Campus and academic freedom

The Free Speech Union has covered 181 stories on this topic. Browse our coverage below.

• 1 March 2026

  Free speech in Welsh universities: why Wales needs its own Freedom of Speech Act

  The FSU has drafted a Welsh adaptation of HEFSA and is calling on parties contesting the 2026 Senedd election to adopt it as a manifesto commitment.

• 4 February 2026

  Jazz lecturer 'forced out' after challenging critical race theory

  Jazz lecturer Martin Speake was effectively cancelled after questioning critical race theory — now he's taking Trinity Laban to an employment tribunal with FSU's support.

• 15 November 2025

  Students Fighting Back Against Ideological Conformity at Cambridge

• 14 November 2025

  Building a Culture of Free Expression on Campus

• 5 November 2025

  China is a threat to academic freedom in our universities

• 30 July 2025

  Departing Selwyn College head warns of ideological conformity at Cambridge

• 2 July 2025

  “Freedom-restricting harassment” of gender critical academics creating barriers to research, government review finds

• 19 June 2025

  Universities told to uphold free speech “within the law” in major regulatory shake-up

• 9 June 2025

  Epidemic of “no-contact orders” on US campuses raises free speech concerns

• 6 May 2025

  Linking university funding to diversity initiatives threatens intellectual freedom, say academics

• 6 May 2025

  Survey reveals widespread self-censorship and intimidation in UK arts sector

• 6 May 2025

  The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act

• 3 May 2025

  Asking for pronouns ‘non-inclusive’, Liverpool University guidance says

• 22 April 2025

  Call for University President to resign amid academic freedom row at Lyon 2

• 22 April 2025

  Professor fired for questioning gender ideology wins $1.6 million free speech settlement

• 11 April 2025

  Debate competition run by Oxford Union pressures children to declare gender pronouns

• 7 April 2025

  Universities urged to review sex and gender policies after Sussex fined

• 1 April 2025

  Academics sue their own union for campaigning against them

• 31 March 2025

  University of Sussex to fight record fine for free speech failures

• 28 March 2025

  Kathleen Stock renounces academic title over ‘dim-witted’ trans policies

• 26 March 2025

  The Kathleen Stock case shows the OfS means business on free speech

• 26 March 2025

  University of Sussex to challenge £585,000 fine by regulator over transgender free speech case

• 24 March 2025

  Believing in meritocracy is ‘racist microaggression’, polar scientists told

• 24 March 2025

  Cambridge causes bitter row by linking Stephen Hawking to slavery

• 17 March 2025

  Shakespeare’s birthplace to be decolonised after ‘white supremacy’ fears

• 16 March 2025

  Jewish students “scared to leave halls” as societies share Hamas propaganda

• 14 March 2025

  University ‘snooped’ on academics in hunt for chief’s affair leak

• 11 March 2025

  Universities must put academic freedom above commercial interests, says free speech tsar

• 4 March 2025

  “Bias response teams” on US campuses under fire

• 4 March 2025

  Go broke, go woke

• 2 March 2025

  Dr Almut Gadow wins victory for academic freedom

• 26 February 2025

  Lecturer loses tribunal after claiming ‘tone policing’ was a racist micro-aggression

• 20 February 2025

  Lord Hague promises Oxford will be “a home of free speech”

• 14 February 2025

  Elon Musk and the Royal Society: The Campaign to Expel a Fellow

• 14 February 2025

  FSU criticises “upset” students who “can’t sit through” a triggering Shakespeare play

• 8 February 2025

  Universities failing to promote diversity will face funding cuts

• 30 January 2025

  FSU-backed Vice-Chancellor is reinstated

• 24 January 2025

  University regulator under pressure to resolve Kathleen Stock investigation amid battle over watered-down free speech duties

• 23 January 2025

  Student suicide prompts fears of the wider implications of cancel culture

• 19 January 2025

  Banished from history! Scottish education chiefs axe the word ‘slave’ from exams to ‘decolonise’ curriculum

• 19 January 2025

  University accused of fostering division with ‘race-segregated’ classes

• 18 January 2025

  Phillipson faces pressure to revive free speech law before next academic year

• 16 January 2025

  Government Faces Criticism for Shelving Plans to Address Chinese Influence in Universities

• 16 January 2025

  Labour revives free speech law — minus controversial clause

• 8 January 2025

  Royal Society of Literature director and chair quit after free speech rows

• 6 January 2025

  Government pauses higher education free speech act, sparking concerns among campaigners

• 5 January 2025

  Universities say courses too focused on ‘undertakings of white people’

• 3 January 2025

  Epic nonsense: trigger warnings for Greek classics

• 29 December 2024

  Phillipson tried to pull plug on new free speech law days after election

• 19 December 2024

  Freedom of Speech Act “toothless” without right to sue universities, campaigners say

• 17 December 2024

  Labour government gives green light for woke councils to rename streets with links to Empire

• 13 December 2024

  German university refuses to host an exhibition on anti-Jewish pogroms for fear of protests

• 13 December 2024

  Huge increase in anti-Semitism on British campuses

• 13 December 2024

  Professor censored over concerns that citing Victorian historian during public talk suggests pro-colonial viewpoint

• 11 December 2024

  In defence of Connie Shaw

• 9 December 2024

  Student barred from university radio over gender critical views will “keep fighting for free speech”

• 6 December 2024

  Gender-critical student suspended from university radio after posting interview with detransitioner

• 6 December 2024

  Senior academics rally to the defence of Buckingham university’s suspended vice-chancellor

• 4 December 2024

  Oxford Union accused of breaking the law during Israel debate

• 2 December 2024

  Students unable to speak with those who disagree with them, says Ivy League chief

• 2 December 2024

  Theatre bosses issue trigger warnings for Cinderella pantomime over audiences yelling “behind you”

• 1 December 2024

  Oxford Union descends into chaos as students shout down Israeli speakers

• 28 November 2024

  Lord Hague demands end to cancel culture in defence of free speech

• 25 November 2024

  University accused of ‘attributing inherited guilt’ over slavery links

• 17 November 2024

  Geology is racist, claims university professor

• 12 November 2024

  How Oxbridge’s “self-appointed morality crusades” took cancel culture too far

• 12 November 2024

  University slaps trigger warnings on “graphic” human body images to avoid upsetting biology students

• 11 November 2024

  If we are to avoid more tragedies, we must foster tolerance on our toxic university campuses

• 11 November 2024

  Licence to Silence

• 10 November 2024

  Buckingham vice-chancellor’s allies blame woke backlash for suspension

• 10 November 2024

  I lived in fear of being cancelled as an Oxbridge student. We all did

• 10 November 2024

  University cancel culture “eroding” liberal values, warn authors

• 3 November 2024

  Education Secretary faces court over shelving free speech laws

• 3 November 2024

  FSU reports university to watchdog after Vice-Chancellor pushed out for holding right-wing views

• 31 October 2024

  UK court rules in favour of student whose visa was revoked after she spoke of “joy” following October 7th

• 28 October 2024

  Inside the anti-woke university where you can’t be cancelled

• 27 October 2024

  David Lloyd George’s childhood home to be ‘decolonised’

• 27 October 2024

  Now the one British university unambiguous in championing free speech is at risk of being muzzled

• 25 October 2024

  Oxford Chancellorship: FSU and AFFS update best free speech candidate list

• 24 October 2024

  FSU offers its support to suspended Buckingham University Vice-Chancellor

• 15 October 2024

  Leading academic who left the UK to teach in Australia after publishing pro-Brexit article says British universities are now ‘just places of indoctrination’

• 14 October 2024

  Oxford candidate runs into row over freedom of speech

• 13 October 2024

  An open letter on academic free speech

• 13 October 2024

  Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales given trigger warning over “expressions of Christian faith”

• 13 October 2024

  Oxford Chancellorship: FSU and AFFS recommend best free speech candidates

• 13 October 2024

  Pub landlords to be turned into ‘banter police’ under reforms to workers’ rights

• 10 October 2024

  FSU intervenes after “mob rule tactics” force cancellation of ex-Home Secretary’s Cambridge speech

• 9 October 2024

  Oxford University debate series to “reaffirm importance of free speech”

• 8 October 2024

  Gender-critical Prof Jo Phoenix condemns Open University view “whitewash”

• 8 October 2024

  Trigger warnings applied to museum photographs of English folk events

• 7 October 2024

  The Open University publishes disappointing report on gender-critical professor Jo Phoenix’s Employment Tribunal

• 3 October 2024

  FSU writes to Durham University after student society blocked from Freshers’ Fair

• 1 October 2024

  Education Secretary repeats canard that Freedom of Speech Act risks enabling ‘hate speech’ and Holocaust denial

• 30 September 2024

  Jewish students withdrawing from university life as antisemitic abuse soars in wake of October 7th attacks

• 28 September 2024

  University professor sacked for questioning puberty blockers for gender confused children

• 7 September 2024

  Government faces High Court showdown with its free speech tsar

• 6 September 2024

  Students scared to speak their minds for fear of being cancelled, say Oxford dons

• 5 September 2024

  Trigger warnings are dumbing down the arts, says The Crown star Matt Smith

• 3 September 2024

  University eradicates phrase Anglo-Saxon to ‘decolonise’ the curriculum and protect students from “nationalist narratives”

• 27 August 2024

  FSU legal action forces admission that Government dropped free speech law after universities feared for China interests

• 27 August 2024

  If Labour cancels the university free speech act, Jewish students will suffer

• 27 August 2024

  Labour’s outrageous attack on academic free speech

• 27 August 2024

  Teachers will be trained to challenge ‘whiteness’ in schools

• 23 August 2024

  Academic freedom under threat at Cambridge University

• 21 August 2024

  Decolonisation experts warn Welsh librarians: avoid “racist” buildings

• 10 August 2024

  Ditching this free speech act is a green light to campus bullies

• 7 August 2024

  UCL wins court order on Gaza protest camps

• 6 August 2024

  A free speech counter-revolution is stirring in Britain’s universities

• 4 August 2024

  Why the Labour Government is wrong to stop commencement of the Freedom of Speech Act

• 1 August 2024

  City University London settles Dr Laura Favaro’s gender critical “silencing” tribunal claim

• 28 July 2024

  Does Labour care about free speech on campus?

• 28 July 2024

  Government declares war on free speech, FSU to launch legal fightback

• 28 July 2024

  Labour has just surrendered to the enemies of free speech

• 28 July 2024

  Scrapping cancel culture law “puts campus free speech in peril”, Labour warned

• 26 July 2024

  Government has just declared war on free speech

• 26 July 2024

  Labour to axe university free speech bill

• 11 July 2024

  Will campus free speech be protected under Labour?

• 11 July 2024

  Will gender identity ideology be taught as ‘fact’ in schools under Labour?

• 16 June 2024

  Academic freedom in peril as top university ‘coerces’ staff into signing Stonewall-backed LGBTQ+ pledge

• 16 June 2024

  ‘Dead white men’ of western philosophical canon sidelined in latest drive to ‘decolonise’ classroom philosophy

• 16 June 2024

  No, we haven’t reached ‘peak woke’, it’s going mainstream

• 16 June 2024

  University tells staff to teach that whiteness and heterosexuality are problematic

• 13 June 2024

  Pro-Palestine protesters shut down debate at Durham University

• 9 June 2024

  Exeter University staff “feel coerced” to sign Stonewall anti-transphobia pledge

• 8 June 2024

  Leading academics urge new government not to stall on full implementation of Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act

• 30 May 2024

  Teachers could get legal protection from blasphemy claims

• 25 May 2024

  FSU supporting academics after the BMJ rejected their research papers “because of their views on the trans debate”

• 24 May 2024

  Academic freedom event at Cardiff University goes ahead thanks to FSU administered Ian Mactaggart Programme!

• 24 May 2024

  Gender-critical academics raise “ideological filtering” concerns over BMJ’s peer-review process

• 24 May 2024

  Russell Group apologises for classing ‘gender critical’ views as hate speech

• 20 May 2024

  Teachers to get free speech protection from blasphemy claims

• 16 May 2024

  FSU pays venue and security costs to help save Cardiff University academic freedom event

• 16 May 2024

  “Hypersensitive” Japanese professor who sued British university for racism after boss spoke to her about sushi has case thrown out

• 15 May 2024

  Columbia University’s Minouche Shafik showed her true colours when she voted on campus free speech

• 15 May 2024

  Oxford University drops “woke” plan to vet new chancellor after wokeism row

• 15 May 2024

  Teachers must tell pupils gender ideology is a ‘contested belief’

• 9 May 2024

  Autism school signed up to LGBT charter pushing ‘pseudoscientific’ trans ideology

• 9 May 2024

  How universities raised a generation of activists

• 6 May 2024

  US universities denied free speech for years — no wonder chaos reigns

• 6 May 2024

  Why we should defend Nathan Cofnas’s academic freedom

• 3 May 2024

  Britain must fight ‘chilling effect’ of cancel culture, Sunak says

• 2 May 2024

  Uphold academic freedom and call off investigation into ‘race realism’ researcher, say eminent colleagues

• 29 April 2024

  Debt-laden universities terminating hundreds of lecturers, but appointing ‘woke’ EDI staff

• 29 April 2024

  What to do when you’re cancelled

• 27 April 2024

  The Cass review of gender identity services marks a return to reason and evidence – it must be defended

• 25 April 2024

  Leeds bans “unfairly disparaging” social media posts

• 24 April 2024

  Oxford University has ‘allowed political diversity to wither’

• 24 April 2024

  Transphobia at Edinburgh University ‘driving out staff’

• 24 April 2024

  Turn of the woke tide will leave many stranded

• 23 April 2024

  University student disciplined after saying “veganism is wrong” in his own room

• 22 April 2024

  Cambridge in free-speech row over researcher’s ‘race realism’ blog

• 20 April 2024

  King’s College London bars staff from promotion unless they support pro-trans diversity policy

• 16 April 2024

  Gagging of the brave has let gender ideologues seize control

• 15 April 2024

  Gender ideology and the ‘institutional capture’ of our public institutions

• 14 April 2024

  Why academia failed to challenge trans ideology

• 10 April 2024

  Make universities name secret foreign donors, academics say

• 9 April 2024

  Scotland’s hate crime act is stifling academic freedom

• 27 March 2024

  Free speech will return to our great universities

• 27 March 2024

  Universities have forgotten their true purpose

• 26 March 2024

  Threats, fear and surveillance: how Beijing targets students in the UK who criticise regime

• 26 March 2024

  Universities told to protect free speech from foreign state attacks

• 25 March 2024

  Climate of harassment and censorship threatens free speech, warns government advisor

• 21 March 2024

  Dr Laura Favaro’s research revealed female academics are bullied into silence over their views on gender – now she’s been silenced and ousted too

• 15 March 2024

  British academic deplatformed by Canadian government because “you are not allowed to talk about sex in Canada”

• 15 March 2024

  “Stark decline” in academic freedom in the UK over the past 50 years

• 9 March 2024

  UCL launches investigation over “concerning” decision to ban lecturer from teaching “provocative” China module to protect “commercial interests”

• 5 March 2024

  U.S. Supreme Court won’t review growth of “literal speech police” on campus colleges

• 4 March 2024

  Academics self-censoring out of fear of being bullied, says Vice Chancellor

• 27 February 2024

  “Most qualified person should get the job” is microaggression, Russell Group universities say

• 20 February 2024

  Harvard Professor needed armed protection after publishing research that challenged woke orthodoxies

• 20 February 2024

  Universities watchdog wants to hear from students on campus free speech proposals

• 14 February 2024

  Edinburgh University staff and students launch attempt to cancel new gender-critical Rector

• 14 February 2024

  The Higher Education Act 2023 and the future of free speech at UK universities

• 7 February 2024

  “Outrageous censorship” Swansea University pulls gender critical book from library to protect students

• 6 February 2024

  Bristol University professor sacked for anti-Zionist views was unfairly dismissed, tribunal finds

• 1 February 2024

  85% of US universities have policies in place that put free speech at risk

• 27 January 2024

  Academic sacked for “serious misconduct” following Greta Thunberg tweet

• 26 January 2024

  Open University "apologises unreservedly" to gender critical Prof Jo Phoenix over freedom of speech failings

• 26 January 2024

  Students attempt heckler's veto against Twitter Files journalist Bari Weiss

• 24 January 2024

  Professor Jo Phoenix's legal triumph is also a triumph for freedom of speech

• 23 January 2024

  Open University Professor wins tribunal case over gender-critical views