Record fine for UK university renews free speech row

The debate blew up in late 2021, when Kathleen Stock resigned as professor of philosophy from the University of Sussex after students protested against her views that were critical of transgender ideology.

The feminist academic, who believes that biological sex is immutable and “matters more than” gender identity, maintains she was a victim of harassment.

Stock rejects accusations of transphobia, but her gender critical stance had sparked fierce criticism from students at the university in southeast England.

Weeks before her resignation, students organised a large protest calling for her dismissal.

The Office for Students, the country’s higher education sector regulator, launched a probe into the handling of the case and on Wednesday slapped a £585,000 fine on the university, accusing it of “failing to uphold freedom of speech and academic freedom”.

The penalty is the first and largest of its kind in the UK, where the debate on freedom of speech, especially in universities, regularly makes headlines.

The UK is home to some of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the world and prizes protecting freedom of speech.

But there have been increasing calls to limit speech which could be deemed hateful against ethnic, LGBTQ and other minority groups.

Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom at the OfS, Arif Ahmed, underlined the risk of academics and students being forced to “self-censor”.

An internal University of Sussex equality policy for transgender and non-binary people meant that those having gender critical discussions “could have been concerned about breaching that policy”, Ahmed said.

The university confirmed on Friday it would appeal the judgement.

In an interview with The Guardian, the university’s Vice Chancellor Sasha Roseneil slammed the OfS for taking an “absolutist” approach to free speech.

Stock, who told British media that she needed a security escort when her 2023 speech at the Oxford Union was disrupted by protesters, welcomed the OfS decision.

Sussex University’s version of events “set the tone for nearly everything that would then happen to me over the next few years”, Stock wrote on the news website UnHerd.

“Emboldening those at the university who were already against me, and enfeebling the morale of the rest,” she said.

Like some celebrities such as “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling, Stock has been the target of abuse by transgender rights activists in recent years.

In 2021, hundreds of academics penned an open letter criticising a decision to award Stock the Order of the British Empire for her services to higher education.

The letter slammed Stock’s “harmful rhetoric” which risked “encourag the harassment of gender-non-conforming people”.

However last year, more than 600 academics, including several Nobel laureates, wrote an open letter protesting the Labour government’s decision to suspend the implementation of a law passed in 2023 to protect freedom of speech in universities.

The government in January confirmed plans to reintroduce the legislation with changes, including removing a provision allowing legal action against universities.

“Universities must be places of open debate, not censorship,” Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said in response to the OfS decision.

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