The High Court has just dealt a serious blow to the ability of academics and students in English universities to express themselves freely. In a judgment handed down on Wednesday, the court upheld Sussex University’s appeal against the Office for Students (OfS) – the regulator tasked with upholding free speech – and declared a fine imposed on the university following its failure to protect gender-critical philosopher Kathleen Stock to be unlawful.
The result is that, while the statutory duties to protect academic freedom and freedom of speech remain in place, an enormous grey area has opened up that allows speech to be restricted on campus.
Let’s hope the Office for Students appeals. If this ruling stands and confines the regulator to universities’ formal ‘governing documents’, while pushing disputes over lawful speech into case-by-case balancing against claims of ‘harm’, it will have no teeth. All we will be left with is the Office for… well, no one at all.
Source: The High Court has rewarded Kathleen Stock’s persecutors – spiked