36 Universities Scrap EDI Requirements in Recruitment After Pressure from AFFS (2026)
33 universities continue to include highly concerning EDI requirements within their job advertisements.
AFFS has reviewed job advertisements at 162 UK universities and other institutions, as a follow-up to our 2025 report into universities imposing requirements about support for EDI within their job application processes.
Key information
AFFS has, for some time, been aware of universities publishing job advertisements which either:
- require applicants to demonstrate their support for equality, diversity and inclusion (“EDI“) (termed “EDI Support Evidence”); or
- refer to duties on employees to promote or support EDI (termed “EDI Support Duties”).
These sorts of actions are likely to contravene their obligations towards free speech, as we explain below, and as has been clearly indicated by the regulator for English universities, the Office for Students (“OfS“). They should not happen.
Shockingly, across the 162 institutions AFFS reviewed:
- 70 (43.2%) were found, at first review, to be publishing job advertisements which are likely to be non-compliant.
Following warnings and pressure from AFFS:
- 36 (51.4%) of them fully remediated their failures, no longer imposing either type of requirement.
- A further 9 made partial improvements, meaning that45 (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 priority investigation.
- Despite this progress, 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 against just 5.1% of all other universities being rated 0.
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. It is a major management problem to be (in some cases at the least) apparently knowingly non-compliant. What are they doing about this?
See our report here, for further detailed information about this project and our findings.
The issue in brief
Free speech failures can have serious consequences for a university’s finances and reputation, as well as dampening free speech and academic freedom within their institutions.
EDI has evolved from a focused and widely supported core of measures to prevent discrimination, harassment etc on the basis of characteristics protected under the Equality Act 2010, such as sex, race, or belief, to become an umbrella for a wide-ranging set of agendas and viewpoints, many of which are highly contested but are not justified by law. Enforcing support for these agendas and viewpoints directly gives rise to failures to comply with legal and regulatory requirements for free speech protection.
This project has been focused on recruitment and universities either imposing requirements in the application process to provide EDI Support Evidence, or referring to EDI Support Duties on employees. These types of requirements are likely to contravene their legal obligations towards free speech, and to indicate breaches of relevant regulatory requirements. In fact, the OfS has published detailed guidance on free speech protection that explicitly states that requiring applicants to academic jobs, and staff more generally, to be supportive of EDI – or indeed other values, beliefs, and ideas – is inappropriate.
AFFS’s work
Over the course of a 9 month investigation, with our first reviews beginning in September 2025, AFFS reviewed job advertisements at all 162 institutions selected to seek evidence of EDI requirements in recruitment advertisements and processes. Where such requirements were found, AFFS engaged with the relevant university to inform them of the issues uncovered and strongly encourage remediation. 25 universities (35.7%) of the 70 universities where such issues were found removed the requirements without the need for further escalation.
Where universities did not remediate, AFFS felt it necessary to escalate with our findings. In total, AFFS reported 43 English universities to the OfS for their unpremeditated free speech failures.
AFFS then conducted final reviews of the universities, giving each university a rating. This rating is a clear indication of each university’s free speech failures (or not) within their recruitment advertisements and processes.
AFFS will share this report with the OfS and with all 162 institutions reviewed.
More information on AFFS’s research processes, and the rating system, can be found in our report.
Relevant legal and regulatory requirements
Our report explains in detail the relevant legal and regulatory requirements for the protection of free speech and academic freedom, and why imposing requirements relating to the support and promotion of EDI as part of the application process and as part of the duties of employees are likely to leave those universities in breach. Importantly, since the publication of our 2025 report, the legal and regulatory framework in this area has been significantly strengthened: the major provisions of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 came into force on 1 August 2025, and the OfS has published the detailed guidance referred to above.
AFFS’s pressure pays off…
The single biggest takeaway from this report is a resounding success: AFFS’s sustained pressure secured full remediation at 36 universities, with a further 9 making partial improvements, meaning that 45 universities in total, nearly two in three of those we found to be failing, improved their practices in some way during this project. This is clear evidence that a robust legal and regulatory framework and a more active regulator enable both campaigners to apply effective pressure for improvements to free speech protection and academics to protect their rights to voice their views.
This year’s outcome represents a marked improvement on 2025. Then, just 21.4% of the non-compliant universities we wrote went on to remediate. This year, that figure has more than doubled to 51.4% (rising to 64.3% including those which made partial, if not complete, improvements). Universities are responding to pressure from AFFS more readily, and more fully, than before.
The OfS’s formal notification system, which allows members of the public, including free speech campaigners, to bring failures of this kind to the regulator’s attention, has been a significant factor. A substantial number of universities changed their practices only after being warned that notification was imminent, or indeed after being reported to the OfS, which strongly suggests that the credible prospect of regulatory accountability is a powerful driver of compliance in its own right. It is also evidence that those universities would not protect freedom of speech in this respect – or indeed, comply with the law – without such regulatory accountability.
Despite this success, at least 33 universities have made no meaningful change to their practices and thereby continue, in all likelihood, to breach their free speech obligations. This must stop: we hope that the OfS, with its increased focus on this area, will be making this very clear to them.
AFFS has now shown, conclusively, that sustained pressure works. This should serve as a rallying call, both to the regulator and to other free speech campaigners, to apply similar pressure to universities which fail in their obligations, whether in this area or others.
Some important implications
AFFS believes that continuing non-compliance can 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.
Some universities appear to have EDI requirements heavily entrenched within their policies and practices, as our report explains. It appears to us that this entrenchment at some institutions is so deep, and internal pressures to enforce support and promotion of EDI so strong, that the promotion of it takes precedence over their legal and regulatory obligations. This is both wrong and very risky.
We are keen to know what the processes and reasoning (if any) were at those universities which did not remediate their failures, given that 45 others recognised that they were in the wrong and remediated in full or in part. We hope that our report, and the detailed evidence of likely failures that we already provided, will stimulate a full investigation by the OfS of at least those apparently in the acutest failure, which will reveal what went wrong and why, and who was responsible.
What universities need to do
We hope this report will be seen as valuable in helping universities avoid future compliance failures in this area. Our report includes a long list of actions that universities need to take, and AFFS remains available to support university management on how best to ensure free speech at their institution.
AFFS will continue to review universities’ recruitment requirements and notify the OfS of failures, with a special focus on those which were non-compliant this time round.
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See our report here, for further detailed information about this project and our findings.
Please share this information with friends who care about free speech, and encourage them to join AFFS. It is easy, and free.