Academic freedom in British universities is under threat
A campaign of harassment against Kathleen Stock, a philosophy professor, highlights a stifling orthodoxy
STUDY PHILOSOPHY at Sussex University and, in your first year, you may read John Locke. The Enlightenment thinker is celebrated today for his “Letter Concerning Toleration”, in which he argued that to compel men “by fire and sword to profess certain doctrines” was not only immoral but pointless: the only true persuasion is the “inward persuasion of the mind”. If the students and staff denouncing Kathleen Stock, a professor in the philosophy department, are familiar with Locke’s argument, they seem unmoved by it.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Two plus two make four”
Britain October 16th 2021
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