Click here to read the article
Irene Tracey, Oxford University’s vice-chancellor, will tonight open a discussion in the city’s vast Sheldonian Theatre on whether “cancel culture” is “a threat to free expression”. Staging a public debate on the issue of cancellation can only be applauded. Yet it overlooks the silent elephant in the room. For, as Sir Tom Stoppard has memorably put it, the problem is “not so much cancellation as self-cancellation”. Or, more exactly, it’s the social and professional pressure that discourages staff and students from daring to associate with “problematic” figures.
Nigel Biggar, The Times, 20th October 2025.