Stop weighing in on politics, universities told

Telegraph

18-04-2025

Universities have been urged to stop weighing in on politics after a gender-critical academic was hounded out of her job.
In a letter sent to all British universities on Wednesday, seen by The Telegraph, seven free speech organisations called on vice-chancellors to 'adopt a policy of institutional neutrality on social and political issues' that do not directly concern core academic matters.
The groups cited the recent case of Prof Kathleen Stock, a gender-critical academic who was driven from her post at the University of Sussex after she raised the alarm over the institution's transgender policy.
The letter, signed by groups including the Committee for Academic Freedom and prominent academics such as Prof Jo Phoenix, warned that universities had increasingly taken official stances on contentious issues in recent years.
It said: 'This trend has contributed to the politicisation of higher education and created an untenable expectation that universities must weigh in on every major political or social debate.
'To ensure that all members of the academic community feel free to express their ideas without fear of repercussion, universities must remain neutral on matters of polarising public debate.'
It comes after Prof Stock quit her job following criticism of Sussex's policy, which stated that academics must 'positively represent trans people and trans lives' in all relevant teaching. She said this prevented her from discussing gender-critical arguments with students.
The Office for Students (OfS) ruled last month that Prof Stock 'felt unable to teach certain topics' as a result of the policy and hit the University of Sussex with a £585,000 fine for breaching free speech duties – the watchdog's largest sanction on record.
In their letter on Wednesday, which was also sent to the OfS, free speech groups said the University of Sussex would likely have avoided this fine if it had 'remained neutral on what is a contested subject'.
They claimed such instances created 'a chilling effect' on university campuses and helped foster 'an environment where attacking people for their viewpoints becomes acceptable'.
The group of academics, which also includes Lord Young, the head of the Free Speech Union, and Lord Biggar, a philosophy professor at the University of Oxford, urged UK institutions to instead adopt the principle that 'the university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic'.
This idea derives from the Kalven Report, a document produced by the University of Chicago in 1967 which called for US campuses to adopt positions of neutrality as they were rocked by violence during the Vietnam War.
Just a handful of UK universities currently have 'institutional neutrality' policies in place, including Queen Mary University, the London School of Economics, and Imperial College London.
By comparison, around 140 US universities have chosen to adopt impartiality clauses. It comes as American institutions gradually reverse a trend of issuing statements on hot-button issues, which accelerated around a decade ago in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Some have claimed the shift towards neutrality at US universities has also been hastened by the Israel-Hamas war, which saw some institutions, including Harvard, chastised for taking a view.
Institutional neutrality refers to when universities formally adopt a statement of impartiality in their governing documents or policies.
The term also means universities refrain from adopting 'particular political, social or ideological viewpoints or agendas', flying flags associated with them, or pressuring staff and students to support certain agendas.
The free speech groups said exemptions should apply only when the topics in question relate to a university's 'core functions', such as education, research, and the pursuit of its charitable objects, or when legally required to do so.
Lord Hague, the new chancellor of the University of Oxford, appeared to voice his support for institutional neutrality earlier this year, saying in his inaugural speech that Oxford did 'not need to agree on everything'.
He said: 'Indeed we should not. I am pleased to say we do not need a foreign policy: we are not a country.'
Prof Arif Ahmed, the Government's free speech tsar, also spoke in favour of institutional neutrality prior to his appointment as the director of academic freedom at the OfS in 2023.
In an article for Unherd in 2022, Prof Ahmed said the OfS 'should recommend both the scrapping of political training and the adoption of institutional neutrality'.
He wrote to a select number of universities with similar transgender policies to the University of Sussex earlier this month urging them to review their guidelines.
It comes after the University of Sussex condemned its treatment by the OfS and said it is 'being made an example to other universities' as part of efforts to stoke the 'culture wars'.
Critics of institutional neutrality more broadly argue that it prevents universities from taking a firm stance against issues such as anti-Semitism. They also say that neutrality clauses allow vice-chancellors to sidestep difficult subjects, often for fear of deterring donors.
William Mackesy, the founder of the Alumni For Free Speech group, told The Telegraph: 'One of the best ways for universities to detoxify their campuses is to stop taking sides. But do they really care enough?
'Legal and regulatory catastrophes are coming for our universities, like that recently suffered by Sussex. These are caused by the various ways they are failing to protect people with sometimes controversial views. The risk can, though, be minimised by adopting a mindset of neutrality.'