Vice-chancellors group study calls for colleges not to proscribe controversial speakers and help defend free speech
Vice-chancellors should reject demands to ban controversial speakers and "engage with, rather than proscribe" extreme political views on campus, a report from a working group on campus extremism is expected to say.
The inquiry is also likely to reject suggestions that universities should vet the past affiliations of students or visiting speakers.
The report, published by Universities UK, the umbrella group for vice-chancellors, is likely to fuel accusations that universities are complacent about radicalisation.
A source familiar with the report said it would make a robust defence of academic freedom. "We're not talking about 'no platform'. It is better to engage than to proscribe. If you object to someone's views it is best to do it in a confined and legally protected area rather than pushing them to the sidelines."
The source said speakers who made remarks that broke the law could be prosecuted. The report is expected to emphasise the distinction between remarks that could trigger prosecution and controversial views. "If someone is saying all Jews should perish, that's inciting hatred; if someone is fundamentally opposed to Israeli foreign policy, that's a view," the source said.
Universities will be urged to confront "aberrant" behaviour among students and refer it to the police. While the report will focus on Islamist radicalisation, it will also encompass animal rights extremism and the far right.
The report has been drawn up by a working group of eight vice-chancellors led by Malcolm Grant, provost of University College London. It was set up in response to the arrest of former UCL student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who was charged with attempting to blow up a passenger plane over Detroit.
The report is expected to emphasise how seriously universities take their responsibility for the security of students, alongside obligations to promote free speech and academic freedom.
A separate inquiry published last year found no evidence that Abdulmutallab adopted extremist views while studying engineering at UCL. It also said there was no evidence that conditions at the university were "conducive to the radicalisation of students".However, the report expressed concern that the student union did not affiliate societies based in individual departments of the university.
It added: "Moreover, we understand that UCL publishes no guidance to departments on the operation of such societies and that there is no central record of them."
Arrangements for pastoral care varied greatly across departments, and mechanical engineering, where Abdulmutallab was based, had a "hands-off" approach, the report found.
Abdulmutallab is the third student or former student of UCL to be charged with offences of this kind.
James Brandon of Quilliam, a counter-extremism thinktank, said at the time: "Muslim students at some UK universities are often at very real risk of being recruited into extremism. Sadly UCL's insubstantial and incomplete inquiry makes it more likely that extremists will continue to manipulate such vulnerable people and misuse students' youthful idealism for their own violent ends."
The government has started to withdraw state cash from groups that had previously been funded to reach young Muslims at risk of being drawn to terrorist networks. Tougher criteria are being applied, with hundreds of thousands of pounds being withdrawn from specific groups after it was deemed they were too soft on extremism. The change in strategy was under way as David Cameron made a speech calling for a "muscular liberalism" to confront home-grown terrorism.