Do we really want Theresa May to decide who speaks at universities?

We already have a burgeoning anti-free speech movement coming organically from politically active students so perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that Theresa May wants to chip in as well, seeking the power to pick and choose who gets to speak at UK universities.

New powers for the home secretary to order universities to ban extremist speakers from their campuses are to be included in the counter-terrorism bill to be published on Wednesday, Theresa May has announced.

The bill will also place a statutory duty on schools, colleges, prisons and local councils to help prevent people from being drawn into terrorism, the home secretary said.

She said universities would have to show that they have put in place policies to deal with extremist speakers.

“The organisations subject to the duty will have to take into account guidance issued by the home secretary. Where organisations consistently fail, ministers will be able to issue directions to them “which will be enforceable by court orders”, May announced.

Since we already have laws against inciting violence, presumably these laws will not really help crack down on terrorism advocacy which says 'go and blow people up'; to be useful at all to courts and the government it must have a wider remit. Thus, it seems like more marginal 'extremist' figures will be targeted; not just Muslim clerics the government doesn't like, but perhaps pick up artists deemed to advocate violence against women, or perhaps anti-abortion campaigners (note what the UCSB professor called the poster-holding campaigner).

Practically every political viewpoint of today would have been judged inconceivably radical and/or extremist to almost anyone from 17th Century England. The benefits of free speech come from the free exchange of ideas, a process which often weeds out bad ideas and leaves good ones alive. To guarantee we enjoy their continued benefits we have to stand against even the smallest, least objectionable infringements made—wherever they come from. Even ugly speech must be protected if we are to enjoy these prudential benefits.

Even if free speech ought sometimes to be curtailed in general, to make some areas 'safe spaces' for unprivileged groups who would otherwise be made very uncomfortable, it seems like universities are one place where we are best placed to let it run wild—you would think that they are bastions of smart, open-minded free inquiry.

Theresa May surely realises from her struggles with the European Court of Human Rights that laws can have unintended consequences. It is surprising that she seems so unworried about handing future Home Secretaries the right to decide what speech goes on in our universities.