British Universities May Censor Student Reading
In this newsletter:
1) The Rise Of Red-Green Fascism: British Universities May Censor Student Reading
The Sunday Times, 29 October 2017
2) Welcome To The New Age Of Academic Fascism & Mob Rule
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 7 October 2017
3) King’s College Students Hire Safe Space Marshals To Police Events
4) 100,000 Forbidden Books Used To Construct Parthenon Replica On Nazi Book-Burning Site
DeZeen Magazine, Summer 2017
5) Benny Peiser: What I Told Cambridge University’s Spoiled Green Students
Cambridge Union, 26 October 2017
6) Rupert Darwall: Green Tyranny
Global Warming Policy Foundation
The Sunday Times, 29 October 2017
Universities are considering the insertion of warnings into books and even moving some off open library shelves altogether to protect students from “dangerous” and “wrong” arguments.
The proposal could hit books by climate-change sceptics, feminists, eugenicists, creationists, theologians and Holocaust deniers. It will generate new controversy over free speech at British universities, where speakers have been “no-platformed” because of their views.
The move on books follows a campaign to restrict access to work by the historian David Irving, which has already resulted in some university libraries, including Churchill College, Cambridge, moving his books into closed storage. Others, such as University College London, have also labelled some of Irving’s books “Holocaust denial literature”, or shelved them with historiography rather than history.
Manchester has refused to remove Irving’s books from open display, arguing that making them available to students is a matter of free speech, which universities have a duty to uphold.
The director of library services at UCL, Paul Ayris, revealed the decision to move the Irving books was based on “contemporary thinking among librarians”. This included a study “of the sometimes complex ethical issues of library neutrality, in relation, for example, to climate-change denial, and questions of equality and diversity, as well as Holocaust denial”.
Ayris also referred to a campaign directed at Vancouver Women’s Library to ban 20 feminist titles including works by Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon on the grounds they might offend transgender people and sex workers.
Academics said controversial titles included Nigel Lawson’s book An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming, and The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which hypothesised that the children of Jesus and Mary Magdalene have a claim to the throne of France, inspiring Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code.
The debate is being led by a group called the Radical Librarians Collective, which argues that pretending that libraries are “neutral” in the way they display books “maintains the status quo of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy”.
Full story (subscription required)
2) Welcome To The New Age Of Academic Fascism & Mob Rule
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 7 October 2017
Academic publisher withdraws essay defending colonialism, citing threat to journal editor
A controversial essay that offered a defense of colonialism and led to a revolt at Third World Quarterly has been withdrawn due to “serious and credible threats of personal violence” to the journal’s editor, according to a notice posted by the journal’s publisher, Taylor & Francis.
The essay, “The Case for Colonialism,” was withdrawn at the request of the journal’s editor, Shahid Qadir, and in agreement with the essay’s author, Bruce Gilley, an associate professor of political science at Portland State University, the notice said.
The publisher said that it had conducted a thorough investigation after receiving complaints about the essay and found that it had undergone double-blind peer review, in line with the journal’s editorial policy.
However, the publisher’s notice continued, the journal’s editor received “serious and credible threats of personal violence” linked to the publication of the essay. “As the publisher, we must take this seriously,” the withdrawal notice reads. “Taylor & Francis has a strong and supportive duty of care to all our academic editorial teams, and this is why we are withdrawing this essay.”
Backlash against Third World Quarterly was swift after it published the colonialism essay last month. Fifteen people on the journal’s 34-member board resigned, and a petition seeking a retraction drew more than 10,000 signatures.
In the wake of the controversy, the author, Mr. Gilley, had asked that his essay be withdrawn. “I regret the pain and anger that it has caused for many people,” Mr. Gilley wrote last month on his website.
Full story
3) King’s College Students Hire Safe Space Marshals To Police Events
The essay, “The Case for Colonialism,” was withdrawn at the request of the journal’s editor, Shahid Qadir, and in agreement with the essay’s author, Bruce Gilley, an associate professor of political science at Portland State University, the notice said.
The publisher said that it had conducted a thorough investigation after receiving complaints about the essay and found that it had undergone double-blind peer review, in line with the journal’s editorial policy.
However, the publisher’s notice continued, the journal’s editor received “serious and credible threats of personal violence” linked to the publication of the essay. “As the publisher, we must take this seriously,” the withdrawal notice reads. “Taylor & Francis has a strong and supportive duty of care to all our academic editorial teams, and this is why we are withdrawing this essay.”
Backlash against Third World Quarterly was swift after it published the colonialism essay last month. Fifteen people on the journal’s 34-member board resigned, and a petition seeking a retraction drew more than 10,000 signatures.
In the wake of the controversy, the author, Mr. Gilley, had asked that his essay be withdrawn. “I regret the pain and anger that it has caused for many people,” Mr. Gilley wrote last month on his website.
Full story
3) King’s College Students Hire Safe Space Marshals To Police Events
Rosemary Bennett, Education Editor, 27 October 2017
Students at one of the country’s top universities are paying £12 an hour for “safe space marshals” to patrol events and ensure that speakers do not offend audiences with their views.
Marshals are required to attend events at King’s College London students’ union that are judged to be a high or medium risk to its safe space policy.
Their duties include reminding chairmen of their safe space obligations and taking action if a breach of the policy occurs. This could include asking someone to be quiet or leave if their behaviour is offensive or prejudiced.
On Wednesday five safe space marshals monitored a meeting hosted by the university’s Conservative Association and attended by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tory MP who is opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage.
Greg Hall, a third-year history student, said he mistook the marshals for security guards as they were all men dressed in black. He told The Times: “Jacob Rees-Mogg addressed the issue straightaway and said he thought safe spaces were counter to free discussion . . . He didn’t offend anyone and there were no dramatic interventions.”
Full story (subscription required)
4) 100,000 Forbidden Books Used To Construct Parthenon Replica On Nazi Book-Burning Site
DeZeen Magazine, Summer 2017
Argentinian artist Marta Minujín has used thousands of prohibited books to construct a replica of the Parthenon in Athens on a Nazi book-burning site in Kassel, Germany.
Taking a stance against censorship, Minujín designed the Parthenon of Books to echo the classical Greek temple, which remains a major icon of the democratic Athenian polis.
Metal scaffolding mimics the form of the temple, which is then covered in books held by plastic wrapping. All the books were donated by the public from a shortlist of over 170 titles that are either currently or formerly prohibited.
Also emphasising Minujín's motivation is the chosen site of Friedrichsplatz Park, where Nazi sympathisers burned an estimated 2,000 prohibited books on 19 May 1933.
Book burnings took place in cities across Germany in 1933 as part of the Aktion wider den undeutschen Geist, which translates as a Campaign against the Un-German Spirit.
Organised by the German Students Union, the events were intended to bring arts and culture in line with the Nazi ideals and rid blacklisted authors from circulation.
Full story
5) Benny Peiser: What I Told Cambridge University’s Spoiled Green Students
Cambridge Union, 26 October 2017
Students at one of the country’s top universities are paying £12 an hour for “safe space marshals” to patrol events and ensure that speakers do not offend audiences with their views.
Marshals are required to attend events at King’s College London students’ union that are judged to be a high or medium risk to its safe space policy.
Their duties include reminding chairmen of their safe space obligations and taking action if a breach of the policy occurs. This could include asking someone to be quiet or leave if their behaviour is offensive or prejudiced.
On Wednesday five safe space marshals monitored a meeting hosted by the university’s Conservative Association and attended by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tory MP who is opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage.
Greg Hall, a third-year history student, said he mistook the marshals for security guards as they were all men dressed in black. He told The Times: “Jacob Rees-Mogg addressed the issue straightaway and said he thought safe spaces were counter to free discussion . . . He didn’t offend anyone and there were no dramatic interventions.”
Full story (subscription required)
4) 100,000 Forbidden Books Used To Construct Parthenon Replica On Nazi Book-Burning Site
DeZeen Magazine, Summer 2017
Argentinian artist Marta Minujín has used thousands of prohibited books to construct a replica of the Parthenon in Athens on a Nazi book-burning site in Kassel, Germany.
Taking a stance against censorship, Minujín designed the Parthenon of Books to echo the classical Greek temple, which remains a major icon of the democratic Athenian polis.
Metal scaffolding mimics the form of the temple, which is then covered in books held by plastic wrapping. All the books were donated by the public from a shortlist of over 170 titles that are either currently or formerly prohibited.
Also emphasising Minujín's motivation is the chosen site of Friedrichsplatz Park, where Nazi sympathisers burned an estimated 2,000 prohibited books on 19 May 1933.
Book burnings took place in cities across Germany in 1933 as part of the Aktion wider den undeutschen Geist, which translates as a Campaign against the Un-German Spirit.
Organised by the German Students Union, the events were intended to bring arts and culture in line with the Nazi ideals and rid blacklisted authors from circulation.
Full story
5) Benny Peiser: What I Told Cambridge University’s Spoiled Green Students
Cambridge Union, 26 October 2017
‘This House would rather cool the planet than warm the economy’
Madame President, ladies and gentlemen
I am opposing today’s motion because I regard it as perhaps the most inhuman and amoral motion ever proposed at the Cambridge Union.
Let me explain.
Let’s translate what the motion actually says and what it means.
What the motion proposes is that societies and governments should abandon the traditional goal of economic growth while prioritising policies to decarbonise.
In short, economic growth and development should be sacrificed in the name of climate protection.
Thankfully, not a single government in the world – and not even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – is advocating this kind of economic self-harm, nor is any country willing to adopt the motion proposed today.
Nevertheless, the fact that stopping economic development is even being advocated by some of the world’s most privileged students in Cambridge reveals how far removed this green bubble is from the harsh reality of billions of people who are desperately trying to escape poverty.
Let’s not beat about the bush: If today’s motion would ever be implemented by some radical green government, it would lead to the death of millions of poor people in the developing world, astronomical mass unemployment and economic collapse.
That’s because poor nations without economic growth have no future and are unable to raise living standards for impoverished populations. […]
Globally more than 1 billion people are without access to electricity and 2.6 billion people are without hygienic cooking facilities.
Providing comprehensive access to cheap and reliable electricity is the single most pre-requisite for economic development.
The proponents of today’s motion argue that economic growth should be sacrificed or at least curtailed in order to cut global CO2 emissions.
Denying the world’s poor the very basis on which Britain and much of Europe became wealthy — largely due to cheap coal, oil and gas — amounts to an inhumane and atrocious attempt by green activists to sacrifice the needs of the world’s poor on the altar of climate alarmism.
In order to improve the plight of the poor in both the developed and the developing world we need both strong economic growth and cheap and reliable energy.
Expansive green toys for landowner and solar investor — who are reaping hundreds of billions in renewable subsidies paid by ordinary families and the poor – hurt the economy and forces the poor to pay for ineffective virtue signalling. […]
The goal of humanists and humanitarians cannot be to deny the world’s poorest access to cheap and reliable energy. This is what today’s motion essentially demands — prioritise the green agenda and sacrifice economic growth and poverty reduction.
At its core, the motion is deeply wicked and should be rejected by everyone who takes the urgent needs of the world’s poor into consideration rather than prioritise an intolerant if well-meaning green agenda that is harming millions of people today.
Full speech
6) Rupert Darwall: Green Tyranny
Global Warming Policy Foundation
Exposing the totalitarian roots of the Climate Industrial Complex
Book launch of Rupert Darwall’s new book
Where: House of Lords, Committee Room G, London SW1
When: 1 November 2017 – 6:30-8:00pm
Only few tickets remaining -- Eventbrite
Book launch of Rupert Darwall’s new book
Where: House of Lords, Committee Room G, London SW1
When: 1 November 2017 – 6:30-8:00pm
Only few tickets remaining -- Eventbrite
The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.
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