The "War on Terror" on Campus: Some Free Speech Issues around Anti-Radicalization Law and Policy in the United Kingdom

Introduction

The suggestion that universities in the United Kingdom might provide useful environments for nurturing a younger generation of violent Islamists has gained credibility in recent times. Consider the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was arrested on Christmas Day 2009 for allegedly attempting to detonate a bomb sewn into his underwear shortly before Northwest Airlines Flight 253 was due to land in Detroit. Abdulmutallab had been an engineering and business finance student at University College London (UCL) between 2005 and 2008.¹ Speculation in the U.K. media has centered upon whether he may have been radicalized during his time at UCL or whether this occurred subsequently during time Abdulmutallab spent in Yemen.² For its part, the Cameron government has publicly concluded that the student was indeed radicalized during his UCL days.³ Whilst Abdulmutallab was waiting trial in the United States, Roshonara Choudhry, a former student at King's College London, was convicted of the attempted murder of Labour MP Stephen Timms at his weekly constituency surgery. Choudhry said that she had stabbed the MP because he supported the Iraq war.⁴ According to police interview records, however, rather than being radicalized at college, it was Choudhry's perception that Kings College "worked against Muslims" that led her to leave the college.⁵ The interview record indicates that she was inspired by Internet videos posted on YouTube by radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Prior to the cases of Abdulmutallab and Choudhry, two members of the group convicted in 2006 of conspiring to cause explosions in the so-called dirty bomb plot that was targeted at U.S. financial institutions and underground car parks in U.K. locations were revealed to have previously studied at Brunel and Westminster Universities.⁶

Unsurprisingly, such connections between alleged or convicted terrorists and higher education institutions in the United Kingdom have prompted the government and its advisers to question whether enough is being done by universities to monitor the activities of suspected extremist organizations and individuals in their midst. Lord Carlile of Berriew, the Coalition government's Independent Reviewer of Counterterrorism Law and Policy, has accused universities of being "slow or even reluctant to recognise their full responsibilities" in the face of "unambiguous evidence" of radicalizing activities.⁷ Although acknowledging an ideal of student academic freedom ("students have the right to assess, discuss and test [sometime to destruction] ideas and ideologies"⁸), Lord Carlile asserts that universities owe a duty of care to staff and students, and that a clear duty to take "appropriate action" will arise where there is a reasonable concern that the student is "tending towards extremist activity."⁹ This duty of care might be thought to include, inter alia, the monitoring of students' essays by tutors for evidence of Islamic extremism. Unfortunately, however, Lord Carlile fails to offer principled arguments to support the claim that university staff ought to undertake a surveillance role on behalf of the security services. Nonetheless, his remarks are at one with sentiments expressed by the Prime Minister, who told the House of Commons in December 2010,

[W]e have not done enough to deal with the promotion of extremist Islamism in our own country. Whether it is making sure that imams coming over to this country can speak English properly, or whether it is making sure that we de-radicalise our universities, we have to take a range of further steps, and I am going to be working hard to make sure that we do.¹⁰

Of course, official concerns about the phenomena of Islamic radicalization are not confined to the United Kingdom. In the United States a congressional inquiry conducted by the Homeland Security Committee is currently investigating the extent of radicalization among Muslims resident in U.S. communities. Prompted by growing concerns of "homegrown terrorism,"¹¹ some on the Committee, including its Republican chair Peter King (NY), have accused Muslim community leaders of failing to promote cooperation with state police forces and the FBI in counterterrorism investigations.¹² The Obama administration published its...