Mick Hartley

Which UK university hosted the highest number of extremist speakers last year? Congratulations if you guessed SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), though to be honest it wasn't really a difficult call. From Andrew Gilligan in today's Sunday Times (£):

It is the university league table in which no one wants to be first. King’s College London and Birmingham are among the elite institutions topping Britain’s rankings of extremist speakers at universities, published next week.

Universities and student societies organised at least 200 events with extremist speakers last year — up from 107 in 2016-17, according to the Henry Jackson Society think tank.

The number, based on the government definition of extremism, is probably an underestimate because some events are not made public.

The rise comes despite promises by ministers and vice-chancellors to “protect impressionable young minds” from hate preachers. Robert Halfon, chairman of the Commons education committee, said: “This is incredibly distressing. We seem to be going backwards. There needs to be an urgent inquiry.”…

Speakers allowed on British campuses include Siraj Wahhaj, named by US authorities as a possible co-conspirator in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, which he denies; and Yusuf Chambers, who said adulterers should be stoned to death.

All universities must comply with Prevent, the government’s anti-extremism strategy, which says speakers with extreme views must not go unchallenged. Yet this appears not always to have happened. The report’s author, Emma Fox, said: “These findings reveal an industrial-scale failure by universities.”