CAF has written to the vice-chancellor warning that these clauses may be at odds with the new Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act.
A line buried within all academic job descriptions at the University of Greenwich has become the latest test of how far universities can enforce “anti-racist” equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) policies without risking a breach of their statutory duties to protect academic freedom under England’s new free-speech law.
The Committee for Academic Freedom (CAF) was alerted by a member of the academic community to a recently advertised sociology lectureship. In the “Core Requirements” section of the job description, the post-holder is told they must “adhere to and promote the University’s policies on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion”. Although that wording does not appear in the person specification, it nonetheless forms part of the contractual duties of the post. The emphasis on “promoting” the university’s EDI policies goes beyond simple compliance with equality law and signals an expectation of active endorsement and advocacy.
When CAF examined other academic vacancies on the university’s website, it found the same formula repeated across the institution. What began as a concern about a single sociology advert therefore appeared to reflect a standard expectation written into Greenwich’s academic job descriptions, rather than an isolated piece of HR drafting – and one that sits uneasily with the new statutory duties to protect freedom of speech and academic freedom under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 (HEFSA).
The EDI policies in question are set out in an Equality and Diversity Policy Statement that commits the university to “introduce new and develop existing policies and procedures, which support our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion ambitions, and take any necessary action to mitigate disadvantage or negative impact”. The statement also makes clear that it “will apply to all other policies and procedures within the university”.
Within that umbrella sits Greenwich’s Race Action Plan: This is our time for action 2021–2026. In the Plan’s foreword, the university’s “EDI Race Advisors” say it “aspires to be anti-racist from the point of student and staff recruitment and throughout their time with the university” and sets out an “ongoing commitment to eliminate structural, institutional and systemic racism within our university”. One of the Plan’s core aims is “to ensure that the university is a genuinely anti-racist organisation that serves the needs of its students and actively seeks to remove injustice and barriers to success”. To that end, it promises to “develop and launch a staff and student ‘Anti-Racist pledge’” and to “identify and deliver anti-racist EDI-related training to be provided for all staff and students”, alongside “all-faculty decolonisation of curriculum, co-created with BAME students and alumni”.
The university’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Annual Report 2024/25 describes how this programme is being implemented, citing “allyship workshops” organised by an “EDI Race Business Partner”, where participants discuss “the use of appropriate language” and “ways of addressing microaggressions”. It also notes that “faculties and schools … are also decolonising the curriculum and adopting the inclusive practice and language training offered by the Academic and Learning Enhancement Team.”
While terms such as “anti-racist” and “decolonising the curriculum” may sound entirely unobjectionable, the intellectual basis for Greenwich’s approach lies in strands of settler-colonial theory, critical race theory and decolonial scholarship which, though distinct, share the contested premise that colonialism is an ongoing structure rather than a concluded episode. Within that framework, present-day institutions are viewed as embedded in systems of racialised power, such that historic dispossession is said to be reproduced through modern law, knowledge production and culture.
On this view, racism is conceived not primarily as a matter of individual prejudice but as structural and systemic. Racial disparities are understood to arise from patterns of social organisation which operate independently of individual intention. These patterns are often described in terms of an underlying cultural “whiteness” that confers unearned advantage or privilege on white people, remains largely invisible to those who benefit from it, and thereby reproduces itself through institutional practices and assumptions.
Inevitably, within this framework, even well-meaning neutrality is treated as complicity. The idea that one can be “not racist” or “colour-blind” and thereby doing the right thing is rejected on the basis that passivity allows underlying structures to persist. Instead, individuals and institutions are expected to adopt an active “anti-racist” stance, engaging in ongoing efforts to identify and dismantle systemic patterns of bias, including by scrutinising their own and others’ speech and behaviour for signs of “unconscious bias” or “microaggressions”.
While CAF takes no view on the merits of this approach, we emphasise that it is one of several competing frameworks for interpreting racial inequality. Alternatives range from conservative and liberal critiques by scholars such as Thomas Sowell, John McWhorter and Nigel Biggar, who have defended colour-blind approaches and critiqued prevailing narratives around race and empire, to class-based analyses from Marxist and socialist critics including Vivek Chibber, Walter Benn Michaels, Adolph Reed Jr and Aijaz Ahmad, who argue that a dominant focus on racialised or decolonial discourse obscures the underlying dynamics of capitalist exploitation that generate inequality. Treating any one of these traditions as fixed and beyond question – and requiring its endorsement as a condition of employment, progression or continued good standing – risks suppressing precisely the kind of legitimate scholarly disagreement that universities are supposed to protect.
In our letter, we acknowledge that the University of Greenwich is bound by the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) under the Equality Act 2010, which requires it to have due regard to eliminating discrimination, advancing equality and fostering good relations. But we also point out that the PSED does not impose any general requirement on higher education providers to restrict lawful speech, nor does it oblige them to adopt or promote any particular theoretical framework as the lens through which all questions of race must be viewed.
Alongside those equality duties, Greenwich now faces equally explicit obligations under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act (HEFSA), which came into force on 1 August 2025. The Act requires universities to take “reasonably practicable” steps to secure lawful freedom of speech for staff, students and visiting speakers. For academic staff, the statutory objective includes protecting academic freedom, defined as the freedom within the law “to question and test received wisdom” and “to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions” without jeopardising their jobs or their prospects for promotion or future appointments.
The Office for Students’ Regulatory Advice 24: Guidance related to freedom of speech, issued to explain how these duties should work in practice, also warns that providers “should not require applicants to any academic position to commit (or give evidence of commitment) to a particular viewpoint”, including by insisting that candidates demonstrate adherence to specified political aims or EDI “values”, and makes clear that the same concern applies to applicants for promotion. In the context of Greenwich’s proposed anti-racism pledge and associated training, it is also worth noting that RA24 addresses induction and training, advising that providers “should not require training or induction that imposes a requirement on the person completing the training actively to endorse any viewpoint or value-judgement”.
CAF does not allege that Greenwich is running such a training course, nor that its current job advertisements explicitly demand EDI loyalty statements. But the combination of elements now in place creates a serious risk that staff will feel obliged in practice to endorse that ideological framework in order to be seen as meeting institutional expectations, including around progression and promotion. Even if the wording does not operate as a formal selection criterion, it is still liable to chill applications from, and constrain the academic freedom of, scholars who dissent from that framework – precisely the kind of outcome HEFSA and the OfS guidance are designed to prevent.
That’s why, in our letter, CAF asks the university to make clear that the requirement for staff to “adhere to and promote” Greenwich’s EDI policies is not being interpreted in a way that obliges academics to affirm any particular political or theoretical framework as a condition of their employment or progression. We also ask the university to review the wording of job descriptions and to make clear that any proposed “Anti-Racist pledge” or associated training will be purely voluntary, with no detriment in recruitment, appraisal or promotion for staff who dissent from particular theoretical approaches.
CAF has indicated that, depending on the outcome, it may raise the matter with the Office for Students.
This article forms part of the Committee for Academic Freedom’s monitoring of developments in UK higher education. To receive monthly updates and analysis on cases affecting academic freedom, click the link and subscribe to our newsletter.