Without freedom of speech, you do not have a university. More than any other value, it is freedom of speech that most defines the university, that makes it a special place in society set aside for debate and inquiry in which speech and thought should be freer than in practically any other workplace or institution.

And yet an alarming proportion of students seem not to have got the memo. A new study by the Policy Institute at King’s College London confirms what has been clear for some time: that today’s students, far from being rebellious free-thinkers, are if anything more supportive of censorship than the general population.

The numbers are pretty stark. Forty-one per cent of students believe that academics who ‘teach material that offends some students’ should be fired, compared to just 25 per cent of the general public. Similarly, 39 per cent of students believe that students’ unions should ‘ban all speakers that may cause offence’, compared to just 26 per cent of the general public.

The notion that even discussing bigoted ideas risks legitimising them is also alarmingly mainstream on campus. Forty-six per cent of students believe that ‘if you debate an issue like sexism or racism you make it acceptable’. This is essentially a blank cheque for censorship, based on the conviction that people are too easily led to even be exposed to obnoxious ideas.

On all of these questions, a plurality of students side, essentially, with censorship – only around 30 per cent of students disagree with any of these statements. This is the crucial context to the never-ending stories of campus censorship. Whether it is the hounding of Kathleen Stock or the No Platforming of ‘Islamophobic’ speakers – in each case, an alarming number of students will think ‘fair enough’ when they see such censorship. And while ban-happy SU bureaucrats hardly represent all students, we’d be foolish not to take this ideological drift away from free speech among students seriously.

The danger, of course, is that this takes the form of boomerish hectoring – of greying columnists demanding to know why young people aren’t what they used to be. But aside from this tending to alienate those we should hope to win over, this also tends to let older generations off the hook. These illiberal ideas didn’t come from nowhere. These students didn’t emerge from the womb with a predisposition to censorship. They’ve been socialised into a society that sees free speech as dangerous.

Take the great awokening of the British police. It should be little wonder that students’ union officials are clamping down on ‘offensive’ speech when literally thousands of people have been arrested in recent years for posting ‘offensive’ things on the internet. And this wasn’t the work of millennials, working their way through the ranks – restrictions on ‘hate speech’ of one kind or another have been on the British statute books for decades.

We conceded the principle on freedom of speech a long time ago in this country. So much so that even nominally pro-freedom politicians are apparently incapable of defending it as an indivisible liberty. When the government introduced its Free Speech Bill in 2021, then universities minister Michelle Donelan was slapped down for suggesting that Holocaust deniers should be allowed to speak on campus. Boris Johnson’s spokesman quickly made clear that this wasn’t government policy.

It should go without saying that Holocaust deniers are odious racists. But the lot of the free-speech advocate is occasionally having to stick up for the rights of odious racists. You either support free speech for all or for none at all. Plus, what constitutes ‘hate speech’ is very much in the eye of the beholder. Having failed to hold the line on freedom of speech, politicians and commentators can hardly now act surprised that a younger generation is demanding the censorship of a new set of ideas and speakers who they deem wrong and hateful.

Where did these censorious youngsters come from? It’s really quite simple. They were born into a society that has lost faith in freedom of speech.