(CHRISTIAN TODAY) – The new head of the University of Oxford has spoken out in support of extremist groups being allowed to speak on campus.
Professor Louise Richardson, an Irish political scientist who specialises in terrorism and who was formerly at the University of St Andrew's in Scotland, said students need to be allowed to hear extremist views to help them think about how to challenge "objectionable" ideas.
Richardson, who is the first woman to be vice-chancellor at Oxford, said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph: "We need to expose our students to ideas that make them uncomfortable so that they can think about why it is that they feel uncomfortable and what it is about those ideas that they object to.
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"And then to have the practice of framing a response and using reason to counter these objectionable ideas and to try to change the other person's mind and to be open to having their own minds changed."
