Discussion – The Politics of University Speech

On 2nd March 2026 by Mark Walters

Tuesday 2 June 2026, 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm BST, London, UK

 

About the Talk:

Universities, we are told, are too politicized. In this paper, I aim to identify when, and how, universities can and must take political positions. I articulate a democratic trust-based theory of university autonomy, and I explain what kind of political restraint this commits universities to. I then examine how political restraint interacts with academic freedom and freedom of speech. I aim to argue that, properly conceived, the duty of political restraint limits the speech of universities, but not the speech in universities.

About the Speaker:

Cécile Laborde holds the Nuffield Chair of Political Theory at the University of Oxford and is a Fellow of the British Academy. She is the author of Pluralist Thought and the State (2000), Critical Republicanism (2008) and Liberalism’s Religion (2017), which was published by Harvard University Press and won the 2019 Spitz Prize. Her work on republicanism, non-domination, secularism, and religion has appeared in leading journals such as Journal of Political Philosophy, American Political Science Review, Law and Philosophy, Legal Theory, Politics, Philosophy and Economics, Aristotelian Society Proceedings, European Journal of Political Theory, Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy.

 

Find more information and book your free place here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/events/2026/jun/politics-university-speech

This event will be held at UCL Faculty of Laws, 4-8 Endsleigh Gardens, London, UK.