Campaign news

(20.08.26) OfS free speech complaints scheme to launch in September

The long-delayed enforcement architecture of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 ("HEFSA") is finally materialising, and will come into operation on the 1 September 2026.

From this date, staff, visiting speakers and non-student members at English higher education providers will be able to complain directly to the OfS if they believe their lawful free speech or academic freedom rights have been infringed. With a specialist regulator able to investigate such complaints and recommend remedies – including requiring universities to review decisions, pay compensation or change their internal processes – this is a significant step forward.

Just as importantly, from April 2027, the wider regime will also be backed by strengthened mandatory free speech conditions of registration, with providers that breach those conditions facing the possibility of substantial financial penalties.

It should not have taken this long to get here. As originally enacted, the legislation rested on two principal enforcement mechanisms: a statutory tort, which would have enabled individuals to bring civil claims, and the complaints scheme. Yet one of Bridget Phillipson’s first acts on taking office in July 2024 was to pause commencement of most of the Act’s provisions. Then, in a forced U-turn in January 2025 (take a bow, free speech campaigns including the Free Speech Union, whose judicial review was a huge factor, and indeed ourselves), the Government decided to bring most of HEFSA into force, but not the statutory tort. A revised complaints scheme would, it said, follow once “necessary” legislative changes had been made. By the time the main free-speech duties finally commenced on 1 August 2025, however, the complaints scheme had still not appeared.

That it has now done so is largely thanks to sustained pressure from those who refused to let the issue drop, including AFFS, the Committee for Academic Freedom, Academics for Academic Freedom and the Free Speech Union (FSU). We each played our part in organising letters to ministers, circulating briefings and drafting parliamentary questions urging the Government to bring the scheme into force.

For AFFS, the significance of the new scheme lies partly in the kinds of problem it may help expose. Much of our recent work has focused on speech-restrictive practices embedded in the ordinary machinery of university life: recruitment criteria, promotion frameworks, EDI and harassment policies, training programmes and compliance documents. While these are not always dramatic cases of no-platforming or speaker cancellation, they concern the underlying institutional structures and policies - and lack thereof - which give rise to these. Such arrangements operate systemically, and are an ultimate, and sometimes direct, cause of most free speech failures, for instance by encouraging or forcing academics to demonstrate alignment with contested institutional orthodoxies, or to avoid arguments that might later be redescribed as “harmful”, “hostile” or insufficiently “inclusive”. They change universities’ plumbing, ensuring that the water will always exclude some chemicals necessary for health.

Until now, AFFS has spent a lot of time challenging those pressures upstream, at the level of university policy, forcing changes by confronting universities with their unlawful actions. Our most recent example is our project about universities requiring demonstrations of support for EDI in their recruitment, in which we forced 36 universities to stop doing this. There is evidence that this is already happening. Other signs of success are AFFS recording this year an apparent increase in the number of universities with institutional neutrality policies, and finding (for the first time) universities planning to appoint dedicated officers with responsibility for free speech.

We have, however, spent a lot of time taking up particular free speech failures (the downstream effects of policies and practices which lead to them), such as in respect of Dr Michael Foran at Oxford. The complaints scheme adds a new and really strong form of accountability in this regard, giving those who experience these downstream effects – staff investigated, or fearful of investigation, for their lawful speech; speakers obstructed from addressing an audience; people not protected when harassed because of their viewpoints; and those who quietly self-censor because they can already read the institutional weather – a direct route to the regulator.

The result should be greatly increase pressure at both ends of the machine. With groups like AFFS continuing to challenge speech-restrictive policies upstream, and academics making use of their right to seek redress downstream, often with support from free speech organisations, our hope is that the incentive structure for universities will begin to change. Rather than treating free speech as an afterthought, or simply not considering it at all, universities will have to give it serious weight from the start, and to comply with their duties and avoid expense and embarrassment.

Indeed, we hope that, in years to come, a sign of the scheme’s success may will be relatively few complaints being brought. Its real power lies not in its ability to act punitively, but pre-emptively – with administrators operating in the knowledge that bad practice can now attract regulatory scrutiny, and that curtailing lawful speech simply for fear that someone, somewhere on campus may be offended by critical debate and robust discussion is no longer likely to pass muster.

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(20.08.26) Oxford reported to the OfS in respect of its failures in the Michael Foran case

AFFS has reported to OfS the apparent serious free speech protection failures at the University of Oxford in respect of its handling of protests at meetings at which Dr Michael Foran was speaking and sent a letter to Oxford setting out our concerns. Much depends, of course on what the facts actually are, so we qualify that letter and our report accordingly. Some key sections of the letter are on pages 10 (second half) to 11 (top) and pages 16-18.

It does amaze us that the Proctor’s Office can possibly have thought it appropriate to allow a protest inside the lecture theatre, or indeed inside the relevant building. Not doing so is surely common sense, as well as pretty clearly a legal obligation, and is expressly referenced in the OfS's guidance. It is [even more] extraordinary that, after the disruption at the first lecture and the subsequent complaints, alarm bells didn't ring and the Proctors made the same mistakes all over again.

It also appears to us that Oxford’s governance and management regarding free speech protection have failed dramatically, and that this has a strong likelihood of having contravened condition of registration E2. We gave Oxford time to consider our letter, but have heard nothing.

We are therefore recommending that the OfS investigates apparent serious free speech protection failures. Alternatively, we recommended in our letter to Oxford that they appoint an external adviser to review what went wrong and advise on appropriate steps to set their failures right and to avoid problems in the future Key questions for the OfS to clarify would be: why the Proctor’s Office proceeded the way it did, and who took the decisions? Were the staff too junior, or insufficiently trained, or conflicted? There is more than a whiff of bad goverance and management here, which Oxford would do well to dispel.

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(14.07.26) AFFS successfully pressures 36 universities to change their recruitment requirements to ensure free speech

Following the findings of our 2025 Report, AFFS has published a follow-up Report into equality, diversity, and inclusion (“EDI”) requirements in recruitment at UK universities University EDI Support Requirements in Recruitment: 2026 Report. This concerns universities which require, within job advertisements, applicants to demonstrate their commitment to EDI or undertake duties to promote and support EDI.

For some time, we have been aware of universities publishing job advertisements which:

require applicants to demonstrate their support for EDI (termed “EDI Support Evidence”); and/or

refer to duties on employees to promote or support EDI (termed “EDI Support Duties”).

Universities which include these types of requirements are highly likely to be at risk of breaching the free speech rights of applicants, as well as being in breach of their own obligations towards free speech. In fact, the Office for Students (“OfS”) specifically states that such requirements “may be restricting the lawful expression of certain viewpoints”, and makes clear, with examples, that such requirements are likely to be unlawful.

At the start of what turned out to be a 9-month project, we found roughly the same proportion of failures as in our 2025 review; despite, for English universities, a significant strengthening of the legal requirements on universities and the publishing of guidance from the regulator in the intervening time.

Having found these issues, AFFS has now completed its campaign to pressure these universities to change their requirements: to great success! This involved writing to the universities, detailing their failures, and informing the OfS of stubborn non-compliers, where necessary.

Following repeated warnings by AFFS to those 70 universities:

36 (51.4%) fully remediated their failures, no longer imposing either type of requirement; a further 9 made material improvements, meaning that 45 (64.3%) of the universities we found to be failing had wholly or partially corrected their failures by the end of this project.

43 English universities were formally reported to the OfS after failing to remedy the issues we raised, of which 9 were recommended for formal investigation.

It provides clear evidence that sustained – and, vitally, justified – pressure by free speech campaigners on universities to comply with their legal and regulatory requirements to protect free speech pays dividends. English universities are becoming increasingly aware that the OfS, as their regulator, is empowered and focused, and that they are now properly accountable.

However, despite the successes AFFS has seen:

33 universities remain in breach of their obligations towards free speech; this must stop without further delay.

17 universities which were found to be failing in our 2025 Report remain in likely breach now, despite several warnings and strengthened legal and regulatory requirements and guidance in the interim. Four of those 17 are Russell Group universities which received letters detailing their specific failures in both our 2025 and 2026 projects.

The Russell Group performed conspicuously worse than the other universities: 20.8% receiving a rating of 0 from AFFS, as opposed to just 5.1% of all other universities. (AFFS created a rating system for a university’s compliance. The full results table can be found in Appendix 1 of our Report.

Some thoughts on the Report and its implications

It is clear that increased accountability and an active regulator are every bit as important as free speech campaigners have long been urging. Universities’ new persuadability to actually comply with their duties is evidence that these will make a huge difference.

This level of continuing non-compliance is a serious concern, not only for academic freedom and free speech generally in the UK, but as a live risk to the universities themselves. Recent high-profile examples of the financial and reputational consequences of free speech failures, particularly at the University of Sussex and the Open University, are clear illustrations to universities of the dangers of getting this wrong.

AFFS believes that continuing non-compliance can increasingly less credibly be ascribed to ignorance. Universities have been warned – by AFFS and others, including the OfS – so often that these actions can and often do lead to legal and regulatory failures that, in the absence of some very good explanation, it is reasonable to assume that the worst offenders must be indifferent to whether they are acting compliantly or not, or have chosen to continue to take the risks of acting illegally despite being well informed about the issues. This is very serious and should be causing profound management concern.

Over-zealous implementation of EDI agendas is the cause of many of our free speech problems. This is widely recognised, for instance by the Dandridge Review into the Open University/Jo Phoenix debacle. It is obviously the cause, in this case, of 70 universities operating apparently unlawfully. This really is systemic. It appears to us that the entrenchment of EDI at some institutions is so deep, and internal pressures to promote it so strong, that the juggernaut has continued to roll forward long after it went through the safety barrier.

See our Report here, for further detailed information about this project and our findings and a link to our website here.

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(29.05.26) AFFS warn Edinburgh University of likely unlawful EDI-related hiring requirements

AFFS has formally warned the University of Edinburgh that its use of mandatory EDI “commitment” requirements in academic recruitment and promotion processes may be unlawful and incompatible with free speech protections.

Our investigation found academic job adverts listing “demonstrable commitment to promoting and embedding EDI” as an “essential” requirement, alongside promotions policies requiring staff to “demonstrate commitment” to EDI agendas.

While much promoted under the EDI banner is uncontroversial – and in some cases legally required – various highly contested ideas associated with gender identity ideology and critical race theory are also frequently advanced and effectively enforced under it. Recent case law has recognised that opposition to such beliefs is protected under the Equality Act.

That matters because, once “commitment to EDI” becomes an essential criterion in recruitment or promotion, universities risk turning lawful dissent from contested ideas into a professional disadvantage. Requiring academics to support, promote, or otherwise affirm adherence to EDI frameworks may therefore create serious legal risks, not just under the Equality Act, but under free speech legislation and the Human Rights Act.

AFFS’s wider review of UK university recruitment practices suggests Edinburgh is the only Scottish university imposing requirements on applicants to jobs and promotion to be committed to EDI. This risks turning hiring and promotion processes into de facto mechanisms for enforcing adherence to contested ideological orthodoxies, while chilling legitimate academic dissent and critical scholarship.

AFFS first warned Edinburgh about these likely compliance failures in November 2025. In its response, the University did not engage with the specific matters we raised, and further adverts using similar requirements continued to appear.

We have now written formally to senior University officers in a public letter and will report the University to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Charity Commission and the Scottish Funding Council, notifying these bodies of the University’s likely compliance failures and recommending that, where appropriate, they take investigative and, if required, enforcement action against the University of Edinburgh.

Read The Herald’s coverage of AFFS’s intervention here, and read our full letter to the University of Edinburgh here.

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(29.05.26) Steven Greer publishes new book "Islamophobia and Free Speech"

As those who have followed free speech cases over the past few years may remember, Steven Greer was a professor of law specialising in Human Rights at the University of Bristol.

The events concerning him are, briefly, as follows. In Autumn 2020, the Islamic Society at the University of Bristol made a complaint alleging that Greer was Islamophobic because he had stated that in his teaching that Islam spread through war, conquest, trade and conversion, and that there are some human rights, such as freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, women’s rights and the rights of minorities, with which traditional Islam is in friction. The University dragged Greer through a punishing and severely mismanaged disciplinary investigation which, while it eventually entirely exonerated him, concluded with the removal of Greer’s module on Islam and human rights from the syllabus. Last year, the Committee for Academic Freedom published an interview with Greer about his experiences here.

Steven Greer’s newly published book "Islamophobia and Free Speech" discusses censorship of criticism of Islam. We recommend it for everyone interested in this important contemporary subject.

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(21.05.26) The Cofnas case: opposition to aspects of EDI as protected viewpoints under the Equality Act

Our sibling campaign, Best Free Speech Practice (“BFSP ”) has just produced a new statement on implications of the case of "Dr Nathan Cofnas of Faculty of Philosophy -v- The Master, Fellows and Scholars of Emmanuel College". Dr Cofnas is a philosopher of biology and was a college research associate at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. The College terminated his position after he wrote a blog arguing for “race realism”. Cofnas subsequently took the college to court.

The judgement in this case is very significant, as it has found that two new types of belief –“hereditarian” and “anti-woke” beliefs (as defined in the judgement) – are protected under the Equality Act 2010. Both beliefs are contrary to ideas standardly promoted and sometimes effectively enforced at universities under the banner of equality, diversity, and inclusion (“EDI ”), although Cofnas’ beliefs are also contrary to more widely held ideas. We stress that, as a free speech campaign, we do not take any position on the merits of Cofnas’ views, our aim is solely to ensure freedom of speech within the law.
It is already clear that opposition to (and non-belief in) various component agendas and ideas which are advanced under the EDI umbrella are already protected under the Equality Act.

The really significant development is that it is increasingly likely that opposition to and non-belief in EDI as an umbrella under which many controversial viewpoints (opposition to which is protected under the Equality Act) are promoted and enforced, is a protected belief under the Equality Act. There are two aspects to this: beliefs that:

the ways in which many contested views and agendas are promoted, implemented and enforced under the EDI banner in ways that that restrict debate or dissent; and/or

the promotion, implementation and enforcement of EDI as a banner under which such ideas are advanced in ways that that restrict debate or dissent, are profoundly harmful to free speech and academic freedom, and thus to a healthy society, and thus are to be opposed.

The Cofnas case therefore further confirms what BFSP has warned universities of for some time: that universities requiring staff to be committed to EDI, or persecuting or permitting the persecution of those who dissent from it or the ideas advanced under it, is highly likely to be unlawful. See more below.

BFSP’s new statement will be a valuable tool in convincing universities that they are legally required to tolerate – and indeed to protect – the expression of lawful views which are widely considered to be offensive. Finally, although Cofnas’ beliefs were found to be protected, he lost the case because the way in which he manifested those beliefs was found to be “objectionable”. He is now seeking to appeal the judgement, and we hope to be able to provide further information on this case in future.

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(14.05.26) AFFS leads sector-wide push for institutional neutrality

Institutional neutrality policies designed to protect free speech, viewpoint diversity and academic freedom appear to be gaining traction across UK higher education, according to new research by Alumni for Free Speech (AFFS).

Published a year after AFFS and allied campaign groups wrote jointly to vice-chancellors and senior administrators urging universities to adopt such policies, our latest UK-wide survey suggests this shift is taking place as universities face mounting legal, institutional and reputational pressures – from both external political controversy and internal activist staff networks – to take official positions on contested social, political and moral issues.

Reviewing the publicly available policies and governance documents of 175 UK universities, AFFS documented the scale of that shift.

Between January 2024 and January 2026, the number of Russell Group universities with formal public commitments to institutional neutrality more than doubled, rising from three institutions to seven.

Across the sector as a whole, AFFS identified 32 universities that have now adopted such commitments. Of those, 27 were rated “good” or “excellent”, following an assessment of the strength and clarity of their commitments, including whether they contained caveats liable to weaken the principle.

Universities that have formally adopted institutional neutrality include Queen Mary University of London, Imperial College London, the University of Edinburgh, King’s College London and the University of Bristol.

As the report explains, the purpose of institutional neutrality is to create an open and tolerant environment in which academics and students can freely express and explore ideas on the contested questions of the day, from Net Zero and reparations for empire to women’s sex-based rights and “decolonisation”. When a university, and by implication its senior leadership, adopts an official position on such questions, those who disagree may reasonably conclude that dissent is institutionally unwelcome. That can chill speech, narrow viewpoint diversity and make the university less hospitable to the free inquiry it exists to protect.
But neutrality is not only a matter of academic culture. The report argues that it is also one of the most effective ways for universities to reduce legal and regulatory exposure in this area. Where an institution takes sides in a polarised debate, staff or students who hold lawful but dissenting views may be treated less favourably, subjected to a hostile environment, or discouraged from speaking openly. With the Office for Students-administered free speech complaints scheme due to commence on 1 September 2026, adopting institutional neutrality is a practical way for universities to reduce the likelihood of non-compliance with their enhanced statutory duties under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act and avoid creating an environment in which members of the academic community feel unable to express views the institution appears to disapprove of.

AFFS and its partner organisations have now written to UK university leaders, urging institutions that have not yet adopted institutional neutrality to do so formally and publicly. Addressed to vice-chancellors, senior officers and chairs of council, the letter warns that, as adoption increases, institutions that fail to act may increasingly be seen as laggards that are less serious about protecting free speech than their peers. It concludes with a clear message: universities that want to demonstrate a serious commitment to free speech should now make institutional neutrality a formal part of their governance.

Times Higher Education has covered the report here. The accompanying letter to university leaders can be read here, and the full report here.

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(24.4.26) Date set for autumn Office for Students complaints scheme

After a long delay, the Government has confirmed that the Office for Students free speech complaints scheme will be up and running by the autumn.
This is a genuinely welcome step.

For too long, academics and visiting speakers have had no realistic route to challenge restrictions on lawful speech short of costly and often impractical litigation. A free, regulator-backed complaints scheme has the potential to make a real difference, not just by resolving disputes after the fact, but by encouraging universities to take their free speech duties more seriously in the first place.

This progress follows sustained pressure from across the sector — including Alumni for Free Speech — to ensure that statutory protections are matched by a workable route to enforcement.

Much will now turn on how the Office for Students uses these powers in practice, and whether individuals feel able to navigate the process and bring well-founded complaints. If it works as intended, this could mark a significant step forward in aligning the law on free speech with how it operates on campus.

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(23.4.26) Free speech concerns with the position of the Henry Jackson Society re students mourning the death of the Ayatollah

AFFS led the creation of a joint letter from various free speech campaigns to universities addressing recent calls by the Henry Jackson Society (HJS) for several universities to take action in response to student societies mourning the death of Ayatollah Khamenei. The letter sets out our disagreement and concerns (as free speech campaigners) with the HJS’s position in the context of the implications for freedom of speech within universities.

No matter how unattractive the views expressed may be to some, they must be allowed unless they stray into unlawfulness, for instance by glorifying terrorism, or contravene anti-harassment policies.

The letter is helpful in clarifying the issues in what is not a straightforward area, and supporting a principled approach to protecting lawful expression on campus. Maintaining institutional neutrality is a vital navigational tool in such circumstances.

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(06.01.26) AFFS reports Durham to the OfS for likely free speech compliance failures in its recruitment practices

AFFS is conducting an ongoing review of UK universities’ free speech legal and regulatory compliance in their recruitment practices. In December 2024, AFFS found that Durham University required applicants to certain academic jobs to provide an “EDI & values statement – (of no more than 500 words)” which “demonstrates your commitment to EDI and our values”. AFFS found this requirement, and other similar requirements, in advertisements for the jobs placed by the university.

Universities are required by their legal duties not to place requirements on applicants to be committed to values, beliefs, and ideas, including EDI, so Durham’s requirements were very likely unlawful. AFFS wrote to Durham warning it that these requirements likely constituted a serious legal compliance failure, and indicated likely regulatory compliance failures.

In January 2025, AFFS was pleased to receive an assurance from Durham that it would “no longer have the requirement for applicants to complete a statement on values or beliefs as part of their application for academic roles at Durham University”. We subsequently wrote about this in our report University Recruitment: EDI requirements causing free speech compliance failures.

However, AFFS’ research, as of September 2025 has found that, while the requirement for applicants to complete a 500 word statement on EDI and university’s values has been removed, other non-compliant requirements remain. For instance, multiple advertisements stated that applicants must “demonstrate their… commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion”, and others included in sections dealing with “essential” criteria for their roles a “demonstrable commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion”.

AFFS wrote to Durham warning that these requirements were likely serious compliance failures, and subsequently wrote again warning the university that, unless these requirements were removed, AFFS would report the university to the Office for Students (“OfS”). We received no response to our emails, and Durham has subsequently issued further advertisements containing the same likely compliance failures.
AFFS has therefore reported the Durham to the OfS, and recommended that the OfS formally investigate the university for these likely free speech compliance failures.

AFFS’s final letter to Durham can be found here.

We hope that the OfS will conduct a thorough investigation into Durham, and that the university will be made entirely to cease requiring applicants to academic positions to be committed to values, beliefs, or ideas – whatever those values, beliefs, or ideas may be – and to comply with its free speech duties. This would be a great improvement at Durham, and a highly effective signal to other universities, many of which, as found in our report, are similarly non-compliant, that they must cease imposing such ideological requirements on job applicants. We are therefore hopeful for an important moment for free speech here.

However, this is the first formal report we have made for such failings, and is done with a slightly heavy heart. This is likely to result in real problems for Durham – free speech failures recently cost Sussex University £585,000 – so we spend a lot of time attempting persuasion. Sadly, this has failed, and we have had to turn to enforcement.

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(02.12.25) New AFFS research: levels of EDI spending significantly correlated to free speech non-compliance

In the first study of its kind, AFFS has evidenced a statistically significant correlation between levels of universities’ spending on EDI and levels of free speech non-compliance in their recruitment and promotion processes. While that correlation is (of course) not exact, it is pretty startling.

This Report compares 33 universities’ EDI spending with the extent to which they have to comply with their legal and regulatory duties to protect free speech in recruitment and promotion.

The findings are clear: the more a university spends on EDI, the more likely it is to be non-compliant with its free speech obligations.
This Report is a comparison of two previous pieces of work completed by AFFS, our 2023 Report on EDI Spending at UK Universities and our Report on University Compliance in Recruitment and Promotions. This is believed to be the first time this kind of analysis has taken place, and proves an undeniable relationship between EDI spending and free speech non-compliance.

What the data shows

The results of our comparison reveal a significant correlation between EDI Spending and institutional non-compliance:

Universities which spend over £450,000 annually on EDI were overwhelmingly likely to be non-compliant with free speech requirements. In fact, all but one with spending above that figure had non-compliant recruitment or promotions practices.

Universities spending below £450,000 were significantly more likely to be compliant: with the majority being found to be compliant.

The relevant Russell Group universities both spent more, on average over £240,000 more – approaching double – on EDI, and were more likely to be non-compliant, with an average non-compliance rating 27.5% higher, than those of non-Russell Group members.

A regression analysis shows that EDI spending is a predictor of free speech non-compliance at the 95% confidence level.

This reinforces what recent cases – as evidenced by the Dandridge Review into failures at the Open University – have already demonstrated: poorly structured or aggressive EDI agendas can result in direct breaches of universities’ legal obligations to protect free speech and academic freedom.

Why is this happening?

Concepts around EDI have expanded into a broad and often ambiguous set of goals, many of which go far beyond what equality law requires, the promotion and enforcement of which can actively infringe free speech rights.

At the same time, UK universities are spending huge amounts of money on EDI programmes and staff. Across just 40 universities, nearly £20 million was spent on EDI in 2023.

This friction, between EDI and free speech, creates very real problems for universities. As previous AFFS research has shown, many universities require job applicants to “demonstrate commitment” (_inter alia_) to EDI or impose duties on employees to actively promote EDI viewpoints. In both cases, these sorts of requirements and duties are highly likely to be in breach of multiple legal and regulatory requirements, as confirmed by the OfS. This can, as the University of Sussex recently found out, have serious financial and reputational repercussions.

Demonstrating the connection

To examine any relationship between levels of EDI spending and of non-compliance, universities were allocated non-compliance rating, based on the findings of our previous report, which were coloured to represent their severity: red for the worst offenders, to green to those found to be compliant. Universities’ levels of EDI spending was then coloured using the same numbers of colours as the compliance ratings.

The [table sets out the key findings of AFFS’s study, which is sorted by levels of EDI spending, clearly shows a broad correlation between EDI spending and non-compliance.

Thanks to Dr John Armstrong at Kings College London, a regression analysis of this data shows that EDI spending is a predictor of free speech non-compliance at the 95% confidence level.

AFFS’s study shows, for the first time, that high EDI spending is highly likely to produce environments where lawful dissenting viewpoints are discouraged or penalised, in this case in the context of university recruitments and promotions.

What’s more, given the prevalence of Russell Group universities at the top of the table, it is clear that Russell Group universities are, on average, spending more and are more likely to be non-compliant. This matches the figures, which show that non-Russell Group both were more likely to be compliant than, and underspent, those in the Russell Group: at 78.4% and 60.4% of the rate of Russell Group universities.

What universities need to do

To avoid the serious repercussions of non-compliance, AFFS urges universities to match any spending on EDI with:

Increased care to secure free speech, and entrenched caution about, and care to avoid, possible consequent damage to free speech and indeed compliance failures;

a commensurate increase of spending on free speech protection;

their having a dedicated member (or members) of staff charged with ensuring that free speech and academic freedom receive attention commensurate with that received by EDI; and

a university-wide policy of “institutional neutrality”, as recommended by free speech campaigners, referred to in the Dandridge Review and already implemented by a number of universities.

Read the full report here.

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(01.10.25) New and updated BFSP statements

We wrote earlier this year about our work as a “free speech arms manufacturer”, creating documents which set out universities’ and other organisations’ legal obligations to protect free speech. These documents (“statements”) can be used by friends of free speech to help compel universities and other organisations to comply with the law, and are all available on BFSP’s website: BFSP.UK

Our work has proceeded at pace. The range of our published statements is rapidly expanding, and many of our statements have now been updated to reflect the coming into force of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 (“HEFSA ”) on 1st August 2025. Recently, we have published:

Statement of the new legal requirements for protecting free speech at English HEPs. Our “Principal Statement”, now updated for the coming into force of HEFSA, and published as an exposure draft.

Free Speech Codes: Compliance checklist_. HEFSA requires universities to issue a “free speech code of practice”, a document which will be the core of any university’s efforts to protect free speech. This checklist makes it easy to assess whether a university’s code is compliant.

EDI considerations and inquiries in the recruitment and research approval process at English universities; Free speech compliance issues_. This document sets out the legal requirements on English universities not to discriminate against applicants (except in certain legally determined and highly limited circumstances) for jobs on the basis of their commitment or lack thereof to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion. It was the tool which enabled AFFS’ campaign this year on university recruitment, and led to the publication in May of AFFS’ detailed Report on University Recruitment, which found widespread compliance failures. It has now been updated to be used in AFFS’ “Autumn Review” – the expanded second round of the campaign.

EDI and similar courses, training and tests: Free speech requirement and risks for English universities_. This document sets out the legal requirements on English universities with respect to training for staff and students – an area of common non-compliance. It can be used now in individual cases of non-compliance, and may form the basis of future campaigns.

The coming into force of HEFSA is generally a fantastic development, and it has made our work producing and promulgating statements substantially more effective. HEFSA introduced some badly needed accountability for when universities break the law on freedom of speech (though one of the relevant mechanisms, the Office for Students Complaints Scheme, has not yet started operating). With greater accountability, AFFS’ warnings that universities are breaching their free speech obligations now have considerably more force.

We are also currently in the process of producing statements on:

Proportionality. A technical legal concept which can be abused to unlawfully restrict speech.

The Public Sector Equality Duty. A “process” duty under the Equality Act 2010, which concerns how officials make decisions. It is often misinterpreted in attempts to justify restrictions on lawful speech.

The specific legal requirements on universities in Wales and Scotland.

We are expanding our campaigns to Wales and Scotland, and creating specific statements of the (different) obligations of Welsh and Scottish universities which will underpin these campaigns.

These statements in production reflect the increasing momentum, and the successes, of the free speech movement to date. After the successful establishment of HEFSA, much of the legal battle to protect free speech is now advancing to more technical matters, and we are expanding our campaigns to cover (eventually) the whole of the UK.

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(07.08.25) HEFSA 2023 Comes into Force: Strengthening Free Speech with Caveats

The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 (HEFSA) officially came into force on 1 August 2025, bringing into effect revised duties on English universities to protect free speech, plus a new duty to promote it, and new duties on colleges to do likewise. Under the new law, universities and their constituent colleges will be legally required to actively secure lawful freedom of speech and academic freedom. Institutions must not only avoid silencing controversial views but also show they are proactively promoting free speech and maintaining robust codes of practice. There are detailed improvements, such as introducing protections for academic freedom and tightening of requirements for payment of security costs for meetings.

The government’s decision to exclude the statutory tort (which would have allowed individuals—students, academics, or speakers—to take universities to court for violating their free speech rights) and new requirements on students’ unions is disappointing but not surprising. Without this legal mechanism, enforcement rests solely with the new Office for Students (OfS) complaints process (the requirements for which are not yet in legal effect, although the Government is promising that this will happen), which will be a positive step but not as effective as legal right to redress through the courts and a missed opportunity to ensure increased accountability. Our friends at Committee for Academic Freedom have published a useful Overview of the law on freedom of speech and academic freedom.

Despite these disappointments, we regard this as a triumph for free speech compared to the position in late July last year after the Government suspended the coming into effect of the new Act pending review and possible repeal. This was largely brought about by pressure from free speech campaigns, including AFFS.

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(02.05.25) BFSP Statement on free speech governance failures at Sussex University

We wrote to all universities and the Office for Students (OfS), impressing on them the need to review and revise their policies to ensure they did not restrict lawful speech, and the likely penalties if they failed to do so. We attach a statement by our associated campaign, Best Free Speech Practice, about the recent fines by the OfS on Sussex for their governance failures in connection with the Kathleen Stock case.

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(22.04.2025) Free Speech campaigners write to urge that universities adopt institutional neutrality

AFFS has co-authored an open letter by various university-focused free speech organisations urging universities to adopt institutional neutrality as a priority.
AFFS worked with Abhishek Saha of London Universities’ Council for Academic Freedom to create the letter. Other signatories included Academics For Academic Freedom, Committee For Academic Freedom, Student Academics For Academic Freedom and other individual advocates.

The campaigns have written to the Vice-Chancellors and other senior officers of English, Welsh and Scottish universities. A copy was sent to the Office for Students. We have pointed out that as well as something that is vital in principle for the quality of research, learning, exploration, and debate at our universities, this is an effective legal necessity if universities are to avoid in the future the risk of the cost and reputational damage of this sort which has arisen in recent years, of which the following are two key examples.

The discrimination against and harassment of Professor Jo Phoenix at the Open University for her viewpoints, which led to a reputedly huge settlement of a claim under the Equality Act, profound reputational damage. The subsequent Dandridge Review into the failings at the Open University recommended that institutional neutrality was necessary.

The cost and reputational disaster suffered by the University of Sussex in relation to its failures to protect Kathleen Stock from attack. This is culminated in huge fines from the OfS for related governance failures. Had Sussex remained neutral on what is a contested subject, it would have been much more likely to have ensured these problems.

It should be blindingly obvious: if you take sides in a contested debate, you automatically set yourself against the other side, and immediately raise your risks of disadvantaging or harassing people because of their viewpoints. The event that led to Sussex’s £580,000 fine was uncritically using policy wording sourced from external activists, which turned out to be unlawful. It was laughably inappropriate, and only people who are self-blinded by side-taking won’t have seen this.

Only two UK universities currently have proper statements of neutrality. Over 100 do in the USA, including Harvard. AFFS will be pursuing this over the coming years.

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(17.01.25) Government U-turn on HEFSA: Victory for free speech, though with some disappointments

Secretary of State for Education Bridget Phillipson has announced in Parliament that the government will implement the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 (HEFSA), though with some important elements removed.

HEFSA was designed to expand the existing regime for free speech protection, and, crucially, to create an enforcement mechanism. As originally passed in Parliament, HEFSA would have created a free speech complaints scheme, run by the Office for Students (OfS). When universities failed to uphold free speech, academics would be able to bring a complaint to the OfS. Behind this was a new “statutory tort”, which would allow a censored academic (for instance) to claim in court for resulting losses, which would have been a cheaper and easier process than judicial review. This accountability would have forced universities to protect free speech better.

AFFS has been closely involved in a multi-faceted campaign to save HEFSA. We have written several times to the Department for Education (DfE), including joining other free speech groups in writing an open letter in support of the Act which gained over 600 signatures from leading academics, including seven Nobel laureates, and more recently about a study which indicated that universities had actually been improving their free speech protections in preparation for HEFSA. We have also also been involved in extensive consultation with the DfE.

As a result OF WIDESPREAD CRITICISM, WHICH IS NOT GOING AWAY, the Government has now announced that it will implement most of HEFSA – although it lacks the political courage to admit that suspension was a mistake.
Real questions remain about the Government’s commitment to free speech – and Bridget Phillipson’s competence. The suspension seemed like an ideological lurch: a needless, self-inflicted destruction of her own political capital. Labour have managed to take ownership of university free speech problems, and will be blamed for every failure that occurs between now and the next election. While the partial implementation of HEFSA will take some of the sting out of this, this negative perception will remain at a time when the middle ground has become sensitised to the issue.

The new free speech complaints scheme will still operate, but the great disappointment is that the statutory tort will not be enacted. In addition, HEFSA as in force will not apply to Students’ Unions, as it would originally have done. These changes mean that the OfS and academics will remain unable to take (or to afford to take) universities to court for free speech failures. However, the OfS will be able to issue recommendations to universities (which can include to pay compensation), and can take regulatory enforcement action in extreme cases.

While the failure to implement in full is disappointing, given that, in July, the Act faced a bleak future, this is a significant victory for the free speech movement in forcing the Government to make what has been widely described as a U-turn. Despite these disappointments, we expect free speech protection in English universities to improve substantially. We give this outcome a hearty two cheers.
(08.01.25) HEFSA: awkward UUK study shows Act was pushing free speech improvements even before it came into effect, compelling arguments to bring Act into effect asap

We co-ordinated various free speech campaigns in writing to the Education Ministers to point out something rather remarkable: UUK, who have opposed the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act (HEFSA), have produced a study which (we assume inadvertently) shows that universities were being pushed by the approach of HEFSA into making significant improvements in their FS protection requirements and systems.

The announcement last year by the Secretary of State on 26 July that she was stopping further commencement of HEFSA has not only stalled such improvements that have happened, but has subsequently led to a significant deterioration in the free speech climate in ways that were foreseeable. Following the announcement, many universities have stopped ongoing work on freedom of speech and postponed the formation of internal complaints processes. For example, the Imperial College working group on free speech was in the process of developing initiatives for the Promote Duty, but following the decision to stop commencement of further provisions of HEFSA the working group was immediately suspended, which has changed the free speech atmosphere at Imperial for the worse. Similarly, the UCL working group on free speech was in the process of developing an updated code of practice for free speech to make it HEFSA-compliant and produce related complaints processes, but it stopped all work on free speech and academic freedom on the same morning as the Secretary of State’s announcement.

This is in equal measures devastating for any remaining arguments for not bringing in HEFSA, and hilarious in that this smoking gun has been produced by an organisation which is reputed to have opposed HEFSA. We wonder if they’d thought this through. The Times Higher Education recently highlighted our letter and findings.
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We would also urge you to increase the pressure and write to your MP about this action. If to a Labour MP, protesting against this unconstitutional, arrogant, quite possibly unlawful vandalism, and urging your MP to act to stop further political harm by pushing colleagues to reverse this decision as soon as possible. If to any other party, urge them to protest, and to work for their party to take up the issue vigorously.
We know you will be busy, so, if it would help, please do copy whatever bits from our recent AFFS statement here into the main text of the letter.
You can also use the Free Speech Union letter template here
New Freedom of Speech Codes of Practice
(25.07.24) Universities have been introducing new codes of practice in the run-up to 1 August, when the law changes.
BFSP has produced a compliance checklist for assessing how good these new codes are. Find it here.
We have looked at two codes.
Oxford
Oxford’s new code (<https://compliance.admin.ox.ac.uk/freedom-of-speech/code-of-practice> ) is good – solid competent stuff, and it looks like they mean business, although the proof will be in the implementation. We have marked them against BFSP’s checklist: see the results here. Some missing desiderata – nothing on institutional neutrality, for instance. A/B: a bit more will take them to the pure alpha we know they are capable of.
Imperial