The University of Sussex has been fined £585,000 by higher education regulator Office for Students (OfS) over a policy that the OfS has claimed restricted the free speech of former employee Kathleen Stock, and others.
The university’s policy reportedly required staff and students to “positively represent trans people”, adding that transphobia would “not be tolerated”.
OfS claimed the policy could lead to self-censorship, adding that professor Kathleen Stock, who left the university in 2021, became “more cautious” about expressing her “gender-critical” views due to the policy.
The OfS said it launched the investigation after campus protests broke out calling for the dismissal of then-philosophy professor Kathleen Stock due to her “gender-critical” views. Stock left the university in 2021.
The OfS said in a statement: “Professor Stock said that she became more cautious in her expression of gender critical views as a result of the policy. There were some views she did not feel able to express, and therefore teach, despite those views being lawful.
“Other staff and students may have felt similarly unable to express these, or other, lawful views.”
The University of Sussex was ultimately fined £585,000 for “failing to uphold freedom of speech”, which Sky News reports is the “largest-ever issued by the regulator” at around 15 times larger than any other sanction imposed.
According to Sky News, the university intends to challenge the fine.
Professor Sasha Roseneil, vice chancellor at the university, described the investigation as “Kafkaesque”, adding that the fine was “disproportionate”.
Writing in an op-ed, Roseneil said: “We will strongly contest these findings and have grave concerns about the implications of its decisions for students and staff, especially those from minoritised groups.”
“Sussex will not be the last to face the challenge of a debate on gender, sex and identity that has become toxic,” Roseneil added. ”Universities across England are grappling with claims and counterclaims about academic freedom and freedom of speech regarding issues of equality, identity and inclusion.
“As the protests against the war in Gaza have shown, universities will continue to be a frontline for society’s most contentious issues.”
She added: “Levying a wholly disproportionate fine after a flawed, politically motivated, and wasteful investigation – when the higher education sector is in financial crisis – serves no one. ”
Arif Ahmed, director for freedom of speech and academic freedom at the OfS, defended the fine, telling Sky News: “If you have policies which are restricting what viewpoints you can express, what ideas can be expressed, then that’s inconsistent with the whole aim of the university, with the aim of research and with the aim of a genuine humanistic education.
“So for all of those reasons, we think it’s really important that the fine reflects the severity of the breaches that we saw, the damage that they caused.”
A University of Sussex spokesperson confirmed to PinkNews that it will “strongly contest these findings”.
“We will strongly contest these findings and have grave concerns about the implications of the decisions for students and staff across all universities,” the spokesperson said.
“We have taken legal advice and, as our Vice-Chancellor Professor Sasha Roseneil has already said, we will be challenging the OfS’s findings proceeding via a judicial review. Our lawyers are currently drafting a pre-action protocol letter.”
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