A horrifying story reaches us from the highly respected Pepperdine University over in the US, where the College Republican (CR) group was denied its right to free speech. Shortly before the recent US Elections the CRs hung a tame sign, which had been approved by the university, reading “Barack Obama socialism ‘08“, in the cafe. The sign was repeatedly removed by the university and placed on the ‘Freedom Wall‘ instead. When the CRs took up this move with the university, they were given the curt response that,

“You can’t have these up because they say “Obama” and “Socialism”. We’ve gotten a lot of complaints from students and professors about it yesterday. The university cannot show support for and approve this.”

There’s something ironic and patronising about moving that sign to the ‘Freedom Wall’. Isn’t freedom meant to be universal and unfettered, not confined within neatly demarcated borders? And so what if some students and professors (gosh, could they have been Obama supporters?) didn’t agree – that’s the essence of freedom of speech, the right to say your piece, loud and proud, and have others say theirs too, regardless of whether you agree with it, all without fear, coercion or impediment.

This whole episode would seem to bear out FIRE’s conclusion that whilst free speech is generally well respected on campuses, instances of infringement seem to spike at election time.

It’s all the more ironic given that only last month Pepperdine awarded Margaret Thatcher, champion of freedom and foe of socialism, an honorary degree.

Domestically, certainly in my time at university we didn’t face quite such opposition on our campus, but that’s not the same thing as saying it doesn’t occur at British universities. We still have battles to fight such as the vile banning of the military by UCL Union. Of course, if you do experience anti-conservative bias on your campus, your first port of call for help and advice in seeking redress should be the excellent Young Britons’ Foundation’s Legal Advice and Support Unit.