Sussex University overturns £585,000 fine as high court rejects free speech breach claim

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/apr/29/sussex-university-overturns-fine-free-speech-kathleen-stock?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky&CMP=bsky_gu

sorry to send you to the guardian.

Consider this to be bad news indeed.

it's such compelling argument to say women can have a penis because, no
wait, that's mental sorry.

Again, show where the judgement in question is wrong. Making glib barbs like that will not convince anyone not already firmly in your camp.

Well yes, but I was really highlighting the responses, which saw it as a victory for free speech, when in fact it's just the opposite - the uni was supporting the students who abused and threatened Kathleen Stock for exercising her right to free speech.

The uni statement says, "Sussex has today cleared its name, and we remain committed as ever to academic freedom and freedom of speech." Complete nonsense and they should be ashamed of themselves. https://www.sussex.ac.uk/news/focus/freedom-of-speech

In any case, removal of the fine seems to be down to a technicality of the process followed, rather than agreement or disagreement with either Kathleen Stock or the uni.

The court ruling had nothing to do with, nor did it comment on, what happened to Kathleen Stock.

It is, as mentioned up thread, and in the quote I posted earlier from the Court summary of the Judgement, that basically OfS abused the process they are meant to follow.

So sadly because they FU, thr actual issue has not been addressed.

The Court judgement didn't say Sussex University was right, it just said procedures against them were faulty.

Lets hope one day there will be people working in the OfS who know how to do their job.

Everyone is in my camp.

I feel she has an interest somewhere in this topic, possibly undeclared. She is a Family Court judge so not totally sure why this case and other similar are falling under her brief/remit.

@SwirlyGates Yes. It’s about using a fair procedure to investigate and administer a fine. It’s reasonable to expect a fair process and Sussex say they didn’t get it. Not sure it was about free speech. I agree, it was about process.

Although the judge works in the family court she’s also a specialist in administrative law. She will be well qualified. It will be interesting to see if the OfS seeks to appeal.

I suspect they will. They need to test out the boundaries of the powers and this judgment seemed to limit rather too many points - it looks like it was a Parliament FU because they didn't work out how HERA was going to interact with all the existing structures. The only way they can work it out is by test cases I supppose. On the other hand the new complaints process closes some of the loopholes that Sussex has slipped through and the OfS will have learned a lot from this process, so next uni on the hook will not get off so lightly... the fine may not have fallen due, but the intent is clear and universities need to clean house

She is a Justice of the High Court of England and Wales, and sits in the Family Court Division of the High Court. That's different to the Family Court, which is a lower court. Family Court Judges are much junior to High Court Judges.

She is experienced in administrative law, and it's not unusual for High Court Judges sometimes to sit on cases in other divisions.

it looks like it was a Parliament FU

Agree - in fact we could have a thread and nearly every day would be able to add another instances where something that has not been effective will turn out to be that.

An article by Doc Stock in Unherd

https://archive.ph/a0JgU

https://unherd.com/2026/05/the-rewriting-of-campus-history/?edition=us

Sacha Roseneil is calling for Professor Ahmed to resign, or be sacked.

Full judgement https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/the-university-of-sussex-v-the-office-for-students/

https://unherd.com/2026/05/the-rewriting-of-campus-history/

From Stock today

Archive version https://archive.is/a0JgU#selection-779.0-793.4

Apologies did not clock you had already posted those!!

So let me see if I've this straight:
Sussex Uni allowed a prolonged campaign of ostracising, harassment, intimidation by masked individuals, death threats etc against one of its senior academics BUT
..because this didn't fall under the scope of its 'governing documents', nothing to see here, move on?

Yeah its true Kathleen Stock was threatened and harassed and ultimately driven out of the university - but what could we do? There's nothing in our governing documents that says you can't threatened and harassed and ultimately drive a senior academic out of the university because you don't like what she says.
So our hands were tied, what could we do, other than let masked protestors intimidate and threaten her to their hearts' content?

'Protecting freedom of speech' requires something more robust and proactive than universities looking into the finer details/escape clauses in their Governing Documents as they watch graffiti and flares and masked gangs and death threats taking place in their 'bastions of free speech'

There are excellent analyses of this in the Times Higher by Smita Jamdar and Jack Grove if you’re able to access them (apologies, don’t have sharing links)

Something which hasn’t been picked up much by commentators so far is that the judge did not uphold Sussex’s claim that there was ‘no evidence of a chilling effect’ arising from the Positive Representation Statement (ie the one since withdrawn), and commented that ‘people may be unwilling to come forward and give specific evidence of the effect on them.’ This wasn’t pursued any further though, because the overriding focus was on OfS messing up their investigation thus rendering the finding invalid. But it’s a start.

I expect the new complaints scheme and condition of registration will enable OfS to drill more deeply into what is going on on campuses and the detail of specific cases - assuming they don’t screw that up too!

No, you've haven't got it straight. This judgement wasn't about, and had no capacity to review, whether Sussex had infringed academic freedom, yet alone whether it was justified in doing so. What it found is that in coming to its conclusion a) OfS stepped the powers then had then (they have new ones now) and b) didn't follow its own processes and didn't conduct a fair and open process. It doesn't say anything about the conclusion the OfS reached, just the way it did it. One option that would be open to the OfS would be to restart the investigation, and if they did it might come to exactly the same conclusion that Sussex had contravened academic freedom. I don't think the OfS will do that, both because it would be humiliating and because they would have to do something quite convoluted and arms length to show that this new investigation wasn't, like the court found the previous one was, predetermined in outcome. But they could do so without contravening the finding of this court in any way.

I probably didn't express myself well, sorry.

I was lamenting the fact that the blatant infringement of academic freedom by Sussex Uni, i.e. allowing an atmosphere of fear and intimidation to flourish, was not -as you point out - central to the judgment.

So I agree with you that the judgement was more about the OfS and how it operates; my regret is that it was not about Sussex Uni and how it operated.

But that was the nature of this appeal - the judge didn't choose not to comment on whether or not Sussex had violated free speech, it wasn't a matter in her remit. And actually, on the only point put before the court that did touch on the actual facts of the matter, the judge did not uphold Sussex's case (Sussex claimed that the OfS had claimed there had been a chilling effect with no evidence; the judge didn't uphold this because she found the OfS's reading of the evidence to meet the standard of rationality).

As an analogy, it's like if you thought I had stolen your wallet, so you locked me in your cellar, and then a judge was asked to rule on whether or not you were right to lock me in your cellar. The judge isn't supposed to deciding whether I stole your wallet, or whether stealing is wrong - the point is that you don't have the authority or grounds to lock me in your cellar for it in the way you did. The OfS did the equivalent of the locking in the cellar; it's not for this case whether or not Sussex did steal the wallet.

Sussex Uni allowed a prolonged campaign of ostracising, harassment, intimidation by masked individuals, death threats etc against one of its senior academics BUT
..because this didn't fall under the scope of its 'governing documents', nothing to see here, move on?

I worked with the then Sussex VC a few years before (there's a different VC now, who supervised Sally Hines' PhD, so genderborg supreme) & in another capacity at another university: he was an flat-footed idiot then, and I suspect was similarly talented while Professor Stock was working at Sussex.

Not saying I grasp all the nuances of the ruling, but clearly the problem here is that the OfS is as the court implied too keen on making an example (which may make them feel good about themselves) rather than showing which they have the power to do, how Sussex University failed Kathleen Stock and the right of students to be able to discuss issues of importance to them.

If their self aggrandising antics only slow down the process of Unversities being held to account, it will, as always, show that nothing in the UK works, let alone anything created by politicians.

I see they have actually been in existence since 2018.

Have they achieved anything during that period of time?

Apparently the fine was 15 times higher than any previous fines, although none had been on the issue of free speech.

Quote from AI:

In early 2026, there was a major change in leadership, with the chief executive Susan Lapworth leaving and Ruth Hannant and Polly Payne appointed as new chief executives to lead the "reset" of the regulator's role

Does anyone know what this reset is?