The belief that certain Islamic doctrines and practices are problematic, and should be open to criticism, has for the first time been recognised as a protected belief under the Equality Act 2010, in a case that may yet spell the end for the broad, ill-defined notion of ‘Islamophobia’ that has taken root across British universities, chilling discussion of contested aspects of the religion.
Patrick Lee, an actuary, was found guilty of misconduct and expelled from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) in April 2025 after a four-year disciplinary process. He was ordered to pay nearly £23,000 in costs for a series of posts on X condemning aspects of Islam.
At a preliminary employment tribunal hearing in July, the IFoA argued that Lee’s views did not amount to a genuinely held philosophical belief under section 10 of the Equality Act, claiming his “true belief” was “substantially more extreme” than pleaded. It said that posts describing Islam as “backward”, “a dangerous cult”, a “1,300-year-old con trick” and calling the Prophet Mohammed a “monster” were “either offensive or inflammatory, or both”, while some were “designed to demean or insult Muslims”.
Lee countered that he was criticising Islam’s essential creed – its “key ideas and rules for living” – citing figures from Winston Churchill to historian Tom Holland and human-rights campaigner Yasmine Mohammed to argue that his views stood within a “broader intellectual tradition of critically examining religious doctrines and their compatibility with democratic values”.
In a written judgment handed down on 3 November, Employment Judge David Khan accepted Lee’s account of his belief’s nature and sincerity, describing him as “a reliable witness because he gave cogent, consistent and credible evidence”. The judge held that Lee’s view – that unreformed Islam is problematic for Western liberal democracies because it advocates or justifies violence against non-believers, seeks to impose religious law, calls for the death penalty for apostasy, blasphemy or homosexuality, and justifies female genital mutilation – amounted to a genuine philosophical belief directed at doctrines and practices, not “individual followers of Islam or to the Islamic faith/religion at large”.
Whether Lee’s tweets were an appropriate manifestation of what his counsel, Jon Holbrook, termed an “Islam-critical” belief will be decided at a final hearing in February.
However, the judge has already indicated that they could be, appearing to accept Holbrook’s submission that “a belief is not the same as particular expressions arising from it”. Echoing the reasoning in Forstater v CGD Europe (2021) – the landmark ruling that established “gender-critical” beliefs as protected under the Equality Act – Judge Khan found that the manifestation of Lee’s views in his post and the belief he pleaded were not “mutually exclusive” nor “incompatible”. “I find,” he wrote, “that the claimant’s evidence in relation to these tweets, that he was inveighing against the offending doctrines and practices because they continued to be treated as authentic and officially sanctioned by Islamic leaders, was not inconsistent with the pleaded belief.”
Although only a first-tier tribunal decision and therefore not binding, the ruling can be cited in other employment cases, with recognition of Lee’s “Islam-critical” stance as a protected philosophical belief likely to prove persuasive. In future, anyone penalised for remarks deemed “Islamophobic” by a public authority may cite Lee v IFoA as evidence that robust criticism of religion does not, in itself, amount to unlawful discrimination.
In the short term, the finding renders the Government’s plan to introduce an official, non-statutory definition of “Islamophobia” largely redundant, since any wording, however carefully drafted, would almost certainly capture statements of the kind the tribunal has held to be protected.
The ruling also has major implications for higher education, undermining the All-Party Parliamentary Group’s (APPG) widely adopted 2018 definition of ‘Islamophobia’, which describes it as “a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”. Adopted by more than twenty universities, including several in the Russell Group, this framing departs sharply from British legal norms of liberty codified by Parliament and refined by the common law. By treating criticism of cultural or religious practices – precisely the kind articulated by Lee – as a form of racial hostility, it collapses the distinction between protecting individuals and censoring ideas.
The APPG’s definition even lists examples of what it claims would constitute “Islamophobia”, including “accusing Muslims as a group, or Muslim-majority states, of inventing or exaggerating Islamophobia, ethnic cleansing or genocide perpetrated against Muslims”, and “using the symbols and images associated with classic Islamophobia (e.g. Mohammed being a paedophile, claims of Muslims spreading Islam by the sword or subjugating minority groups under their rule)”.
By this logic, any international relations scholar who criticised Iran’s description of Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide” could be labelled an “Islamophobe.” So too might a historian analysing Islam’s early expansion, a human-rights scholar describing the genocide of Yazidis under ISIS, or even a theologian analysing the hadiths concerning Aisha’s marriage to the Prophet Mohammed.
These examples are hypothetical, but cases such as the University of Bristol’s treatment of former law professor Steven Greer show how institutions influenced by the APPG framework have allowed activists to weaponise the definition, pressuring universities into cocooning the religion from criticism.
Greer was accused of Islamophobia by the university’s Islamic Society over content in his human-rights law lectures, including discussion of Sharia law, apostasy and blasphemy within the framework of universal human-rights norms. The institution, which had publicly endorsed the APPG definition, deemed the complaint credible and launched an investigation. Barred from commenting publicly, Greer became the target of a student campaign that drew more than 4,000 signatures. He also received anonymous threats and was advised by police to leave his home for his own safety. An independent review later found his teaching lawful, protected under the Equality Act 2010 and within the bounds of academic freedom. Nonetheless, the university effectively sided with the complainants by quietly revising his course materials on Islam and removing the contentious content.
Following the preliminary hearing in Lee v IFoA, universities such as Bristol now face a reckoning with a definition that adds no legal rights and, by blurring the line between criticism of religion and discrimination against believers, invites institutions to outsource legal judgment to activist morality. In doing so, they replace the clear statutory standards of the Equality Act 2010 – which already recognises religion or belief as a protected characteristic, prohibits both direct and indirect discrimination, and, through the Public Sector Equality Duty, requires due regard to eliminating unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation, and to fostering good relations between groups – with a vague and subjective code of offence.
CAF has documented how a similar dynamic has unfolded around the IHRA definition of antisemitism, adopted by nearly three-quarters of UK universities and criticised by scholars for chilling debate. Read more here.
This article forms part of the Committee for Academic Freedom’s ongoing monitoring of developments in UK higher education. To receive monthly updates and analysis on cases affecting academic freedom, subscribe to our newsletter here.