No platform
Think tank: HEPI
Author(s): Josh Freeman
October 13, 2022
This report from UK think tank HEPI looks at speaker events at university debating unions and examines concerns about bias and no-platforming.
The new research by Josh Freeman, published as No Platform: Speaker Events at University Debating Unions (HEPI Report 153), is based on statistical analysis of student events and interviews with student organisers to examine concerns about bias and no-platforming. The report investigates speaker events at the LSE and Cambridge that received national media attention and uncovers new cases of cancelled or contested events. The report also exposes the issue of ‘quiet’ no-platforming, the pre-emptive cancelling of events for fear of attracting controversy, which it argues is a more pervasive problem than no-platforming in its traditional form.
