ABSTRACT
This chapter provides context for the implementation of the ‘no platform’ policy by the National Union of Students in the mid-1970s by situating this policy within a longer history of the student movement in Britain from the mid-1960s onwards. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, students protested against several controversial speakers who were deemed to be racist or fascist, including Conservative MPs Enoch Powell and Patrick Wall, as well as psychologist Hans Eysenck and academic Samuel Huntington. These various incidents caused politicians and the media to claim that students were being intolerant and totalitarian-like in their treatment of opposing views, although students argued that racism and fascism were not wanted on campus. This chapter highlights that ‘no platform’ followed a massive upsurge in student radicalism in the decade prior to its implementation and needs to be seen against this background of increasing hostility towards racism and fascism at the time.
