The Office for Students (OfS) has published new guidance for protecting freedom of speech in English universities, in advance of the main duties of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 coming into force on 1 August 2025.

As the guidance explains, the Act imposes requirements on those institutions within its scope to take “reasonably practicable steps to secure free speech within the law for students, staff and members and for visiting speakers” and to “maintain a free speech code of practice and to promote the importance of freedom of speech within the law and academic freedom in the provision of higher education”.

The guidance seeks to set out in broad terms how these requirements can be met by (i) outlining the OfS’s understanding of free speech and academic freedom, (ii) setting out a three-step framework for assessing compliance with the duties to secure freedom of speech and (iii) providing concrete examples of the kinds of steps to secure freedom of speech that are likely to be deemed by the OfS to be reasonably practicable in certain circumstances.

The three-step framework for assessing compliance with the duty to secure freedom of speech is as follows:

1. Is the speech within the law (i.e. does it fall outside certain speech which is prohibited by primary legislation or legal precedent)?
2. If the speech is within the law, are there any reasonably practicable steps that can be taken to secure the speech? Factors that are likely to be relevant to an assessment of what is reasonably practicable include concerns about physical safety and compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. Considerations about the reputational impact on the institution or the viewpoint expressed will likely not constitute relevant factors. If reasonably practicable steps can be taken, then they should be.
3. If there are no reasonably practicable steps that can be taken to secure the speech in question, any restriction or regulation must meet the conditions set down in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The guidance continues to set out steps that institutions can take to secure freedom of speech in a variety of particular circumstances, including admissions and appointments, complaints, research, and speaker events.

To read the guidance in full, click here.