University of Sussex begins High Court challenge against £585k free speech fine over Kathleen Stock case

The University of Sussex has begun its High Court legal challenge against a record £585,000 fine handed out by the Office for Students (OfS) over a trans-inclusive policy it said restricted the freedom of speech.

The university, located in East Sussex, had a Trans and Non-Binary Equality Policy Statement which required staff and students to “positively represent trans people”, with transphobia “not [being] tolerated” at the institution.

In March 2025 the OfS, a non-departmental public body of the Department for Education which regulates higher education in England, ruled the university’s trans inclusive policy could lead to a “chilling effect” and self-censorship of opposing gender-critical perspectives.

The OfS set out in its decision that gender-critical professor Kathleen Stock, who is regularly given a public platform for her views, became “more cautious” about expressing her beliefs due to the policy.

The OfS launched its investigation into the university after students staged protests on campus against Stock and called for her dismissal.

Stock left the university in 2021.

As a result, the university was fined a record £585,000 by the OfS for “failing to uphold freedom of speech”.

However, the University of Sussex pledged to challenge the huge fine, with the university’s vice-chancellor – Sasha Roseneil – claiming in April 2025 that the OfS’s investigation was “deeply flawed” and the decision decreed a “form of free-speech absolutism as the new golden rule for universities”.

She went on to say the decision “implies that universities cannot have policies that aim to reduce abuse, bullying and harassment, whether motivated by transphobia, antisemitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, racism or sexism”, adding: “It is, I fear, a charter that risks giving free rein to antisemitic, anti-Muslim, homophobic, racist, sexist and anti-trans speech and expression in universities, as long as it stays just on the right side of the law.”

On Tuesday (3 February) a three-day judicial review hearing began at the Royal Courts of Justice, where lawyers for the university will argue the OfS’s decision was “ultra vires, wrong in law, irrational and procedurally unfair”.

Opening the case for the university, Chris Buttler KC said Sussex had a long history of fostering freedom of speech and the fine had “severe” consequences for institution’s reputation.

‘The most consequential case on free speech and academic freedom in a generation’

The university will argue the OfS is only permitted to scrutinise a university’s “governing documents” and its Trans and Non-Binary Equality Policy Statement is “not a governing document of the university”.

Legal documents also state the university believes the OfS “unfairly singled out the university for investigation and punishment, without dialogue or discussion, when other universities operating similar or identical policies to the [equality policy] have been offered a process of open dialogue and discussion to remedy the flaws in their policies”.

In written submissions on behalf of the OfS, Monica Carss-Frisk KC stated the challenge should be dismissed.

“The OfS had jurisdiction to consider all relevant matters; it conducted a careful and detailed investigation, correctly interpreting the relevant regulatory conditions and the trans and non-binary equality policy statement,” Carss-Frisk said.

The result of the case will likely have wide-ranging implications for freedom of speech and policies protecting the rights of trans staff and students at universities and higher education providers across England.

Abhishek Saha, a founding member of the London Universities Council for Academic Freedom, described the legal challenge as “the most consequential case on free speech and academic freedom in a generation”.