Academic freedom and the management of university events
Amnesty International UK’s report, Silencing Dissent, published on 20 October 2026, documents how UK universities have managed academic events about Gaza and related campus protests. At BISA, we recognise the work that has gone into it, and share the growing concern about how some of these events have been handled. BISA is a charity for those who research and teach international studies, and we represent all of our members and promote the broad field of UK international studies as a whole. Our interest lies in whether universities protect the conditions in which academics can teach, research and speak about contested subjects. This article sets out the reasoning behind the statement that we have issued alongside it.
Academic freedom is not the same as protest
The report brings together freedom of expression, the right to peaceful assembly and academic freedom, and in many places it treats them as one. These rights overlap in practice, but they rest on different legal footings and are tested against different standards. Academics who object to the way an event has been handled therefore need to be clear about what they are defending and on what legal basis, because a complaint about academic freedom, a complaint about freedom of speech and a complaint about the right to protest will be judged differently.
A changing regulatory landscape
The regulatory landscape is also changing. The main duties in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 took effect for English universities on 1 August 2025, and the report acknowledges that its findings largely pre-date them. The High Court’s judgment in University of Sussex v Office for Students in April 2026 found that the Office for Students had misdirected itself on the law. It had taken an absolute view of freedom of speech within the law where a proportionate one was required, and it had applied the test for academic freedom too broadly. The regulator has since revised its guidance. Separately, a new complaints scheme for staff opened on 1 September 2026. BISA accepts that proportionality is central to any assessment of these events, and that universities must balance several competing rights and duties, including the safety of staff and students on campus.
What the standards were at the time
Even so, many of the events described appear to bear on academic freedom under the standards that applied at the time. In England and Wales, section 43 of the Education (No. 2) Act 1986 required universities to take reasonably practicable steps to secure freedom of speech within the law, while section 202 of the Education Reform Act 1988 stated that academic staff should have the freedom, within the law, to question and test received wisdom and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges. Scotland has its own provision in section 26 of the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005, which requires universities to aim to protect academic freedom for those who teach or carry out research.
BISA’s statement on academic freedom supports the definition in the 1997 UNESCO Recommendation concerning the status of higher-education teaching personnel, which takes a wider view than UK law. It treats academic freedom as including freedom of teaching and discussion, freedom to express opinions about the institution in which one works and freedom from institutional censorship, while attaching to it a responsibility to work with integrity and within professional standards. It sets alongside this the civil rights of staff to freedom of expression and assembly, for which they should not be penalised. On that understanding, the protest and speech rights of academic staff are closely connected with their academic freedom, and a university that restricts the former may also be constraining the latter.
Who is most exposed
The position of some staff is less clear. The wording of section 202 protects academics against the loss of their jobs or privileges, and in Sussex the High Court treated the stress of disciplinary proceedings and a chilling effect on speech as falling outside it. While that wording is framed around dismissal, it may be harder to apply to PhD researchers who teach, teaching assistants and staff on fixed-term contracts, whose positions can simply lapse. The UNESCO Recommendation applies to all those engaged to teach, research or provide educational services, without distinguishing by type of contract, and the joint ILO/UNESCO committee of experts has said that changes which diminish employment security in UK higher education are likely to weaken the full exercise of academic freedom. At BISA, we areconcerned that people in more precarious positions are the most likely to be chilled by heavy-handed management of events and by the prospect of an investigation, even where no sanction follows.
Insecurity is not only a matter of contract type. The report finds that the harm has fallen disproportionately on racialised students and staff, including those who are Palestinian, Muslim and Arab, and that staff and students on visas have faced heightened risks to their immigration status through suspensions and opaque disciplinary procedures. BISA cannot assess individual cases, but these findings bear directly on academic freedom. A colleague whose right to remain in the country depends on their employment has far more to lose from an investigation than a colleague with secure status, and may reasonably decide to say less. Universities have duties under the Equality Act 2010, and they should consider how their handling of academic events falls on colleagues who are racialised or on visas, and take care that decisions are not shaped by assumptions about who is likely to be a risk.
For this reason BISA encourages universities to avoid applying to internal academic seminars the approval procedures designed for external speakers, and, where an academic event is postponed or made subject to conditions, to give the organisers their reasons in writing.
Why this matters
While universities have to weigh safety and competing rights, academic freedom matters most when the subject is contested and feeling runs high. Teaching and research in international studies depend on the freedom to examine war, conflict and injustice, and to put forward unpopular arguments about them. At BISA, we support that freedom for everyone who teaches and researches in the field, whatever their seniority and whatever position they take.
