University of Sussex wins High Court challenge against regulator over free speech penalty

The University of Sussex campus, Credit: ITV Meridian

The University of Sussex has won a High Court challenge against England’s higher education regulator over a finding that it had infringed on lawful free speech.

The university took legal action against the Office for Students (OfS) last year over the watchdog’s decision in March 2025 that the university had breached conditions of registration through its trans and non-binary equality policy statement.

The decision came after a more than three-year investigation following student protests related to the gender-critical views of former staff member Professor Kathleen Stock.

She resigned after the protests in response to her views in 2021, with the OfS finding the university’s policy had “a chilling effect” of possible self-censorship of students and staff on campus.

The OfS found the policy breached registration conditions and that the university had not acted in accordance with its internal rules for adopting policies, handing it a record £585,000 fine.

Kathleen Stock who was made an OBE for services to higher education, resigned after protests in response to her views in 2021. Credit: PA Images

The university, which has more than 19,000 students, challenged the regulator’s decision at the High Court, telling a hearing in February that the OfS’s decision had “severe” consequences for the institution and on its reputation as a “bastion of free speech”.

The OfS defended the claim, telling the court the investigation was “careful and detailed” and “pursuant to a fair procedure”.

In a judgment on Wednesday, Mrs Justice Lieven ruled in the university’s favour, finding the OfS “misdirected itself”.

She also said the regulator’s decision was “vitiated by bias” as it approached the decision “with a closed mind and had therefore unlawfully predetermined the decision”.

The judge said the legal challenge did not concern “any of the issues or facts surrounding what happened to Professor Stock”, but instead “is concerned with whether the OfS erred in law, either in respect of its jurisdiction, its interpretation of the law, or the lawfulness of its process”.

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