University of Sussex case: law defeated by culture in battle for free speech
Free-speech campaigners were disappointed that the High Court overturned the Office for Students fine this week. But free expression won't thrive till we overturn the culture of censorship itself.
On Wednesday, the High Court upheld the University of Sussex’s appeal against the Office for Students (OfS), which had issued a record fine over the University’s failure to protect the freedom of Kathleen Stock to express gender-critical views.
The arduous story of campus cancel culture – and culture is the key term – began in 2021 after Stock resigned amid death threats and warnings from the police to not leave her home. Over three years later, the OfS fined Sussex £585,000 under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech Act) 2023, arguing Sussex’s EDI policy was flawed for potentially restricting lawful gender-critical speech. Yet the High Court held this alone was insufficient, claiming universities may limit lawful speech if the restriction is justified and proportionate.
Sussex have argued that they themselves did not fire Stock for her views – she resigned under the stress of cancellation, ostracism and reputational damage. This raises a key question we’ll explore at Living Freedom’s Summer School: are legal protections enough to defend freedom of speech? We’ll be asking whether the UK needs an equivalent of America’s First Amendment – and whether changing the law can counter a culture of ‘you can’t say that’ and ‘speech is violence’.
This acts as a timely reminder for why Living Freedom is so important: it’s not enough to ask government to intervene when free speech is violated. As Stock herself writes: ‘It is the moral crazes rippling periodically through universities that constitute the biggest threat to freedom of expression there.’ We must build a culture in which free speech is actively championed, especially among young people, so that environments shaped by caution, complaint and self-censorship give way to ones grounded in confidence, openness and genuine intellectual freedom.
If you can’t wait until this year’s Summer School, watch Lorcán Price’s lecture on hate speech from our 2025 Summer School below. The lecture is particularly relevant as he describes how culture altered the application of law regarding free speech in the European courts.
Another important lecture from the Living Freedom archive is ‘A Lecture Concerning Toleration’ by Arif Ahmed from 2022, which addresses the importance of culture.
Claire Fox, director of the Academy of Ideas, was on Talk this week with Ian Collins discussing the Sussex case and why we need a culture of free expression and a defence of academic freedom.
We’ve also linked to relevant articles below on the moral dilemmas facing free-speech advocates.
Read on
The rewriting of campus history
Kathleen Stock, UnHerd, 1 May 2026
The High Court has rewarded Kathleen Stock’s persecutors
Freddie Attenborough, spiked, 30 April 2026
Reflections on the University of Sussex v Office for Students judgment
Ian Pace, Substack, 29 April 2026
Levi Pay (@soppystem), X, 1 May 2026