LSE Law Visiting Professor in Practice Shami Chakrabarti is scheduled to speak at the upcoming Institute of Art and Ideas festival, HowTheLightGetsIn, in a talk entitled 'Privilege and Freedom' on Saturday 18 September 2021. The event will question freedom of ideas in university education:
"Education broadens the mind. Or it is certainly supposed to do so. Yet some now argue that university education is doing the reverse. First it was argued that the curriculum was dominated by a white male elite which was immune to critique. Now others contend a woke agenda of acceptable ideas prevails which cannot be challenged with risk to careers. Open debate they argue is out of the question.
Should we insist on the goal of a plural space in which no one view is dominant and no group silences their opponents? Or is university inevitably a right of passage that instills the current convention? At root is debate, and freedom to express any opinion, an essential part of a vibrant culture or an illusory ideal that is really a vehicle for privilege and prejudice?"
For further information about the event, click here