Defending the Right to Dissent
Responding to the UK Government’s Interventions in Education
In its latest attempt to control intellectual and academic autonomy, the UK government released guidance in September banning the use of educational materials that contain “extreme political stances.” Amongst them is a ban on the use of materials from groups that have “a publicly stated desire to abolish or overthrow democracy, capitalism, or to end free and fair elections.” Many organisations, teachers, and university lecturers throughout the country believe this guidance to be problematic, since it misrepresents important subjects such as critical race theory and also stunts critical thinking by disallowing analytical voices. This ban means that materials from many groups such as Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion are unusable in formal education, given that they explicitly link the perpetuation of racism and environmental degradation to capitalism. In other words, two of the most important contemporary movements against inequality - a movement fighting to end systemic racial oppression and a movement fighting to save our planet - are not allowed to be taught in their entirety in schools.
By placing democracy and capitalism together, the wording in the guidelines suggests a correlation between the two – that those who express anti-capitalist thought are also attempting to overthrow democracy. Which, let’s be clear, they are not. Capitalism and democracy are not one in the same. This linkage between the two is therefore misleading and potentially harmful in educational settings and beyond. Furthermore, anti-capitalism has been bundled up with guidance which bans the use of materials that endorse racism, anti-semitism, illegal activity, and opposition to free speech.
A growing group of over six hundred academic signatories have signed an open letter to the British government, which describes the guidelines as ‘part of a broader pattern of creeping authoritarianism, building on previous surveillance measures in the classroom, including Prevent. That it has been introduced in the guise of sex and relationship education guidelines is no accident. Section 28 reminds us how effective ‘family values’ moralism can be at limiting young people’s access to knowledge, with particularly detrimental effects for women, queer and trans students.
While the guidelines are specifically in reference to the teaching of relationships, sex, and health, what they represent is even more important. From a government supposedly committed to the guarantee of free speech, such guidance is a glaring attempt at censorship. Given the relationship between reproduction and capitalism and the role of feminised, often hidden forms of labour in maintaining the system, the significance of this censorship is more than it first appears. Comparisons of this latest intervention into school education have been made with 1950s McCarthyism which came to permeate every area of American life but began, in part, as an attack within the halls of institutes of learning and free thought.
It is difficult not to see such a decision on the part of the UK government as a preemptive move to stifle growing collective dissent. The guidance comes at a time of turmoil as protests ring out globally on issues of politics, racism, environmental degradation, and financial destabilisation. A growing collective consciousness is beginning to question whether our government really has our best interests at heart or whether its sole purpose is to push forward an economic agenda. As is clear from the guidance, it is the latter.
Similarly with the ban of “promoting divisive or victim narratives that are harmful to British society”, the government is attempting to control what students learn which has resulted only in the creation of an unaware populace. The purpose of education in a democracy should not be to promote a political agenda or rewrite history but to grant students the right to all angles of an issue so as to promote critical understanding. Surely the basis for democracy is an ability to question the government and the systems it promotes.
Alpa Shah, a professor of Anthropology at the LSE, was one of the many who have found the latest guidelines concerning: “The rise of authoritarian regimes around the world – whether in Hungary or India – has gone hand-in-hand with the severe curtailments of academic freedom at the heart of which is what is taught in schools and in universities. That we see such repression of educational freedom coming to our doorstep is deeply concerning for it threatens our ability to dissent which has to be at the heart of any democracy.”
Among the groups standing in opposition to the guidance are the National Education Union, the Coalition on Anti-Racist Educators, and the Black Educators Alliance. Now members of the LSE community can rally around their cries as educators and students have joined hands to form The Coalition for Educational Autonomy in response to the latest guidelines.
The group is composed of members from various walks of life, disciplines, and ideologies who have come together under a mutual understanding of the importance to protect the autonomy of academic thought. It is essential that we, the people, reserve the right to question and disagree with our government on issues of such importance as censorship – especially when it impacts the ability to perform dissent. The Coalition has organised a zoom event which will include speakers from Turkey, India, South Africa and the U.K. followed by an open discussion about next steps
You can read more about the U.K. school guidelines here. Should you be interested in joining The Coalition for Educational Autonomy please reach out to coforedautonomy@gmail.com. To participate in the zoom event please sign-up here.
Words by Maeve Pages
Artwork and photography by Andrew Craig