A bitter row over free speech and antisemitism is an example of the ugly disputes over Israel affecting Jewish students

On the face of it, Leeds student union looks much like any other – torn posters advertising the summer ball with Florence and the Machine, a very 80s restaurant called the Mezz serving tofu burgers and nachos, and students revising for the end of year exams in a mood of heightened hysteria. But behind the deceptive calm of student life, a full-scale battle is being waged between the de facto president of the student union, Jak Codd, and the editor of the student paper, the Leeds Student, Virginia Newman.

An interview by Laura McKenzie was published in the Leeds Student with a 21-year-old Palestinian journalist named Sameh Habeeb, who claimed to have worked as a journalist and blogger for the BBC and CNN during the 2008 conflict in Gaza. In this article, he complained about the mainstream media not publishing his work. When asked by McKenzie if he felt that the editors of those papers had a hidden agenda, he replied:

"They are certainly pro-Israeli. I think you have to ask yourself who controls the media."

This comment was not challenged or even followed up by the student journalist, but left to stand alone. A mistakes she now acknowledges.

Enter Codd, who read the comment as that long-running trope of antisemitism that it is "the Jews who control the media" and decided, after an intense argument with Newman, to suspend distribution of the paper in the union until the offending sentence was blacked out with magic marker. Newman agreed initially to this "Blue Peter" form of censorship, but then decided it was against the principles of free speech. Now, the whole matter has gone into an internal investigation with the university authorities and the NUJ.

But behind these overly dramatic and possibly naive scenes in Leeds is the serious and troubling issue of what it means to be Jewish on a British university campus in 2010. What is extraordinary is that no one on the student paper thought to challenge or even see the wider ramifications of Habeeb's comments about media ownership or, indeed, question the wisdom of not including a suitable waiver. Neither the journalist nor the editor apparently realised that it might upset or offend the Jewish students at Leeds.

And then, in the mix, there is the issue of press censorship and, indeed, censorship of any kind. Recent attempts to ban the radical academics Azzam Tamini and Benny Morris from speaking at British universities bear witness to this subsidiary aspect of the conflict.

When I questioned other students at Leeds for the Guardian's Sounds Jewish podcast, they were obviously appalled by the notion of antisemitism in their student paper. But many were even more worried at the precedent of a union officer acting as a witchfinder general and abridging free speech on campus.

I tend to agree with the main student body that censorship is never an intelligent or desirable way to deal with unacceptable viewpoints. Free speech is, after all, the cornerstone of democracy. But I am also mindful of the apparent rise in antisemitism across British universities, as Alexander Goldberg reports, which can make young people feel even more vulnerable and under attack. We must be vigilant in exposing all forms of racism or ignorance in order that university can go back to a time of free dialogue and not of fear.

• Comments on this article will remain open for 24 hours from the time of publication but may be closed overnight

read full article