Freedom of Expression and the University May 2010, University of Leeds 
In May 2010 Leeds University Union banned an issue of the Leeds Student newspaper containing a Palestinian activist's allegedly anti-Semitic comment. Earlier in the year, a student society, the Palestinian Solidarity Group, was banned for disturbing a speech by an Israeli diplomat. A debate by Liberty@Leeds was prevented from taking place as it featured a former member of banned group Islam 4 UK. The Atheist Society were prevented from holding an event on freedom of speech that planned to show controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders' anti-Islamic film Fitna. Leeds University's Protocol on Freedom of Expression states that an event can be banned if it is 'likely to give rise to an environment in which people will experience - or could reasonably fear - harassment, intimidation, verbal abuse or violence.' On Academic Freedom Day, a panel of university students will debate the pros and cons of academic freedom in light of recent controversies. Should speech be regulated and if so by whom, to what extent and on what grounds? Is censorship sometimes necessary to protect vulnerable groups, or should there be no protection from offence? Does the university as a public institution and a place of free inquiry have a duty to promote the free expression of opinions, no matter how unpopular? Or are these lofty and old-fashioned ideals which interfere with the main business of the modern university of providing workplace skills for its customers and the know-how Britain needs to compete in a global economy? Can free speech be institutionally protected, or is it up to students and lecturers, as free adult citizens and constituent members of the university, to speak out and challenge rules and regulations that restrain freedom of expression? Is free speech a private or a public right - an individual's right to free expression, or the right of the public to hear all opinions free of censorship and make up their own minds? Speakers:  Phillip Dickinson Phillip is a former English student at Leeds University. He has written many times for the Leeds Student and for Freedom in a Puritan Age, and is a former committee member of the Leeds University Debating Society. He has been heavily involved in campaigns concerning free speech on campus, particularly for Liberty.
 Hanif Leylabi, National Union of Students, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Committee; Leeds University Union Welfare Assembly Chair and member of United Against Fascism. Hanif has been an active member of the student movement for the past 5 years.
 Marco Schneebalg, Founding member of the Manchester Israel Palestine Forum, Politics Philosophy and Economics student, Manchester University.
Marco grew up in Brussels. After graduation, he spent a gap year in Israel, living in a Kibbutz and learning about the society and the Middle Eastern conflict. At Manchester University, in reaction to clashes between Action Palestine and the Jewish Society, he created with other like-minded students the Manchester Israel Palestine Forum, which offers a place for debate and understanding, allowing all views to be expressed on campus. After the attack on the Israeli Deputy Ambassador on 28 April 2010, he wrote an article pointing out that this marginal event had overshadowed the positive developments of the last few months at Manchester University.  James Wood, Liberty@Leeds member, Politics student, Leeds University.
James is an active member of student pressure group Liberty@Leeds and is the Director of Debates for the Leeds University Union Debating Society. He has been a regular attender of Leeds Salon events and has campaigned against government surveillance. He was also a finalist in this year's Aberystwyth Open debating competition. Related articles: Leeds University: Campus Conflict in Microcosm, by Henrietta Foster, with podcast interview to Jak Codd of Leeds University Union and Virginia Newman, editor of Leeds Students PULLED: LS removed from the shelves, Leeds Student editorial Not about censorship, Jak Codd on reasons for censoring Leeds Student The press has exaggerated anti-Israel protests in Manchester, Marco Schneebalg on campus conflict at Manchester University Fear and loathing in Leeds, Phil Dickinson on anti-free speech policies Free speech on campus rightly has its limits, by Geoffrey Alderman Defend the freedom campaign, by Gayan Samarasinghe Leeds University Protocol on freedom of expression
Immigration: A tool for social engineering? April 2010, Leeds Civic Hall  Leeds Salon has invited Brendan O'Neill, editor of Spiked-Online, to debate the issue of immigration in the run up to the general election.
In the past, the debate about immigration was between those who believed in liberty and equality and those who were concerned to preserve 'British values' and 'traditions'. The British authorities, while allowing in a certain number of immigrants to help rebuild post-war Britain and compensate for labour shortages, were also at the forefront of scapegoating immigrant communities for many social and economic problems. For those concerned with migrant's rights and anti-racist politics, the key demands were for the right of freedom of movement of labour and against immigration controls. Over the past decade, however, there has been a shift in the way immigration is discussed. Immigration is now problematised, by both supporters and opponents alike, not so much in the threat posed by immigrants (although post-9/11 that's taken on a new twist) as in the reaction they fear it may provoke in that most despised of communities - the native white working class. Where once immigration was seen as a tool for economic regeneration, under the New Labour government immigration controls were relaxed (and subsequently new and stricter restrictions introduced) for primarily political reasons - to forge an image of a new multicultural Britain in opposition to traditional conservative notions of Britishness and to distance itself from, and discipline, the native working class population. Today, the immigration debate is dominated not by the traditional right-wing language of protecting Britain from 'foreign hordes', but in the seemingly radical belief of undermining the far right and controlling the worst instinsts of the 'hordes at home'. How do we account for these changes? What are the dangers in today's debates about immigration and multiculturalism? And what heppened to the demand for freedom of movement? Readings Turning immigration into a tool of social engineering, by Brendan O'Neill, Spiked-Online, 23 March 2010 Turning migrants into status symbols, by Brendan O'Neill, Spiked-Online, 12 April 2010 Brown tells migrants: "You're not welcome", BBC Online, 31 March 2010 Did immigration transform Britain by accident? by David Goodhart, BBC Online, 8 February 2010 The racism that dare not speak its name, by Chris Gilligan, Spiked Review of Books, 30 December 2009 About the Speaker Brendan O’Neill is the editor of the 'independent online phenomenon' Spiked-Online, and author of the green satire Can I Recycle My Granny and 39 Other Eco-Dilemmas (Hodder & Stoughton in 2008). He writes widely for publications on both sides of the Atlantic including the New Statesman, the Spectator, the Guardian, The Sunday Times, the British Journalism Review, the Press Gazette and the Catholic Herald, Salon, Slate, the Chicago Sun-Times, the American Prospect, the American Conservative and Reason magazine. He is also a feature-writer for the Christian Science Monitor in America and for the BBC in Britain.
In Defence of Poetry March 2010, The Carriageworks Following the censoring of Carol Ann Duffy's poem Education for Leisure from the school curriculum, poets, critics, teachers and students will debate the significance of this ban. Should children be protected from controversial literature? Should works be studied because of their literary merit or as springboards to discuss particular issues? Should students be taught to analyse poems in order to understand their meaning or should they be asked to provide a personal response? How important should poetry be in teaching English? Who should determine the content of the school curriculum and according to what criteria? What are the roles of the poet, the critic, the teacher and the reader in upholding the importance of poetry? And what, if any, is the role of government? Speakers: 
George SzirtesGeorge was born in Hungary in 1948 and came to England with his family in 1956 after the Hungarian Uprising. His first poems began appearing in the early 1970s and his first book The Slant Door (1979) was awarded the Faber Prize. Since then he has written thirteen other books of poetry that have won various awards, including the TS Eliot Prize for Reel (2004). His New and Collected Poems appeared in 2008. His latest work, The Burning of the Books and Other Poems (2009) is, at the time of writing, also shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. George has also produced a series of prize-winning translations of poetry form the Hungarian. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and of the English Association and has written extensively about poetry for the press. He is a Reader in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. 
Ronan McDonald Ronan is the author of The Death of the Critic (2008). Born in Dublin and educated there and at the University of Oxford he is now Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Reading and the director of the Samuel Beckett International Foundation. From April 2010, he will take up a post as Professor of Modern Literature at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. His other works include Tragedy and Irish Literature (2002) and The Cambridge Introduction to Samuel Beckett (2007), together with numerous essays and articles. He has written for national newspapers including The Observer, The Guardian and The Irish Times and is a regular reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement. He is currently working on a book on Darwinism and Degeneration in Irish Modernism. He has an ongoing interest in the 'values' of literary criticism and is organising the conference The Good of Criticism: The Value of Literary Studies, to be held at Reading University on 19-20 March 2010. 
Andrew McMillanAndrew is a young poet who splits his time between Barnsley, where he was born and raised, and Lancaster, where he currently studies. His work has appeared widely in print and online magazines, including The London Magazine, The North, The Reader and Cadaverine magazine. The publication of his first poetry pamphlet Every Salt Advance (Red Squirrell Press, 2009) saw him dubbed 'a poet of ingenious and rare power' - a claim Andrew disputes but has accepted under sufferance. Andrew is currently editing Cake magazine alongside Martha Sprackland at Lancaster University and is collaborating on a new opera to be performed at the Glasgow Plug Festival in March. His poetic heroes include Thom Gunn, Allen Ginsberg, Adrian Mitchell and Geoff Hattersley. He is currently working on his first collection. 
Michele Ledda Michele was born and grew up in Italy. He came to Leeds in 1994 to study English and Latin at Leeds University, where he completed an MA by research on James Joyce's Ulysses and Petronius' Satyricon. He is an English teacher and runs two subject-centred Saturday schools for the think tank Civitas. Michele is a Leeds Salon organiser. A member of the Institute of Ideas Education Forum, he campaigns for a knowledge-centred as opposed to child-centred education system. He has written widely on education and is the author of the chapter on English teaching in The Corruption of the Curriculum (2007). Author of the Hands Off Poetry! petition against the censoring of Carol Ann Duffy's Education for Leisure, he has recently written on Banning Dangerous Poems in British Schools, criticised the children's services and schools regulator Ofsted as part of a failing 'system of accountability' and commented on the Conservatives' proposals to raise the status of teaching. Chair: 
Wes Brown A Leeds Salon organiser, Wes is a 24 year old writer and editor based in Leeds. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals online and in print, including Route Compendium,Culture Wars, Roundtable Review, Poetcasting.co.uk and Freedom in a Puritan Age. Wes's debut novel, Shark, will be published by Fruit Bruise Press in 2010. Following successful work placements with Penguin and Route, he launched Cadaverine Publications where he is Editor-at-Large. He is marketing manager for The Poetry Business. Read and post comments on The Poetry Business website. 
Human Genes and Animal Rights January 2010, Old Broadcasting House Leeds Salon welcomes science broadcaster and writer Jeremy Taylor discuss his new book NOT A CHIMP: The Hunt for the Genes that Make Us Human, and debate whether the concept of 'rights' should be extended to chimpanzees and other primates.  Humans are primates. Our closest relatives are the great apes, chimpanzees closest of all. The mapping of the human and chimpanzee genomes has revealed that we differ by a mere 1.6% of our genetic code. In addition, it is argued that chimpanzees demonstrate remarkable human-like capacities for tool-making and use, language, mathematics, and even emotional intelligence and moral behaviour.
As a consequence of our genetic and apparent similarities, should the concept of 'rights' be extended to include chimpanzees and other primates? Recently, allied activist groups in Austria, New Zealand and Spain have campaigned for rights for chimpanzees and for them to be acknowledged as "nearly human". While bioethicist Peter Singer has long called for the extension of "basic rights", first to the Great Apes, and eventually to all sentient beings which, he believes, should possess the right to life, liberty, and not to endure cruelty and torture. However, what can such 'rights' mean? For Jeremy Taylor humans are unique. And the extension of rights to other species makes no sense, as to possess rights one has to be able to understand and exercise them. For some, this argument amounts to 'speciesism', evoking comparisons with concepts such as 'racism' and 'sexism'. But for Taylor the claims of human-chimp equivalence, both in behaviour and genes, are exaggerated. The genetic difference between us and chimps is much greater than the 1.6% figure implies, as those genes are responsible for important genetic regulations on which our uniqueness is based. Those relatively small differences in genetic code make profound differences in cognition and bahaviour. As such, Taylor argues, we should put aside such distractions as "ape rights" in search of other forms of adequate protection for the host of plant and animal species now at risk. But do you agree? Are humans simply remodelled apes? Chimps with a tweak? Is the difference between our genomes so miniscule it justifies the argument that our cognition and behaviour must also differ from chimps by barely a whisker? Or if "chimps are us" should we grant them human rights? Or is this one of the biggest fallacies in the study of evolution? NOT A CHIMP argues that these similarities have been grossly over-exaggerated - we should keep chimps at arms' length. About the author  Jeremy Taylor is a freelance television producer/director, specialising in popular science programs, who has recently turned to book writing with NOT A CHIMP. In a previous career he was a stalwart producer of the BBC's flagship science series HORIZON. His love is evolutionary biology and he has made a number of films with an evolutionary theme including PLAYING WITH MADNESS for the BBC, and MINDREADERS for Channel 4.
Reviews for Not a Chimp Ewen Callaway, New Scientist, 13 August 2009 Georgina Ferry, Guardian, 25 July 2009 Peter Forbes, Independent, 16 July 2009 Sanjida O'Connell, Telegraph, 30 June 2009 Helene Guldberg, Spiked Review of Books, Issue 25, June 2009 For more reviews go to see Jeremy's blog.
What is the morality behind drugs policy? 9 December 2009, Leeds Civic Hall  The drugs debate has long been dominated by the question of whether drugs should be prohibited or legalised, and of what kind of regulation is likely to minimise harm. While advocates of prohibition warn of the dangers of drugs and suggest that legalisation would make it worse, pro-legalisers insist that drug use is inevitable, and that prohibition only makes it riskier. But neither side has much to say about whether drug use is morally desirable, and if not, why not? The ongoing debate about reclassifying cannabis, for example, hinges not on whether dope turn users into degenerate hippies and dropouts so much as its effects on their mental health. Is this a reasonable argument for greater restrictions, or should we be free to choose our own poison, whatever its ill effects?
If drugs could be made completely safe, would their use be all right? Is there any place for drugs in the good life? Are drugs a means to expand our horizons and experiences, or a harmless recreational choice? Or are they a pernicious influence, Should politicians use the law to send a moral message? About the speakers  Dolan Cummings is the editorial and research director of the Institute of Ideas, editor of Culture Wars, and co-founder of the civil liberties campaiging organisation the Manifesto Club.
 Graham Aitken is co-founder and current member of the Board of Directors of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, UK.
 Darryl Bickler is a non-practising solicitor who formerly worked as a practiioner in human rights and criminal law, and is a founding member of Drugs Equality Alliance.
Readings Just Say No to this ‘radical rethink’ on drugs, by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, spiked, 12 March 2007 Drugs reclassification: smoke signals, by James Douglass, Free Society, Tuesday June 24, 2008 Great moments in the drug war Kulturkampf, by Nick Gillespie, Reason, May 30, 2008 Choosing life, by Dolan Cummings, Culture Wars, 12 June 2009 Britain’s drug debacle, by Melanie Phillips, Daily Mail, 3 November 2008 Psychiatrists and drug companies are thoroughly redefining normal behaviour, by Christopher Lane, Battles in Print, 25 September 2007 Doping the Masses: Exposing Britain's unholy alliance between alcohol prohibitionists and marijuana reformers, by Brendan O'Neill, Reason, December 1, 2009
The Case Against Vetting 2 December 2009, University of Leeds  Leeds University Liberty Society, in conjunction with Leeds Salon, have invited Josie Appleton of the Manifesto Club to discuss the issue of adult vetting.
Over the last few years, concerns about child protection have led to the ever more stringent regulation of interactions between adults and children. The recent case of the Ofsted inspection into the home of two policewomen that were told they could not babtsit for each other unless they were vetted and officially registered as childminders, gave rise to cries of 'health and safety gone mad'. But is it right to vet teachers, youth and sport club volunteers and other adutls who work with children? Or, is the craze for vetting undermining the capacity of adults to look out for children?
Rethinking Global Politics A Leeds Salon event in conjunction with Leeds Summat and Together for Peace November 2009, University of Leeds  As part of T4P's weekend of debate, conversation, culture and cabaret, 'Leeds Summat', we have invited David Chandler to discuss what we mean today when we talk about a 'global' world or 'global politics', drawing on themes from his latest book Hollow Hegemony: Rethinking Global Politics, Power and Resistance.
Even before the credit crunch it was commonplace to describe the world we live in as 'global', or to preface discussions with an acceptance that the world was rapidly 'globalising'. In his presentation, David Chandler will seek to question what it means politically to understand the world in global terms. Why is it that the world has become global? When did global consciousness develop and what does it express about ourselves and our social and political relationships? Why do we think of ourselves as global citizens, with global responsibilities? Can politics even exist in a global world? Or is global politics just nation-based politics writ large or does it express a very different normative content? About the Speaker  David Chandler is Professor of International Relations, Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster. He is the Editor of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, and author of numerous books on human rights, democracy and international relations, including: Bosnia: Faking Democracy After Dayton (2000); Constructing Global Civil Society (2004); From Kosovo to Kabul and Beyond (2005); and Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-Building (2006). Visit his website here.
Relevant Readings 'War Without End(s): Grounding Global War', by David Chandler from Security Dialogue, Vol. 40, No. 3 (2009). 'Demystifying Globalism', by Philip Hammond, Spiked Review of Books, Issue 27, September 2009.
Rethinking Freedom in the Age of Health and Safety A Battle of Ideas Satellite event produced by Leeds Salon October 2009, Leeds Civic Hall  ASBOs, bans on smoking and drinking in public places, the fight against obesity and regulation of school meals, parenting orders and the vetting of adults working with children and vulnerable people are only a few examples of the seemingly unstoppable rise of legislation and regulation designed to control people's behaviour in areas of personal and civic life that were previously free from state interference. In 2005 then Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged that only a few years before the British people would not have found these changes 'acceptable'. For example, interference in the family through parenting orders 'would have either seemed somewhat bizarre or dangerous and indeed there are still people who see this as an aspect of the nanny state, or that we are interfering with the rights of the individual.'
Yet the erosion of such 'individual rights' has proceeded unhampered and at increasing pace. For the most part, these developments are neither presented nor experienced as infringements on liberty, but rather as commonsense measures to improve the health, security and wellbeing of all. Is it really worth standing up for the right to smoke or drink wherever we please, to behave without consideration for others and to expose children to unnecessary risks? Should we welcome state guidance and regulation designed to help us lead healthy and happy lives? Or do we lose something when individuals must defer to a benevolent state? Are our political leaders exploiting 'health and safety' to impose laws and regulations that are incompatible with a democracy of free citizens, or are they just responding to popular demand? Can indeed citizens be free that value health and safety above all things? Are restrictions of individual liberties a price worth paying for the sake of our communal life, or might they actually harm civil society? Speakers  Cath Follin, City Centre Manager, Leeds City Council
 Dr Phil Hadfield, Senior Research Fellow at the School of Law, University of Leeds, author of Nightlife and Crime: Social Order and Governance in International Perspective, Oxford University Press, 2009 and Bar Wars: Contesting the Night in Contemporary British Cities, Oxford University Press, 2006, winner of the Hart Early Career Book Prize 2007.
 Dr Stuart Waiton, Sociology Lecturer at the University of Abertay Dundee, author of The Politics of Antisocial Behaviour: Amoral Panics, Routledge, 2008.
 Yvonne Crowther, Youth Manager, Cardinal Youth and Community Centre, South Leeds
Chair Dolan Cummings, editorial and research director of the Institute of Ideas, editor of Culture Wars. Readings 'Curbing loutish alcohol misuse', Alan Johnson MP, The Guardian Comment is Free, 31 August 2009 'Booze Bans - the new frontier of joyless regulation', Henry Porter, The Guardian Comment is Free, 28 June 2008 'Robbed by the police: alcohol confiscation and the hyperregulation of public space', Manifesto Club Report, June 2009 'The new face of law 'n' order', David Clements, Spiked Review of Books, January 2008
Energise! A Future for Energy Innovation July 2009, Leeds Metropolitan University  President Barack Obama has made energy and climate change the centrepiece of his programme to revive America's economy. China, India and the East want and need more energy. Meanwhile, Britain's shortage of electricity generation could bring about power cuts.
Energise! argues that you shouldn't feel guilty about your carbon footprint. The way to deal with global warming is to build a bigger, better energy supply , not to invite the state to meter your family's every use of energy at home and in the car. Taking an in-depth view of the past, present and future of energy and climate change, Energise! sets out a programme for innovation in nuclear, carbon-based and renewable energy. That programme is one in which governments and industry do what they are supposed to do: enable people to get on with their lives. Speaker  James Woudhuysen, Visiting Professor of Forecasting and Innovation at De Monfort University, writer and journalist, will be discussing Energise! A Future for Energy Innovation, by James Woudhuysen and Joe Kaplinsky (Beautiful Books, 2009).
From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy June 2009, Borders Bookshop  On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Rushdie fatwa, "From Fatwa to Jihad" tells, for the first time, the full story of this defining episode and explores its repercussions and resonance through to contemporary debates about Islam, terror, free speech and Western values. When a thousand Muslim protesters paraded through a British town with a copy of Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" before ceremoniously burning the book it was an act motivated by anger and offence as well as one calculated to shock and offend. It did more than that: the image of the burning book became an icon of the Muslim anger. Sent around the world by photographers and TV cameras, the image announced a new world. Twenty years later, the questions raised by the Rushdie Affair - Islam's relationship to the West, the meaning of multiculturalism, the limits of tolerance in a liberal society - have become some of the defining issues of our time. Taking the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa as his starting point, Kenan Malik examines how radical Islam has gained hold in Muslim communities, how multiculturalism contributed to this, and how the Rushdie affair transformed the very nature of the debate on tolerance and free speech.
Speaker  Kenan Malik, author of From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy, broadcaster and regular panellist on Radio 4’s The Moral Maze.
Book reviews, interviews and related articles After the Fatwa, the Free Speech Wars, Kenan Malik, spiked review of books, April 2009 Britain Since the Fatwa, Faisal Gazi, Guardian, 14 April 2009 Lisa Appignanesi, Independent, 10 April 2009 Marcus Dubois, politics.co.uk, 9 April 2009 Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times, 5 April 2009 Why the Fatwa is Still a Burning Issue, Robert McCrum, Observer, 5 April 2009 Stuart Kelly, Scotsman, 5 April 2009 Lindsay Jones, New Humanist, March-April 2009
Global Citizenship in the School Curriculum April 2009, Waterstones Bookshop  As the school curriculum in Britain and in the U.S. has changed from a subject-centred and national approach towards a child-centred and multicultural one, global citizenship - a new set of values to do with respecting the environment, diversity, and human rights – has been imposed on almost every subject and geography in particular.
For its supporters, the turn towards global citizenship represents a belated opening of education to the real problems facing the world. It is a change that has the potential to connect children’s lives to global problems and to show how, by modifying their lifestyles, individuals can contribute to the wellbeing of the planet and of humanity. For its critics, the teaching of global citizenship is a moralistic attempt at behaviour modification which undermines the integrity of school subjects and children’s understanding of the world. Far from creating better citizens, it fails to develop children’s capacity for autonomous judgment. Speakers  Alex Standish, Assistant Professor of Geography, Western Connecticut State University, author of Global Perspectives in the Geography Curriculum: Reviewing the Moral Case for Geography, (Routledge, 2009).
 Dr Vanessa Pupavac, Lecturuer in International Relations, School of Politics and International Relation, University of Nottingham, author of Children's Rights and the New Culture of Paternalism; The Disciplining of Desires and Emotions.
Interesting articles Keep ‘Global Issues’ Out of the Classroom, Spiked 18 Dec 2008 Geography lessons sacrificed in favour of trendy causes, Daily Telegraph 20 Jan 2009
|
