Freedom of speech and academic freedom: driving change through the sector

I’m here to talk about free speech and academic freedom in English universities and colleges. I’ll start by saying what that freedom is for. Then I’ll move on to its ‘perils and prospects’ and how we might drive change through the sector.

What it is for

Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right. Without free speech there is no possibility of self-expression. There are no new ideas. There is no productive debate.

Without free speech there is no social progress. No society is perfect: but a society that protects free speech contains the seeds of its own improvement. 

Without free speech there is no challenge to conventional wisdom. Even if a view is wrong, you must be free to express it. Otherwise how will you, or anyone else, know why it is wrong?

The core mission of universities and colleges is the pursuit of knowledge. Freedom of speech, including the freedom of academics to teach and research, is therefore fundamental to their existence. I want to be completely clear about this. Financial concerns notwithstanding, this is not about balancing free speech against such mere interests or concerns as external accreditations, relations with foreign governments or potential donations. There is no balancing. There is no compensating for free speech and academic freedom. Without them, what you have is simply not a university.

Students benefit most when their education is underpinned by exposure to a very wide range of views. This creates the context for personal, academic and professional growth. For many students, going to university or college is a formative experience. They meet new people from different backgrounds and are exposed to different views on social, political, scientific and other subjects. It’s a time of opportunities and, for many, is life-changing.

New students will hear, read or study views that chime with, or challenge, their own perspectives. They’re likely to encounter ideas that they may find shocking or offensive. Equally, others may be challenged by their views. This is the purpose and benefit of higher education rather than something to be concerned about. And that purpose – free expression and debate of ideas – is protected in law: students have a right to express and discuss these ideas, where that’s done within the law.

Discussing unfamiliar or uncomfortable ideas, when done in a peaceful, tolerant and lawful way, enriches interactions with your fellow students and builds understanding of differences. Even if this doesn’t change your mind, you’ll have considered the topic in a new light, and learned from the experience.

Perils

And yet I can tell you now that academic freedom currently faces serious threats. I’ll mention some of the recent statistical evidence that we have, and then I’ll say something about themes in the reports that I have seen since taking on this post. Finally in this part of what I say, I want to make a brief point about something that struck me during recent engagement, about different ways of understanding what a university or college is. And I want to point to an intellectual framework that might help to describe the dividing line that it seems to suggest.

Statistical evidence

OfS polling of about 1200 research and teaching staff in higher education in England, published in June 2025, found that:

• Around a fifth (21%) do not feel free to discuss challenging or controversial topics in their teaching. This rises to a third (34%) of academics from ethnic minority backgrounds.
• One in six (16%) academics do not feel free to discuss challenging or controversial topics in their research and more than one in three (34%) do not feel free in other contexts such as speaking engagements and social media.
• In all three contexts (teaching / research / other), female academics are more likely than male academics to say they do not feel free discussing challenging or controversial topics. In particular, a fifth of female academics (21%) say they do not feel free in their research compared to one in ten (11%) male academics saying the same.
• A quarter (24%) of those who do not feel free in their teaching cite fear of physical attack. This is consistent across tenure, sex, and political identity. This amounts to 5% of all academics surveyed.¹

The latest edition of the annual Academic Freedom Index² indicates that the UK was between 60th and 70th out of 179³ countries across the world for academic freedom in 2023. This is well below other European countries such as Germany, Italy, Spain and France. When compared to the 2014 index, the UK was one of just 7 European countries where a substantial and statistically significant decrease in academic freedom was identified.

Similarly, in a recently published UCU survey of its members (with responses from 2,100 UK academics), 81.3% of respondents strongly agreed that academic freedom in research was important for wellbeing and performance. The survey focused on threats to academic freedom created by online institutional surveillance of research topics, methodology, outputs and so on. The overwhelming majority of respondents (87.2%) indicated that they thought that the current trajectory of digital monitoring would lead to reductions in academic freedom.⁴

Areas of concern

In the last few years I’ve also heard from many academic staff about their experiences – for obvious reasons, I am not going to repeat those stories. But I will identify three themes that are of special concern. The examples corresponding to each theme draw together elements of what we have seen reported. They are not about real people or institutions, but they combine real elements of what has been reported to us.

Compelled speech

The Corporation Act of 1661 and the Test Acts of 1673 and 1678 forbade public offices to Roman Catholics and nonconformist Protestants. For instance, the Test Act 1673 (‘for preventing dangers which may happen from popish recusants and quieting the minds of his Majestyes good subjects’) requires any holder of public office to swear: ‘I do declare that I do believe that there is not any transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, or in the elements of bread and wine, at, or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever.’ This very blatant form of belief discrimination was finally abolished, for Oxford, Cambridge and Durham universities, in 1871.

But the idea seems to have made something of a comeback. Since commencement of the main duties in the new legislation in August 2025, we’ve seen reports of belief requirements for academic posts. Here is an example which, though fictitious, is made up of elements that have been reported to us.

University A advertises for a lectureship in mathematics. It requires all candidates to submit a 500-word statement of evidence of commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI).

Another sort of ideological compulsion is evident in policies on pronouns. We have seen many reports of examples like the following:

University B’s code of conduct for employees states: ‘Misgendering is never acceptable. You must always address or refer to a person using their preferred pronouns.’

Foreign interference

Universities and colleges are rightly jealous of their autonomy of the domestic government. And institutional autonomy is one of the matters to which the OfS must have regard by law.⁵ However, we have seen reports that universities and colleges do not always resist foreign interference with the same alacrity. The following example is fictitious but again it combines elements from real reports:

Prof. C lectures a course in law on human rights at University D. Some of the lectures cover abuses of human rights by the government of E, a foreign country. Nationals of E, and senior staff at E’s embassy in London, complain to the leadership at University D. D suspends the course pending an investigation. Following a lengthy process, D takes no action against Prof. C but requires her to remove the elements of the course covering country E.

Institutional reputation

We’ve also seen reports of universities and colleges subjecting academic staff to investigations and disciplinary processes because they have criticised the institution. There may be a risk that pressures of this type increase at a time of increased financial volatility for the sector. The following example is taken from our recently published guidance, Regulatory Advice 24.   

College F imposes contractual obligations on its staff, including a social media policy requiring them not to post material that is ‘unnecessarily critical’ of the college. During an industrial dispute Dr G, an academic employed at F, strongly but lawfully criticises the college’s employment practices in a public post on social media. The college investigates Dr G and issues him with a formal warning.

Two types of association

Both before and after 1 August we’ve engaged extensively with students, staff, students’ unions, mission groups and professional services bodies, as well as leaders and governing bodies of individual institutions, among other stakeholders. When I’ve raised concerns, for instance about ideological requirements in relation to applications, I’ve sometimes heard something like this: it’s all very well to let academics say what they like, but universities and colleges have their own distinctive values, missions and corporate goals and these may include (for instance) something to do with diversity, equity, free speech, inter-faith understanding or international engagement. How can we stop our own staff from undermining these values or missions, if we don’t put expectations on what they say (or think)?

A narrow reply to this point would focus on the fact that legal duties override any preferences about institutional mission. Even where there might seem to be a clash between, for instance, free speech duties and the Public Sector Equality Duty, it would be relevant and important that the latter is a duty to ‘have regard’ to certain needs; whereas the former requires universities and colleges to take certain steps.⁶   

But it’s also worth taking a step back to think about what might lie behind this idea. The political philosopher Michael Oakeshott makes a helpful distinction between two ways that people might engage and associate with one another: civil association and enterprise association.⁷

Put briefly and crudely: the members of a civil association are each pursuing their own individual purposes. An example might be the relation between motorists who happen to be driving on the same stretch of road. Here the individuals each have their own interests and purposes which they must accommodate to one another. The rules of a civil association constrain its members as the Highway Code constrains drivers: they don’t tell you where to go, but only how to get there safely.

By contrast, the members of an enterprise association have some common aim or interest and are united to achieve it. The obvious example of an enterprise association is the modern corporation. Oakeshott’s own examples include: an army, a sect, a political party, a fire station and a bassoon factory. The rules of an enterprise association are more or less determined by this common end. Soldiers in an army, for instance, cannot simply fight on whichever side they like but must do as ordered; senior officials in a political party cannot campaign for causes that run against the party’s own political ends; bassoon makers cannot spend their paid time carving flutes. 

Oakeshott himself was concerned with the implications of thinking of the modern state as a civil rather than an enterprise association. Here though, I’d like to suggest that there may, at some levels and in some influential quarters, be a related misconception about the state of our universities and colleges. If you think of a university as an enterprise association, then it will seem only natural to say some of the things I’ve been hearing; only natural to seek to impose ideological requirements on your academic staff or to restrict speech by them that undermines your ‘brand’.

But a university or college is an association of scholars; and as such it makes better sense to think of it as a civil association (as discussed by the political theorists Jacob T. Levy and Elizabeth Corey). Scholars are (or if they are any good they are) independent-minded; and this means that they will each have their own ideas about diversity, equity, free speech and everything else. And they must be able to pursue those ideas. As the Kalven report has put it:

By design and by effect, [the university] is the institution which creates discontent with the existing social arrangements and proposes new ones… The instrument of dissent and criticism is the individual faculty member or the individual student. The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic. It is, to go back once again to the classic phrase, a community of scholars. To perform its mission in the society, a university must sustain an extraordinary environment of freedom of inquiry and maintain an independence from political fashions, passions, and pressures. A university, if it is to be true to its faith in intellectual inquiry, must embrace, be hospitable to, and encourage the widest diversity of views within its own community.⁸

No doubt there is a wide range of both distal and proximal causes for the perils that I’ve outlined above. Our own experience suggests that one of these may be the prevalence of an ‘enterprise’ model of the university. A return to Oakeshott’s ‘civil’ model may turn out to be key to driving the cultural change that will be key to any long-term improvement along this dimension. Here, then, is an intellectual framework that could help us understand a very relevant division of thought about what a university or college is.

Prospects

So much for perils – what about prospects? Here I want to say something about the new legislation, about our guidance on the new duties, and about our future enforcement powers. Then I want to say something about what could happen now.  

Legislation

In January 2025, the Secretary of State for Education made a statement in Parliament following the government’s review of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023. This was an Act of Parliament aimed at protecting freedom of speech and academic freedom at English universities and colleges.

Following the government’s decision, the main duties of the Act commenced on 1 August 2025. For universities and colleges (including colleges of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham) these include:

• a duty to take reasonably practicable steps to secure freedom of speech within the law
• a ban on the use of non-disclosure agreements to silence victims of bullying, harassment or sexual misconduct on campus
• a requirement for all universities to have codes of practice to ensure the protection of free speech
• a duty to promote the importance of freedom of speech in higher education.

For the OfS these include:

• a duty to promote freedom of speech.

In this statute, freedom of speech means:

the freedom to impart ideas, opinions or information (referred to in Article 10(1) of the Convention as it has effect for the purposes of the Human Rights Act 1998) by means of speech, writing or images (including in electronic form).⁹

We expect that speech restrictions related to an institution’s essential functions or any other relevant factors, as well as any regulations related to these wider functions, would as far as possible focus on the time, place and manner of that speech. We would expect that these measures, in intent or effect, ordinarily do not restrict legally expressible viewpoints. In other words, any regulation of the time, place and manner of speech should be viewpoint-neutral. Nor should it be framed so broadly that it may be used to punish or suppress a legally expressible viewpoint.

As to ‘within the law’: all speech is lawful, i.e. ‘within the law’, unless restricted by law. Any restriction of what is ‘within the law’ must be set out in law made by, or authorised by, the state, or made by the courts e.g. legislation or legal precedent/court decisions. This includes (for instance) common law on confidentiality and privacy.

But it does not include rules made by other institutions, for instance universities or colleges, through contracts or their own regulations.

For instance, there is no law against blasphemy in this country. If a university or college’s code of conduct prohibits its students from insulting religion, it has not made the insulting of religion unlawful. If it imposes a contractual obligation on its academic staff not to publish images that might offend some religions, staff who breach that contract are not thereby breaking the law. However the code or the contract may itself be unlawful. Although this will be fact-sensitive, in many circumstances of the type I described it is likely that they would be. 

As to academic freedom, the statute defines it as: the freedom of academic staff within the law to question and test received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves at risk of losing their jobs or privileges at their institution, or at risk of a reduced likelihood of their securing promotion or different jobs there.¹⁰

I should emphasise that in the Act academic freedom is therefore not restricted to the academic’s area of expertise. Parliament explicitly considered such a restriction and deliberately chose not to impose it. As the (then) government minister in the Lords said at the Grand Committee, when discussing an amendment proposed by Lord Wallace:

The amendment is similar to a previous provision in the Bill that set out that academic freedom under the Bill meant freedom of academic staff within the law and within their field of expertise. The Government listened carefully to the issues raised during the passage of the Bill in the other place, noting the concern that the definition of academic freedom was too narrow. In fact, the provision was a reflection of Strasbourg case law, and we were clear that it should be interpreted broadly, but we wanted to avoid any perception of such a limitation. We therefore decided that it would be appropriate to remove the ‘field of expertise’ provision, which I think was a widely appreciated outcome. I hope the Committee will appreciate that explanation of how the definition of academic freedom in the Bill has developed.¹¹

Academic freedom applies, for instance, to comments by an academic about matters of public interest and (importantly) to criticism of their own institution. It also applies to contributions to other academic disciplines. My friend Ross Anderson FRS, the eminent computer scientist and great friend of academic freedom, who tragically died in 2024, once observed that it is these contributions across disciplines that are often both the most fertile and perhaps also the most vulnerable to suppression. One example that he might have had in mind was that of Alfred Wegener, the inventor of the theory of continental drift, a theory that geologists ignored for decades because its inventor was not himself a geologist.   

Guidance

On 19 June the OfS published guidance on the new duties to secure free speech and to maintain a code of practice. This document, entitled Regulatory Advice 24, came into force on 1 August 2025 alongside the new duties.¹²

This guidance is in three main sections. Section 1 says what we mean by ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘academic freedom’. Section 2 sets out a three-step framework for assessing compliance with the ‘secure’ duty. These steps apply to any measure or decision that might affect speech or types of speech. The steps are:

Step 1: Is the speech ‘within the law’? The guidance sets out what this means and gives examples of laws that make speech unlawful.

Step 2: Are there any ‘reasonably practicable steps’ to secure the speech? If yes, take those steps. Do not restrict the speech. The guidance illustrates factors that are likely or unlikely to affect what is ‘reasonably practicable’.

Step 3: Are any restrictions ‘prescribed by law’ and proportionate under the European Convention on Human Rights? The guidance sets out that any restrictions on speech must be compatible with these requirements, if indeed there are no reasonably practicable steps to secure it.

Section 3 gives concrete examples of steps to secure freedom of speech that are likely to be reasonably practicable in a wide range of circumstances. These are divided by areas of activity (such as ‘Codes of conduct’ or ‘Research’). We expect to publish further examples in the future to reflect experience across the sector and our ongoing engagement with providers on these issues.

Let me now, in the light of the new legislation and guidance, return to the examples that I’ve mentioned concerning compelled speech, foreign interference and institutional reputation.

Compelled speech

Both the requirement to evince ideological commitments, and the blanket ban on misgendering, are likely to be unlawful.

In the case of the job advertisement, a requirement to commit to equity etc. may penalise candidates for opinions or speech that have no bearing on competence in the relevant subject. In these circumstances, removing this requirement before advertising is likely to have been a reasonably practicable step that University A should have taken. Withdrawing the advertisement, and re-advertising without this requirement, is likely to be a reasonably practicable step that University A must now take.

In the case of the blanket ban on ‘misgendering’: gendered pronouns are not merely nominal ‘tags’ – they carry information that gender-neutral designation does not. Describing a trans woman as ‘he’, or for that matter as ‘she’, may therefore express a belief about that person’s sex: indeed, this may be a legally protected belief.

There may be circumstances in which the use of dispreferred pronouns could amount to unlawful harassment. For instance, repeated and deliberate misgendering directed by a teacher to a particular student in one of their classes may amount to harassment. However, we would expect that any code of conduct that regulates the use of pronouns on these grounds would narrowly tailor any restriction to those circumstances. It must not, in intent or effect, prohibit the expression of a lawful viewpoint (for instance that transwomen are in fact men, or that they are in fact women). Removing the ban as described is likely to be a reasonably practicable step that University B must now take.

Foreign interference

Turning to Prof. C’s human rights lectures: it is likely that University D has failed to meet its duty to take steps to secure C’s speech. We’ve been explicit in our guidance that the disapproval of foreign governments is irrelevant to the university’s duty to secure the speech. This remains true however many students E is sending to D, and whatever threats it makes to withdraw them. If the speech is lawful then the university has a legal duty to take all reasonably practicable steps to secure it. It certainly has no legal duty, and probably has no moral duty, to appease whichever foreign despot that speech happens to irritate.¹³ 

Institutional reputation

Finally, on Dr G’s public complaints regarding institutional reorganisation: we have again been explicit in our guidance that academic freedom generally includes speech that may negatively affect a university or college’s reputation, including speech that is critical of it.¹⁴

College F’s policy, and its action under this policy, are therefore also likely to breach the new legal duty. College F should have considered taking reasonably practicable negative steps in this situation. These include not investigating Dr G, and not issuing him with a warning. They also include not imposing contractual restrictions on the speech rights of its academic staff. By contrast, a social media policy that simply required staff to be clear that all views posted are their own and do not represent the college’s views, would have been unlikely by itself to have breached A’s ‘secure’ duty.

Next steps

Although these legal duties apply to institutions from 1 August, the OfS does not currently operate any enforcement mechanism that is directly tied to these new duties. However, we expect these to come into force following forthcoming primary legislation.

We expect a free speech complaints scheme to be open to staff and visiting speakers (not students) to bring complaints about certain types of breaches of the free speech duties. Students will continue to have access to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) complaints scheme for their unresolved complaints. The OfS complaints scheme is expected to cover complaints about providers or their ‘constituent institutions’ (e.g. Colleges within a collegiate university), but not students’ unions. We also expect it  to give the OfS the power to consider complaints at our discretion, rather than an obligation to consider every complaint.

In addition, whilst we are currently regulating free speech matters through our E conditions that set requirements for management and governance, we expect that the new legislation will allow the OfS to impose a condition of registration tied directly to the new duties. The OfS’s existing powers to enforce conditions of registration mean that it will be able to impose additional requirements on universities and colleges, to fine them and ultimately to suspend or revoke their access to public funding if they are found to be in breach.

Institutions might ask, in this context, whether this regulation is consistent with the spirit of academic freedom. After all, doesn’t freedom mean (among other things) freedom from interference by a regulator? The answer distinguishes institutional autonomy from the freedom of the individual. Academic freedom, as defined in Part A1 of HERA, is about the rights of individual academics; and where institutions are at risk of not securing these, it may make sense for a regulator (a) to guide them to do so and (b) to give individual academics a route of redress. This is what the new legislation does.

However, I want to stress in this context, as I did two years ago, that there is absolutely no question of the OfS seeking to conform university teaching or research to any political agenda. As I said then, freedom of speech is not the property of one side in any culture war. It belongs by right to the whole human race; indeed for those of us who enjoy it, nothing is more precious. As I also said then, this means that we take a viewpoint neutral approach. It makes no difference at all whether you are in favour of Brexit or against it. It makes no difference at all what side you take on statues or pronouns or colonialism, or abortion or animal rights. You can argue that Britain is fundamentally racist – or that it never was. You can speak or write as a Marxist, a post-colonial theorist, a gender-critical feminist, or anything else – if you do it within the law. You can even be rude about me – up to a point. All of this remains true. None of it will ever change.   

Finally, I want to mention two things that individual academics can do now to defend academic freedom.

The first point is this: I mentioned before that one driver of what we’re seeing may be a misconception of our higher education institutions as enterprise associations. Another might be much simpler: university leaders are responsive to what they hear. Now is the time for individual academics who care about their most precious right to make their voices heard internally – as prominently and as frequently as necessary. If you see or hear about something that raises questions, bring it to senior leaders’ attention. Point if you can to relevant sections of our guidance, which is there to help universities and colleges to navigate duties that are now in force.

I’ve said in the past that defending free speech is not always easy for leadership, even when the legal position is simple. But what will make it easier is internal support to do so. Very little could be more conducive to academic freedom than an environment in which it is both true and appreciated by decision-makers that standing up for academic freedom is the path of least resistance. But making that so is up to you.  

But the second way for you to promote academic freedom is simply to exercise it. As Brandeis said best but Pericles said first: the secret of happiness may be freedom, but the secret of freedom is courage. Right now is the time to invite speakers with opposed and controversial views, to set challenging texts, to teach syllabi that are disruptive and uncomfortable. Now is the time to speak out where once you might have been wary. Governing bodies cannot unlawfully interfere with your exercise of these rights; indeed where HERA requires it, they are obliged to protect you. And your example will embolden others. Roughly paraphrasing Tocqueville: in the long run, it may be that nothing is as protective of liberty as a people for whom its use has become a habit.    

Notes

1. See Freedom of speech in higher education: survey outcomes - Office for Students.
2. See Academic Freedom Index.
3. This ordering uses the published country point estimates but does not account for the statistical uncertainty associated with the estimates, therefore it is possible that the true position of the UK is higher or lower than presented.
4. See ‘Academic Freedom in the Digital University’ (2024)
5. HERA Part A1 sect. 2(1)(a).
6. See Transcript of Arif Ahmed's speech at King's College London and Freedom to question, challenge and debate - Office for Students.
7. See Oakeshott, M., On Human Conduct (first published 1975). Oxford: Clarendon Press (1991) 108ff.
8. See Report on the University's Role in Political and Social Action | Office of the Provost.
9. HERA Part A1 sect. A1(13).
10. HERA Part A1 sect. A1(6)-(7)
11. See Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill - Hansard.
12. See Regulatory Advice 24.
13. Regulatory Advice 24 para. 123.a.iii.
14. Regulatory Advice 24 para. 123.b and example 22 (reproduced here).