- By Professor Sasha Roseneil FAcSS PFHEA, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Sussex.
On 26 March 2025, after a three-and-a-half-year long, deeply flawed, investigation into freedom of speech and academic freedom at the University of Sussex, the Office for Students issued the unprecedently high fine of £585,000, and decreed a form of free-speech absolutism as the new golden rule for universities. Henceforth, it would appear that universities can only control a very narrowly defined version of unlawful speech that ignores our broader legal and ethical obligations to students and staff. It is an unworkable and highly detrimental decision for the whole higher education sector.
The investigation was initiated in October 2021 in the context of protests against gender-critical philosopher Professor Kathleen Stock, around the time that she decided to resign from her position at Sussex. Much of the media and public reaction to the OfS’s decision has seen it as vindication of Kathleen Stock, and indeed the OfS itself gives as a reason for publishing the decision, that it would be ‘likely to make Professor Stock feel vindicated and may also vindicate her in public perception’. Indeed, the only person interviewed in the investigation was Kathleen Stock. This is despite the OfS acknowledging that it did not have the power to act on behalf of any individual, and that it has not investigated the circumstances relating to Kathleen Stock.
Many commentators also regard the outcome as vindication of the gender-critical beliefs that Kathleen Stock professed during her time at Sussex and since. But again, the investigation was not a judgement in the toxic disputes about sex and gender, and the identities and rights associated with each. It is not the OfS’s role to make such judgements – in its own words it is ‘viewpoint neutral’ – just as it not the role of a university, or a Vice-Chancellor, to do so.
Universities are arenas in which the most controversial ideas of the day are contested – and recent years have seen waves of protest and unrest on campuses across the world about a number of fiercely disputed issues. It is the job of university leaders to facilitate and contain that contestation so that it serves to advance the purpose of universities – the education and development of students and the advancement of knowledge and understanding. Continual efforts to promote and protect overlapping but not identical liberties – freedom of speech and academic freedom – are vital in this. So too are actions to ensure the absence of intimidation and bullying, and to create inclusive, supportive, and respectful learning and working environments, in which people of diverse backgrounds, beliefs and identities can succeed as individuals and come together in productive dialogue, however vehemently they might disagree. Indeed, the exercise of academic freedom and freedom of speech depends on this. Freedom of speech cannot mean the ability to shout the loudest or to abuse and frighten less powerful opponents into silence.
The OfS’s has just made this work of universities infinitely harder, if not impossible. The single short offending document identified by the OfS, on which the weight of its findings rest, was designed to protect the welfare of trans and non-binary staff and students, a student group the OfS itself identifies as at particular risk in relation to access to and participation in higher education. When adopted at Sussex in 2018 – around the same time as at many other universities across the country – thinking about how best to support trans and non-binary people within universities was just beginning, and gender-critical beliefs had not yet been recognised as ‘protected philosophical beliefs’ under the 2010 Equality Act.
If the OfS is ‘viewpoint neutral’, its findings about a policy statement seeking to support trans and non-binary staff and students must be understood to apply to all staff and students – whatever their beliefs and identities. A thought experiment helps make the point: replace the trans and non-binary people with whose protection the offending document is concerned with members of other minoritised and marginalised groups – Jewish, Black, Muslim or Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people, disabled people, or lesbians and gay men, for instance.
The implications of the OfS decision are wide ranging and highly corrosive of attempts to create diverse, inclusive, and equal working and learning environments, and threaten university autonomy. Under the OfS’s ruling, it would seem that universities cannot seek to prevent our curricula from relying on or reinforcing stereotypical assumptions about (for example) Jews or Black people, because to do otherwise could limit lawful speech. Universities cannot, from now on, remove antisemitic or racist propaganda from campus unless what it says is unlawful – again, extremely narrowly defined. And universities should not discipline anyone who engages in abuse, harassment or bullying unless that abuse, harassment or bullying meets the legal definition of harassment or hate speech – even if it breaches a range of other duties and obligations.
In effect, the decision implies that universities cannot have policies that aim to reduce abuse, bullying and harassment – whether motivated by transphobia, antisemitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, racism, or sexism – beyond simply reproducing existing restrictions in law (which restrictions the OfS appears not to understand – for example, it does not appreciate that abuse, bullying and harassment are restricted by the Public Order Act 1986).
It is, I fear, a charter that risks giving free rein to antisemitic, anti-Muslim, homophobic, racist, sexist, and anti-trans speech and expression in universities, as long as it stays just on the right side of the law.
Moreover, the decision could be significantly at odds both with the wider legal obligations of universities in relation to equalities, and with the OfS’s own regulatory expectations regarding equality of opportunity for students, the quality and standards of the academic experience, and the soon to be introduced requirement to take steps to protect students from harassment and sexual misconduct.
The OfS’s regressive and dangerous decision threatens the cohesion and governability of each of England’s diverse and vibrant universities, and it must be set aside. Today Sussex is publishing our pre-action protocol letter, which sets out the grounds of our legal challenge. I invite the OfS to respond positively, and to become a regulator that seeks collaboration and open dialogue with universities rather than punishment.
Silly OTT protest. Us just need to manage themselves better and not let lowly committees packed with zealots trap the U into adopting externally dictated policies that conflict with the U’s prime duties of sustaining campus free speech and academic freedom – and in some cases arguably conflict with legislation.
The lack of self awareness in that statement is staggering. Sussex should be reflecting on how it allowed a lesbian professor to be intimidated out of her job by exactly the kind of bullying and harassment it’s now trying to argue the OfS has made it harder to prevent.
“A thought experiment helps make the point: replace the trans and non-binary people with whose protection the offending document is concerned with members of other minoritised and marginalised groups…,” Professor Roseneil writes. OK, would universities be happy requiring course material to ‘positively represent’ Christians, the Welsh and Jedi Knights?
The VC writes that the ruling means universities can no longer “discipline anyone who engages in abuse, harassment or bullying unless that abuse, harassment or bullying meets the legal definition of harassment or hate speech”. Where the definition of abuse & harassment has been extended to include the civil statement of views held by many, that is a very good thing. Staff have been told gender critical views are tantamount to abuse. That silenced many. Those who spoke up were treated awfully, is in the case of Kathleen Stock. Implying the victim’s actions were a part of the abuse of trans identifying people is gaslighting of the highest order. The treatment of Stock was and is part of the systematic attempt to censor gender critical ideas in our universities. This VC should step down as she does not appreciate the importance of academic freedom. If she wants to know what abuse means, she should have a look at the actions of the Tavistock & the destruction of young lives & families by the trans advocacy lobby.
The VC’s assessment here is clearly correct. The OfS Report goes far beyond simply saying that gender critical beliefs should not be included as abusive or harassing speech. Regardless of the previous respondents’ positions on that narrow issue, surely you would agree that Universities should be able to have policies prohibiting abusive or harassing speech on campus?
Some of the previous commentators are conflating separate issues. Kathleen Stock resigned, on her own account of events in the media, because of how she felt about students exercising their own freedom of speech in the form of protest against her views. Speech and debate in a democratic society takes many lawful forms, including protest against a professor’s beliefs. Ironically, under the OfS’ absolutist approach to free speech, universities will have less ability to constrain student protests that are lawful, yet cause individual professors with controversial beliefs to feel uncomfortable at work. Regardless of their desire to punish the University of Sussex for having a trans-inclusive policy and discourage others from having similar, I’m not sure that gender critical academics should be celebrating this outcome.
The Office for Students appears to have, ironically, made students invisible in this decision, which will certainly open the door to students (and academics) being subjected to abuse on campus, with institutions now powerless to address it unless it is unlawful conduct. The implications of the OfS decision in this case are every bit as wide ranging and as serious as Professor Roseneil indicates here.
Professor Roseneil’s critique of the OfS’s stance on free speech highlights the delicate balance universities must maintain between upholding freedom of expression and ensuring a safe, inclusive environment for all students. The concern that the OfS’s approach might inadvertently permit harmful behaviors under the guise of free speech is a significant issue that warrants further discussion and clarity.