A row over free speech has erupted after a talk by alt-right journalist Milo Yiannopoulos, the controversial Trump supporter at his former school was cancelled over fear of protests. Parents and pupils have been angered by this censorship by a “counter extremism unit.”
How much better it would have been for sixth-formers at Simon Langton Grammar School to hear this former pupil in the company of teachers and parents who know them and who will hear for themselves his address and share with their sons and pupils their responses.
How much worse now that the boys will have to hear from him, indirectly, possibly presented less than objectively or in circumstances where other forces and pressures may be brought to bear.
At the school this speaker would have been faced with and compared to the ideals that perhaps he once embraced. What a disgrace that officialdom has interfered where responsible parents and caring teachers clearly work together well.
Far better that a greater effort is made to enforce the banning from the classroom of the teachers involved in the Trojan Horse plot in Birmingham. Yesterday’s Sunday times reported their continuing to teach.
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