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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Richard Adams Education editor

England’s university free speech tsar says role is not to conduct ‘culture wars’

University students in university gowns
Arif Ahmed: ‘Free speech is too important to take any one political side.’ Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA

England’s newly appointed university free speech tsar says his role is not to conduct “culture wars” and has pledged to be politically neutral in his efforts to combat threats to academic freedom.

Arif Ahmed, a former philosophy professor at Cambridge University, said he would measure his success or failure by surveys of students and by the number of complaints made under procedures being created by the Office for Students (OfS), England’s higher education regulator.

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