| When Graffiti Replaces Argument: Scotland’s Struggle With Free Inquiry |
In any healthy society, a lecture hall should be a place of light, a space where questions are asked without fear and ideas are tested by reason, not punished by rage. Yet in Dundee last week, that light was dimmed by yellow paint.
A simple criminology lecture at Abertay University became a national spectacle. Dr Stuart Waiton, joined by Marsha Sturgeon of Justice for Innocent Men Scotland (JIMS), spoke about how Scotland’s evidentiary laws, the Moorov Doctrine and the restrictions under Sections 274 and 275, can convict a man on similarity rather than on solid proof. It was not a rally. There were no slogans or provocations. It was a discussion about evidence: what can be heard, and what is forbidden.
For daring to question how evidence is silenced, a wall near the university was soon marked with two yellow words: RAPIST SYMPATHISER. The mob, it seems, delivered its own Section 275, truth ruled inadmissible, inquiry struck from the record.
The vandal did not enter the classroom, ask a question, cite a source, or offer a fact. They reached instead for a spray can and declared their verdict. The university, rather than defending its lecturer, reached for platitude, a statement that the “views expressed” did not reflect institutional values. In other words, silence dressed as virtue. This is what fear looks like when it calls itself sensitivity. It is the slow, cowardly death of discourse.
Neither Dr Waiton nor JIMS campaigns against victims. They ask whether justice still belongs to evidence. That should not be dangerous speech; it should be a civic duty. Yet a compliant press and a chorus of social-media enforcers cast them as heretics: “rape apologists”, “controversial men’s group”, labels meant not to inform but to destroy.
The test of justice is not how we treat the guilty, but how we treat the accused. If innocence can be buried beneath slogans, then guilt has become a matter of popularity. When compassion turns into censorship, it ceases to be compassion at all; it becomes tyranny in sentimental form.
The graffiti is being scrubbed away, but its message lingers. To the students who saw it appear, and then saw their university fall silent, the lesson was unmistakable: there are questions you must not ask, truths you must not test, and if you forget, the mob will remind you. That lesson will last longer than the paint. It is how fear teaches obedience while pretending to teach morality.
The remedy for ignorance is not outrage but daylight. Let the next lecture be open, filmed, questioned, challenged. Invite those who disagree to speak, not to shout. Let evidence contend with evidence, and let reason do the work that anger cannot. If an argument is wrong, scrutiny will undo it. If it is right, it deserves to stand. Either way, truth is never found in paint.
Scotland once gave the world David Hume, who warned us never to mistake conviction for certainty. He would weep to see his country now mistaking emotion for evidence. The tragedy here is not the act of one anonymous vandal, but the indifference of those who know better, the journalists who repeat the slander, the politicians who hide behind silence, the administrators who apologise for allowing a discussion to occur.
A society that cannot tolerate inquiry has already chosen superstition over science. And when the lecture hall becomes as fearful as the courtroom, we all stand trial for cowardice. The wall may have been painted by one hand, but the stain belongs to all who stay quiet. Justice does not die in one great blow; it dies in small retreats, each time a citizen decides that truth is someone else’s problem.
If we still believe in fairness, in evidence, in reason and open debate, then now is the time to prove it, not by shouting, and not by silence, but by standing where others have been told not to stand. The courts exist to decide guilt. But the courage to defend truth, that duty still rests with us.