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Radio 4,16 Sep 2025,28 mins

Free Speech Wars

Universities Challenged

Available for over a year

Universities are in crisis. They're facing social and financial pressures that threaten to undermine the foundations they're built on, maybe even their very existence. Sophia Smith Galer won Celebrity University Challenge last year as part of the Durham team. As the first in her family to go to university she's a big fan of higher education. But she's got some big questions. In this second episode of Universities Challenged she explores how universities are handling free speech wars on campus. Interviews with students and academics reveal competing visions of tolerance as the principles of academic freedom clash with institutional policies and student activism. Are these highly publicised disputes undermining the credibility of universities as places of open inquiry and debate? How much damage are they causing the university sector as a whole? Does everyone get the chance to speak freely – and if not, what’s being done about it? Presenter: Sophia Smith Galer Producer: Lucy Burns & Claire Bates Sound: Gareth Jones Editor: Nick Holland

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