UK’s free-speech police show why the US can’t let campus censors win

The next time you slip up and accidentally make an offensive remark, the police might get involved. At least, in the United Kingdom that is. On Sept. 9, the South Yorkshire Police Department’s official Twitter account released a jarring message encouraging people to report noncriminal incidents “like offensive or insulting comments, online, in person or in writing.” Apparently, they plan on literally policing speech.

But this isn’t just some wacky overseas aberration we can laugh off — it represents the future of the American far-left, and shows why we must do everything we can to stop the anti-speech movement where it is taking root: at colleges and universities.

This new program in the U.K. may seem Orwellian, but it’s really not unlike many programs that already exist on campus. Angry protesters shout down controversial speakers, university administrators limit speech through arbitrary rules, and “bias response” teams attempt to eliminate offense in its entirety.

In efforts like these, the groups fail. Yet bias response teams represent the most obvious erosion of free thought on campus and, subsequently, in our culture — potentially leading us to Yorkshire’s future, where law enforcement is leveraged to determine what speech is acceptable and what is not.

According to a 2017 report by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, there are roughly 230 bias response teams in place at colleges and universities nationwide, putting almost 3 million students under the microscope of these informal campus thought police. The vast majority of these teams investigate speech that is protected under the First Amendment, and does not constitute any crime such as harassment. Many of the administrators who run bias response teams openly admit that they struggle to “[balance] free speech and the creation of an inclusive campus.” Yet, they don’t struggle to identify, expose, and shame those who supposedly engage in bias — and with loose and subjective definitions of such bias, this quickly devolves into a crackdown on free thought.

Many examples border on outrageous. At the University of Vermont, an a capella group was formally condemned by the school’s bias response team for using Mexican mariachi themes in their promotional materials. The censorship board even felt the need to send out a campus-wide alert after this supposed incident. Robby Soave at Reason has covered countless other examples of such absurdity — like the Colby College student who was reported to a bias response team for using the phrase “on the other hand,” which the policing force deemed as “ableist.” Or the “TRUMP IS RACIST” chalk-writing that got reported at Appalachian State University by another student as “slander.” It’s obvious that this stifles academic debate — but that’s not even the biggest concern.

Perhaps the worst part of this campus thought policing is that most students are actually okay with it. A survey from the Gallup-Knight foundation reveals that 53 percent of students consider diversity and inclusion more important than free speech (even though the two are by no means mutually exclusive).

My generation is coming of age on campuses where speech policing is nearly the new norm: 40 percent of campus bias response teams actually include a law enforcement official — meant to advise, but Orwellian nonetheless. With the police actually involved in overseeing speech on campus, this isn’t a far cry from what’s going on in the U.K. Should we really be surprised if in 10 or 20 years, U.S. voters accept our own version of the Yorkshire speech police?

That would be a sad day in history. In the United Kingdom, the involvement of law enforcement in censorship has led to countless crackdowns on obvious examples of free speech and even formerly noncontroversial opinions. Spiked Online Editor Brendan O’Neill cautions that, in Britain, “the truth itself has come to be outlawed.” If we don’t step up and confront the campus censors on our shores, this overseas nightmare could become our new reality.

Brad Polumbo (@brad_polumbo) is a contributor to Red Alert Politics. He is an assistant editor for Young Voices and a student at UMass Amherst.