Social Science Space

While book bans themselves remain sadly frequent across the United States, increasingly those efforts have zeroed in on campuses.

Banned Books Week is an annual event, typically held the last week of September, celebrating the freedom to read. The […]

The Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award acknowledges individuals or groups who have furthered the cause of intellectual freedom, particularly as it impacts libraries and information centers and the dissemination of ideas.

In an essay last month on Social Science Space, I pointed out the hypocrisy of activists who demand maximum academic […]

As COVID-19 forces the world in into a predominately digital state, censorship and the spread of misinformation have not been far behind. Our experiences […]

Concerns that free speech is being on university campuses, at least in the United Kingdom, are overblown, with the biggest threat originating not on campuses but from the government and its Prevent program. That’s a key takeaway in a new paper from Britain’s Higher Education Policy Institute, Free Speech and Censorship on Campus.

Some language in campus speech legislation may be largely symbolic and not change what many colleges are already doing. But, argues Neal Hutchens, some provisions in legislation could change campus speech rules in important ways.

This is an edited version of a speech given by Glyn Davis, distinguished professor of political science at the Crawford School of Public Policy at Australian National University, at a summit to explore issues of academic freedom and autonomy hosted by the Australian National University.

The former president of the University of Saskatchewan argues that freedom of expression is under attack in Canada’s universities through an accumulation of episodes that diminish its significance and through a vector of intellectual laziness accompanied by ideology and anger.

The response on many universities to a high tide of intolerance has been to limit free speech. That, says James Turk, is exactly the wrong response.

A concern for free expression and respect for science journalism are two themes Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood expounds on in an article in the newest edition of ‘Index on Censorship.’

Pushing for a lecture to be cancelled, or disrupted so that it is either postponed on health and safety grounds, or goes ahead but speakers are unable to be heard, is censorship, argues Jo Williams, and it is to the detriment of all within universities and wider society alike.