My name is Noah Carl, and I’m a young academic from the UK. In the summer of 2018, I was given a job at St Edmund’s College in the University of Cambridge, following a rigorous application process involving over 900 applicants. However, just two months into my three-year fellowship, a group of student and academic activists complained to the college about my appointment. Their complaints were malicious, and were clearly motivated by ideological opposition to some of my work. The activists made sweeping, unsubstantiated claims, and they never tried to hear my side of the story .

At this point, you might have expected St Edmund’s College to come out in defence of my academic freedom. After all, the whole point of university is to explore controversial topics, and debate controversial ideas. Instead, they launched two "investigations": one into me personally, and one into their own appointment process. These investigations lasted for five whole months. During this time, I was told not to talk to the media, and not to enter the college without prior notice.