Amber alert: City’s free speech ranking FALLS an entire grade – but is it all bad?

City University’s Free Speech University Ranking (FSUR) has been downgraded from ‘green’ to ‘amber’ this year.

This is due to “City University London and City University Students’ Union collectively creating an environment that chills free speech”, according to FSUR analysis, which is carried out by online magazine spiked!

The FSUR highlights the university’s ‘Code of Practice on Freedom of Speech’, which allows for the cancelling of university events if the speaker or topics are “highly controversial and will definitely attract adverse media attention”.

However, the ranking also criticises the Student Union’s ‘Safe Space Policy’, which prohibits the use of discriminatory language on campus, and the ‘Alcohol Code of Conduct for Sport Policy’, which bans any chanting at City sports events which could be “interpreted as racist, sexist, disablist, homophobic or in any way discriminatory and harmful”. This last policy has been labelled a ‘red action’ by the FSUR due to its “specific nature”.

It was noted that the Union’s recent policy against lad culture, passed in the AGM in November, will be taken into account in next year’s ranking.

However, the SU states in the Safe Space policy that they will implement a “zero-tolerance” approach to discrimination and harassment in order to have a university “where staff and students can speak freely without fear of prejudice, and with equality of voice”.

Other policies FSUR considers in its rankings are bullying and harassment policies, equal opportunities, and no-platforming policies.

The FSUR University assesses 115 institutions, of which 63 were deemed to have the worst ‘red’ ranking – including thirteen London universities like UCL, Goldsmiths and King’s.

40 universities shared City’s ‘amber’ ranking, and only twelve were given ‘green’.

City’s Safe Space policy will come up for review in December this year.