British students ban "Blurred Lines" from their own universities

The instinct behind the Edinburgh union’s banning of Blurred Lines is the same one that has motored every act of censorship in history: a paternalistic urge to keep the little people’s base motives in check by protecting them from sexy, blasphemous, or shocking imagery.

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Other student unions have followed Edinburgh’s authoritarian lead. The union at Leeds University banned Blurred Lines on the basis that it “degrades women.” Kingston University in London has banned it due to “the disrespectful nature of the lyrics.” If universities only play songs with respectful lyrics, what will happen to gangsta rap, the Sex Pistols, the Velvet Underground, death metal, or any other musical genre that broaches the old chestnuts of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll?

Student leaders’ intolerant war on Blurred Lines fits a depressing pattern in modern British university life. In the UK, as in other parts of the Western world, students have become extraordinarily censorious in recent years, seeking to obliterate from campuses any song, book, newspaper or person that has the temerity to offend their sensibilities.

Various British student unions have banned Eminem’s songs (they’re homophobic and misogynistic, apparently); the tabloid newspaper, The Sun (because it has a naked woman on Page 3, and men and women over the age of 18 can’t possibly be exposed to tits); and right-wing or Zionist speakers—numerous unions have “No Platform” policies, which means they forbid inviting far-right or Zionist spokespeople to take part in debates on campus.

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