Speakers Denied A Platform
Harold Macmillan called the Oxford Union "the last bastion of free speech in the Western world", a quotation which continues to feature prominently in the Union's publicity. However, the Union's commitment to free speech has not enabled it to resist pressure to deny platforms to controversial speakers.
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Famous quotes containing the words speakers, denied and/or platform:
“The most striking aspect of linguistic competence is what we may call the ‘creativity of language,’ that is, the speaker’s ability to produce new sentences, sentences that are immediately understood by other speakers although they bear no physical resemblance to sentences which are ‘familiar.’”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“Tom took his whipping and went back to his seat not at all broken-hearted, for he thought it was possible that he had unknowingly upset the ink on the spelling-book himself, in some skylarking bout—he had denied it for form’s sake and because it was custom, and had stuck to the denial from principle.”
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“... a Christian has neither more nor less rights in our association than an atheist. When our platform becomes too narrow for people of all creeds and of no creeds, I myself cannot stand upon it.”
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