Freedom of speech and academic freedom are core values of Higher education. We rely on the ability of staff, students and visiting speakers to explore ideas, test assumptions, debate contested issues and express lawful views, including those that may be controversial or unpopular. These freedoms sit alongside wider legal and institutional responsibilities, including those relating to equality, harassment, and safety.
Education providers have a responsibility to balance their free speech duty with their responsibilities to safeguard the dignity and respect of learners and staff.
We support the sector to develop inclusive, lawful and evidence-informed approaches to freedom of speech, academic freedom, EDI, and impartiality. Our guidance helps providers consider how policies, governance, culture, leadership and decision-making can protect lawful speech and academic freedom while fostering inclusive learning and working environments.
Guidance
Embedding Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
This guidance document supports HEIs to consider how organisational commitments, policies and actions meet regulatory and legislative requirements and can positively align with and support efforts in promoting freedom of speech and academic freedom.
Protected beliefs in higher education
This guidance supports higher education institutions (HEIs) in understanding protected beliefs and seemingly competing legal duties related to protected beliefs, rights of free speech and academic freedom within the law, and protections against unlawful discrimination and harassment, within the present UK legal framework.
Promoting good relations in higher education
This revised guidance provides an overview of the ways in which higher education institutions (HEIs) can promote tolerance and develop a culture where relationships between diverse groups and individuals enhance the learning experience, protect freedom of speech and academic freedom, tackle harassment, and contribute to an inclusive society.
How we can support you
- Understanding the relationship between freedom of speech, academic freedom and EDI
- Reviewing policies, frameworks and governance processes
- Supporting leadership, boards and committees to make proportionate decisions
- Developing inclusive cultures that enable lawful discussion and challenge
- Navigating protected beliefs, contested topics and campus events
Blogs, comments and thoughts
October 7th, Israel / Palestine, antisemitism, protest and universities in the UK
In the first of our three part series of blogs on ‘Leadership and community cohesion’, Professor Tom Lawson, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Northumbria University a scholar of the Holocaust and genocide, reflects on one of the most demanding terrains any UK institutional leader has had to navigate recently: antisemitism, campus protest, and the contested relationship between free speech and inclusion in the context of the Hamas attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.
I am British. I am Bangladeshi. I am Muslim. I am a teacher. But above all, I am human.
Professor Osama Khan, who from next month will be Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive, University of South Wales, offers personal reflection on anti-Muslim hate in higher education, the challenge of leading through tension, and why institutions need the confidence to support belonging, protect free speech and act with humanity.
Celebrate diversity, challenge prejudice, and embrace Academic Freedom as an Ally of EDI
“Higher education should celebrate diversity with confidence. But if it does not also challenge prejudice with seriousness, its commitment to inclusion is incomplete. And if it treats freedom of speech and academic freedom as rivals to EDI, rather than as conditions that make dignity, participation and democratic life possible for everyone, it weakens both.” Professor Dibyesh Anand
Championing academic freedom: a call to unite for the sake of higher education
In the second in our series of long reads from academics discussing freedom of speech and academic freedom, Naomi Waltham-Smith from the University of Oxford calls on UK higher education to unite in support of academic freedom for the sake of the future of higher education.
Freedom of Speech, Academic Freedom, EDI in higher education: Squaring the circle
In the third of our three-part series on academic freedom, freedom of speech and EDI, Professor David Ruebain, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Culture, Equality and Inclusion, University of Sussex, discusses the boundaries of ‘free speech and its cousin, academic freedom’.
Meet our experts
David Bass
Director of Inclusion and Governance
Advance HE
