So, just what is the point of a university?

Security escorting Professor Kathleen Stock to an Oxford Union meeting where she spoke about gender identity and biological sex.

On Tuesday 30^th May, Professor Kathleen Stock, author of the book Material Girls amongst other works, spoke at the Oxford Union about her views on gender identity. For clarification, the Oxford Union is a private members club that students at Oxford University and others pay to join. It is independent of the university and the student union. The student union at Oxford has recently decided to split with the Oxford Union but deny it had anything to do with the invitation to Professor Stock to speak.

This one of many reports on what happened in the run up to, and at the meeting: Kathleen Stock: Protests at Oxford Union as talk goes ahead 30.5.23. Before the Oxford Union meeting, the LGBTQ+ Society organised a short protest march to the venue. It should be noted that unlike some other protests held by trans rights activists, this was a peaceful protest. During the course of the meeting, a few trans rights activists interrupted the proceedings with one appearing to glue themselves to the floor. At no point did they appear to be actually engaging with and debating what Professor Stock had to say on the issue of gender identity as counterposed to biological sex.

Forgive me for being naïve, but I thought the whole point of the university was for students to be exposed to a range of ideas and opinions and to learn to challenge and debate them. Okay, I'm being naïve and this kind of open debate would only happen in an ideal world. You don't need me to tell you that we live in a far from ideal world. One in which the topics that can openly be discussed and debated are being narrowed down and down.

Within ten to twenty years time, a fair number of the LGBTQ+ students who protested Professor Stock speaking at the Oxford Union will be in well paid jobs where they can wield a fair bit of influence. That will be influence over how mere mortals like us live our lives. People who refuse to listen to points of view they disagree with, let alone rationally debate them may well be in positions where they make decisions that could have a significant impact upon our lives. If we don't like the decisions they make, given their intolerance of views they don't agree with, does anyone seriously think they'll give us dissenters a fair hearing? Based on current form, somehow we think not. Does that not worry you? I'll tell you one thing, it sure as heck worries me!

If our universities are party in any way to restricting what cannot be discussed and debated, we're in trouble. If the universities turn out graduates who refuse to engage with and debate ideas they don't agree with, we're in serious trouble. If the universities don't take action to reverse this trend towards what is essentially a form of censorship, then we're in very serious trouble.

Any normal person who has followed what happened in Oxford on Tuesday 30^th May will understandably be perplexed at the thought of students objecting to a particular speaker and refusing to engage then in debate. Like me, they may have naïvely thought that the whole point of universities was to encourage debate and to contest ideas and theories to see if they stand up under rigorous interrogation. They're most likely feeling pretty shocked that their assumptions about what the university should be about in an ideal world are a long way apart from the grubby reality of what they actually are about.

It wouldn't come as any surprise if a growing number of people are starting to ask this simple but pointed question - so, just what is the point of a university? If a growing number of people are asking that question, then hopefully it will be the wake up call that universities need to start taking a long, hard look at just what the point of their existence is. Because as far as I and many other people are concerned, it's a process that's long overdue.

Dave - the editor