The Office for Students wants universities’ free speech codes to cover teaching and it will poll academics on the state of free speech, an intervention that led the Russell Group to urge the regulator to maintain “its independence and ability to make impartial judgements”.
After the Office for Students published a report on free speech in English universities on 15 December, the Russell Group offered an unusually strong rebuke to the regulator, warning that “regulatory action needs to be taken on the basis of accurate data rather than partial analysis or inflammatory stories”.
It comes with the OfS increasingly active on the highly politicised issue of free speech using its regulatory powers, and with wider concerns about the regulator’s independence from government growing in the sector.
The government’s free speech bill, currently making its way through Parliament, would give the regulator greater powers, including through the creation of a director of freedom of speech and academic freedom within the OfS.
