Free speech advocates urge universities to heed landmark ruling

Universities should be mindful of sanctions imposed on the University of Sussex for its failure to uphold free speech, campaigners have warned.

In a letter to The Times newspaper, more than two dozen free speech advocates welcomed the Office for Students’ (OfS) “clear and proportionate sanctions” over the university’s “serious failures to uphold the rights and liberties of staff”.

Signatories to the letter include Lord Young of Acton, founder of the Free Speech Union, Julius Grower, Associate Professor of Law at Oxford University, and journalist and author Helen Joyce.

‘Censorship’

The OfS recently fined Sussex University £585,000, ruling that the university’s transgender policy had given rise to a “chilling effect” on the expression of “certain lawful views” relating to biological reality.

In their letter, the long-time campaigners for academic freedom stated that universities “must not compel academics to adopt contested positions on matters of public or scholarly debate, nor prevent them from expressing lawful opinions in a personal capacity”.

It concluded: “We encourage universities with policies similar to Sussex’s to reconsider and withdraw them promptly. Censorship undermines the fundamental mission of higher education.”

Compliance

The University of Sussex controversy began in 2020, when one of its professors, Kathleen Stock, said “the claim ‘transwomen are women’ is fiction”. Her comments sparked student protests and death threats, leading to her resignation.

Welcoming the OfS’ findings, Stock explained that the university’s trans policy “set the tone” for everything that happened to her.

Arif Ahmed, the Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom at the OfS, said: “I think universities should be looking at their policies and thinking carefully about what they need to do to comply with the law and to comply with regulatory requirements.

“Clearly, future cases will not be the first case of their kind, so there will be a potential for higher fines in the future”.