2 days ago
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Sussex University has overturned a £585,000 fine from England’s higher education watchdog after the high court rejected claims that the university breached free speech regulations in a case involving its former professor Kathleen Stock.
The ruling is a damaging blow to the credibility and management of the Office for Students as the court rejected the regulator’s lengthy investigation involving Stock’s resignation in 2021, which followed protests over her views on transgender rights and gender identity.
Sasha Roseneil, Sussex’s vice-chancellor, said: “I am delighted that Sussex’s foundational commitments to academic freedom and freedom of speech have been recognised by the high court, and that the OfS’s egregious decision against the university, and the fine it sought to impose, have been overturned.
“The University of Sussex has a proud history of being the place where the most contentious issues of the day are aired – where independent-minded, critical thinkers develop their ideas, and where lively and engaged students work out how they understand the world.
“We will continue to focus on creating an open, inclusive and respectful campus culture in which differences of opinion can be expressed and explored, and in which students and staff of all backgrounds, beliefs and identities are able to flourish.”
The £585,000 fine announced by the OfS in March last year was the largest ever levied by the regulator, but Wednesday’s high court ruling will send it and the Department for Education back to the drawing board to establish its legal authority.
The result also calls into question the role of Arif Ahmed, the former Cambridge university philosopher who led the investigation into Sussex. Ahmed was appointed by the previous government in 2023 as the OfS’s first “free speech tsar”, formally known as director for freedom of speech and academic freedom.
Josh Fleming, the OfS’s interim chief executive, said: “We are disappointed, of course, by this ruling. We will carefully consider the consequences of the judgment before deciding on next steps. We will reflect on the judge’s findings and use them to help inform our future approach.”
The OfS’s three-and-a-half-year-long investigation claimed that Sussex’s “governing documents” included policy statements on transgender issues that were liable to stifle or restrict free speech. But Sussex said the OfS had incorrectly included irrelevant or peripheral documents and lacked legal authority to do so, and described the fine as “wholly disproportionate”.
At the high court hearings in March, Sussex’s lawyers said the OfS decision was “procedurally unfair” and its approach was “in certain respects unreasonable”.
Sussex challenged the OfS’s decision on several grounds, including that the university’s “scheme of delegation” – the subject of the second breach – formed part of its internal rules and was also outside OfS jurisdiction.
Stock resigned from Sussex in October 2021, shortly after she had been told by police to stay away from campus following a series of protests, and feared her 18-year career at the university had been “effectively ended” after Sussex’s branch of the University and College Union called for an investigation into institutional transphobia.
Adam Tickell, who was vice-chancellor at Sussex at the time, said: “This was always a political intervention and one I first heard about from an official at the Department for Education and not, as the law required, from the OfS.
“If nothing else, it demonstrates the urgent need for a right to independent appeal against what can be arbitrary and capricious rulings from the OfS. Although recent changes at the OfS are rebuilding trust, the judgment demonstrates the need for reform.”
