{"id":45705,"date":"2026-03-03T11:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T11:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=45705"},"modified":"2026-03-03T11:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T11:38:11","slug":"worried-about-freedom-of-speech-then-whats-happening-at-the-open-university-should-terrify-you-owen-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=45705","title":{"rendered":"Worried about freedom of speech? Then what\u2019s happening at the Open University should terrify you | Owen Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"

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T<\/span>he west is in the midst of the most serious assault on free speech and academic freedom since the heyday of McCarthyism seven decades ago. For years, we were told the danger came from the left: oversensitive students, censorious activists, no-platforming zealots. Yet the most aggressive and successful campaign to police speech in our public institutions is being waged by cheerleaders of a state currently committing genocide.<\/p>\n

Consider a recent case. Last December, a pro-Israel lobby group, UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), celebrated another apparent victory. It describes its mission as contributing \u201cgenerally as lawyers to creating a supportive climate of opinion in the United Kingdom towards Israel\u201d. In practice, this has meant lawfare, directed not only at pro-Palestinian activism, but at the public existence of Palestinian identity itself.<\/p>\n

The offence this time? The Open University\u2019s use of the term \u201cancient Palestine\u201d to describe the birthplace of the Virgin Mary, which UKLFI argued was \u201chistorically inaccurate\u201d. More than that, they argued it risked erasing \u201cJewish historical identity\u201d, potentially breaching the Equality Act 2010 by creating \u201ca hostile or offensive learning environment for Jewish and Israeli students\u201d.<\/p>\n

The OU\u2019s Palestine Solidarity Group responded with a freedom of information request to see how their institution had handled the complaint. The reply from the OU <\/strong>was clear. \u201cAncient Palestine\u201d was \u201cacademically appropriate\u201d. The fifth-century BC Greek historian Herodotus used the term Palestine to describe a region broader than that acknowledged by UKLFI. While the lobby group insisted Mary was born in the \u201cpredominantly Jewish region\u201d of Galilee, the university noted that there is no academic consensus that Mary existed at all, still less where she was born.<\/p>\n

That should have been the end of the matter. But instead, the OU conceded that \u201cassociations of this term with Roman colonial rule and with the contemporary political context require us to think about the meaning of the term to current and future students\u201d. Academics did not \u201cwant the use of the term to imply or be read as a comment on the conflict between Israel and Palestine\u201d, it added. In response to the UKLFI complaint, staff accepted that \u201cthe term is now problematic in a way that, perhaps, it was not when the materials were written in 2018\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/span>A Solidarity for Palestine student encampment at Leeds University, 3 May 2024. Photograph: Gary Calton\/The Observer<\/span> Photograph: Gary Calton\/The Observer<\/p>\n

And so, despite affirming the term\u2019s historical accuracy, the OU agreed to \u201cnot use the term \u2018ancient Palestine\u2019 in any future course materials\u201d, and to \u201cexplain and contextualise its use in existing materials for current learners\u201d. Last month, staff received an internal bulletin confirming the university had \u201cagreed to change references to \u2018Ancient Palestine\u2019\u201d, complete with a link to the UKLFI\u2019s triumphant press release: \u201cOpen University agrees to change use of \u2018ancient Palestine\u2019 following UKLFI intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strip away the bureaucratic phrasing and the picture is stark. A university accepted that a historically accurate term would be removed from future teaching because a partisan lobbying organisation objected to its claimed contemporary political resonance. \u201cThis is a despicable attempt by political hacks to dictate academic terminology,\u201d says the esteemed historian Rashid Khalidi, author of The Hundred Years\u2019 War on Palestine. \u201cEvery reputable history covering periods from ancient history to the present uses the term \u2018Palestine,\u2019 including scores of works by distinguished Israeli scholars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enter the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, introduced by the last Conservative government amid warnings that leftwing activists were strangling academic debate. The act imposes a duty on universities to secure lawful freedom of speech, even where that speech \u201cmay be offensive or hurtful to some\u201d.<\/p>\n

The OU had landed themselves in a mess. When the Palestine Solidarity Group argued that censoring an academically defensible term on the grounds that it was politically \u201cproblematic\u201d violated the 2023 legislation, the vice-chancellor circulated a clarifying note: the university stood by academic freedom. The school would continue using the term, albeit with \u201can additional contextual note to support students\u2019 understanding of differing perspectives\u201d. His statement failed to say whether this change was a response to the intervention by a partisan lobby group.<\/p>\n

In response to my questions, the university insisted that the controversy only applied to one module, that academic teams had reviewed its use of \u201cancient Palestine\u201d, and concluded it was academically appropriate and thus no change would be made, except for this \u201cshort contextual note\u201d. Yet they also claim not to have retracted any commitment made to UKLFI \u2013 which, remember, referred to \u201cany future course materials\u201d \u2013 and maintained that \u201cno external organisation determines our curriculum content\u201d. It is difficult, to say the least, to reconcile their public statements with the commitments they made to UKLFI.<\/p>\n

This is just one example of UKLFI\u2019s assault on Palestinian identity, past and present. Months before Israel\u2019s genocide began, Chelsea and Westminster hospital removed a display of artwork by Palestinian children after a complaint by UKLFI claimed it made Jewish patients feel \u201cvulnerable, harassed and victimised\u201d. A pro-Palestinian concert planned at Morley College in London was cancelled after a UKLFI complaint in 2024. The group also sought to cancel the Falastin film festival in Scotland.<\/p>\n

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is now investigating a complaint alleging that eight of UKLFI\u2019s letters \u201cdemonstrate a seeming pattern of vexatious and legally baseless correspondence aimed at silencing and intimidating Palestine solidarity efforts\u201d. Whatever the outcome of that investigation, the wider context is impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n

Across the Atlantic, Donald Trump is suing universities and slashing their funding on the pretext that they have allowed antisemitism to flourish on campus \u2013 when in reality the trigger has been pro-Palestinian protests, including those led and supported by Jewish students. His administration has sought to deport students opposed to the genocide.<\/p>\n

Across the western world, those expressing solidarity with Palestinians have been deplatformed, sacked, beaten by police and arrested. In Britain, the government proscribed the direct-action group Palestine Action; the high court later ruled the proscription unlawful, after nearly 3,000 people had been arrested for holding supportive placards.<\/p>\n

This is the real crisis of free speech in the west. The target is not just protest, but a people. Israel seeks to erase Palestinians as a society. First they are destroyed in the present. Then they are deleted from the past.<\/p>\n