Abertay University has completed a five-month investigation after receiving hundreds of complaints over a lecture on the operation of rape law within the criminal justice system.
In October 2025, senior sociology and criminology lecturer Dr Stuart Waiton invited Justice for Innocent Men Scotland (Jims) operations director Marsha Sturgeon to speak to students in a session that included claims about wrongful rape convictions. The lecture prompted public criticism, protests, and calls for course material to be reviewed.
Abertay’s investigation, led by two members of the university’s senior management team, has now concluded, finding no breach and determining that the session – titled ‘Victim’ Feminism and Trauma Informed Approach – was “appropriate in the context of this criminology module”. None of the more than 300 complaints was upheld.
A criminology lecturer inviting an external speaker to discuss contested issues in criminal justice is exactly the kind of academically grounded, real-world engagement universities should support – so Abertay University was right to find no wrongdoing.
Particularly striking is the disjunct between the reflections of those who were actually present and many of those who condemned the session from outside the room.
According to the investigation report, “The students we spoke to reported that the focus of the Jims talk had been on the criminal justice system and advocating for fair trials and bringing this to life with their own interactions with the courts and legal system.” The report also notes that students “considered that this had been an appropriate topic and that the class felt fairly ‘standard’”. They also expressed “surprise” at the social media reaction afterwards, saying they “did not recognise” the events in the lecture room from the descriptions later posted online.
So although the investigation reached the right conclusion, the broader picture is still troubling. With 86% of complaints coming from outside the university, the episode points to a worrying direction of travel, in which externally mobilised campaigns, often driven by online reaction, can generate pressure for greater institutional control over academic content.
That concern is sharpened by the investigation’s recommendations: more guidance on trigger warnings, tighter oversight of external speakers, and greater managerial awareness of “controversial” teaching. In other words, even where no wrongdoing is found, the aftermath of a public outcry may still be tighter institutional oversight.
Universities should be led by academic judgment, not organised campaigns. If lawful teaching is retrospectively subjected to tighter controls, the locus of control shifts from individual academics to central management. The chilling effect is obvious, and the long-term cost to academic freedom significant.
Dr Waiton has written about the incident for Compact Magazine here.
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.