Freedom of speech in universities is currently an issue of widespread concern and debate. Recent empirical findings in the UK shed some light on whether speech is unduly restricted in the university, but it suffers from two limitations. First, the results appear contradictory. Some studies show that the issue of free speech is overblown by media reportage, whilst others track serious concerns about free speech arising from certain university policies. Second, the findings exclude important issues concerning restrictions to speech on campus that fall outside the traditional debate around violations to free speech rights. This is particularly the case when certain voices are excluded from important policy conversations, and in issues around diversifying the curriculum. This article overcomes these two limitations by developing a novel conceptual framework within which to situate current debates concerning speech-related matters in universities. It does so by developing a taxonomy around the concept of ‘silencing’. It then considers the current issue of speech matters in universities within this framework to determine whether, and to what extent, speech is indeed unduly restricted, and where this is a concern for free speech violations, and where it falls outside this issue.

中文翻译：

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英国高等教育的沉默和言论自由

大学的言论自由是目前普遍关注和争论的问题。英国最近的实证研究结果揭示了大学中是否对言论进行了不当限制，但它受到两个限制。首先，结果似乎矛盾。一些研究表明，媒体报道夸大了言论自由的问题，而另一些研究则追踪了某些大学政策引起的对言论自由的严重担忧。其次，调查结果排除了关于校园言论限制的重要问题，这些问题不属于围绕侵犯言论自由权利的传统辩论。当某些声音被排除在重要的政策对话之外，以及围绕课程多样化的问题时，情况尤其如此。本文通过开发一个新的概念框架来克服这两个限制，在该框架中定位当前大学中与语音相关的问题的辩论。它通过围绕“沉默”的概念开发分类法来实现。然后在此框架内考虑当前大学中的言论问题，以确定言论是否确实受到不当限制以及在多大程度上受到不当限制，以及这在哪些方面是侵犯言论自由的问题，以及在哪些方面不属于该问题。