Some Independent thinking...

The Independent has launched a pious crusade against ‘racism’ in British institutions, with one of its targets being Professor David Coleman of Oxford University (see Oxford students prefer taboo to argument, 5 March). As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, this is an egregious assault on free speech and academic freedom that can only harm the pro-immigration cause. But according to The Independent’s editorial, ‘we should dismiss [the] claims that these are matters of free speech’. Why we should simply ‘dismiss’ them is not made clear. The Independent thinks that while Coleman should not be sacked, ‘students should not be compelled to take lessons from someone about whose views they feel deeply uncomfortable’. This makes a mockery of university education.

Meanwhile, commentators have been falling over themselves to point out the troubling character of recent 'race rows'. One such writer is leading black journalist and campaigner Darcus Howe. Lamenting that there is no one to speak up for black and working-class people, he stated that ‘[t]his is not the same country I came to 50 years ago. I have great sympathy for the whites because everything has been swept away by Mrs Thatcher and now Tony Blair but there is nothing to take its place.’ Open, rational debate remains the only way of challenging the implicit forms of racism we have seen in recent 'controversies'. However, when students and newspapers who supposedly pride themselves on being ‘free thinking’ are the first to call for restrictions on speech, there is little hope of progressing.

Lee Jones