’ from being played in their buildings. In the past few months alone, Derby University students have banned the UKIP candidate for Derbyshire police and crime commissioner from speaking in debates; the University of East Anglia has banned the showing of rugby and cricket matches sponsored by NatWest bank in the union bar; Lancaster University students’ union has banned ‘lads’ mags’ from the campus shop; and students at Essex University look set to ban Starbucks from their campus.
While a few students may challenge what has been termed a ‘war against free speech on campus’, or argue that students’ unions are not meant to be the moral arbiters of their members, what’s really noticeable is the louder clamour for more bans and increased censorship. The outgoing president of a consortium of students’ unions based in Medway in Kent has criticised the absence of a ban on political and religious extremists; and the Lancaster ban on lads’ mags has been labelled as not going nearly far enough in the perceived battle against sexism on campus.
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