England’s university free speech tsar says role is not to conduct ‘culture wars’

Arif Ahmed pledges to remain politically neutral in his role and to ensure academic freedoms are maintained

England's newly appointed university free speech tsar says his role is not to conduct culture wars" and has pledged to be politically neutral in his efforts to combat threats to academic freedom.

Arif Ahmed, a former philosophy professor at Cambridge University, said he would measure his success or failure by surveys of students and by the number of complaints made under procedures being created by the Office for Students (OfS), England's higher education regulator.