New independent research published by the Office for Students suggests that a sizeable minority of students continue to self-censor on controversial topics, while also revealing potentially significant gaps in students’ understanding of the free speech rights they now enjoy under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023.
Drawing on YouGov data from more than 1,000 students at English universities, the regulator found significant levels of self-censorship.
Among students attending these settings, one in five do not feel free to discuss controversial topics in in-person seminars, rising to 28% in online seminars. The figures are higher still in lectures: 30% for in-person lectures and 32% for online lectures. Among students who felt unable to speak freely in in-person seminars, 52% cited race or racism, 50% immigration and 45% sex and gender as topics they felt uncomfortable discussing within academic contexts. Among students who felt unable to speak freely in in-person lectures, the topics were immigration (51%), race or racism (43%) and religion (40%).
For many students, the concern appears to be less the prospect of intellectual disagreement itself than what may follow from expressing the “wrong” view. Of those who reported self-censorship in in-person seminars, 69% cited fear of social consequences, such as people thinking poorly of them or being ostracised by peers, 49% worried about causing offence and 42% cited fear of academic consequences. Similar patterns emerged in in-person lectures, where the same three factors were cited, and the equivalent figures were 63%, 50% and 44% respectively.
This pattern also emerged in the qualitative limb of the study, where students repeatedly described feeling uneasy about expressing support for Palestine. Again, the concern was often not primarily criticism, counter-argument or debate, but the possibility of being labelled antisemitic or even pro-terrorism, with all the attendant social and reputational consequences that might follow.
Many of the topics students regard as too risky to discuss are among the most important and contested issues in modern public life. Where students learn to avoid difficult questions at university, they may be far less likely to broach them with confidence in later life. And today’s undergraduates are tomorrow’s policymakers, civil servants, journalists, lawyers and political leaders.
As to why such a sizeable minority prefer to keep quiet rather than risk venturing into difficult scholarly debates, or expressing views that may be perceived as offensive or upsetting, it is perhaps relevant that only 17% felt their university would prioritise freedom of speech over staff and students feeling safe, while 60% believed their institution would make the opposite choice.
And what of universities themselves? At CAF, we know from our casework that universities devote enormous effort to communicating policies on harassment, safeguarding and equality, diversity and inclusion. But are they doing so with equal effectiveness when it comes to explaining the free speech rights students now possess?
While 84% of students in the OfS survey report being aware that they have some rights to freedom of speech, the picture becomes more complicated on closer inspection. For example, 34% say their university has never directly communicated information about those rights. Only 16% say they know a lot about them. One in five say they are aware of them but know nothing about them, while 11% are not aware of them at all.
No doubt some of this should be treated with a degree of caution. Universities may well be communicating this information, while students may be displaying that maddening tendency they often have not to notice, read or remember such things, before later expressing genuine surprise and not a little irritation that their institution never communicates with them. Even so, if substantial numbers of students either do not recall receiving this information or do not understand it when they do, that is arguably a problem in itself.
What is particularly interesting about the research underpinning this new report is that it was undertaken in December 2025, four months after much of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 was commenced, and at a point when higher education providers were expected not only to be in a position to meet their new statutory duties, but also to have brought those duties and their associated free speech codes to the attention of students at the start of the academic year.
That matters because the Act defines freedom of speech using wording derived from Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights as “the freedom to impart ideas, opinions or information” by means of speech, writing or images. OfS guidance makes clear that this includes lawful speech that may be offensive or hurtful to some, and that students’ exposure to controversial discussion will not, by itself, amount to harassment. In other words, many of the topics around which students reported self-censoring are precisely the kinds of lawful but contentious questions that now receive protection.
Universities are not only required to maintain a free speech code of practice, but to bring it to students’ attention “at least once a year”. OfS guidance also says that, so far as reasonably practicable, students should receive adequate induction on freedom of speech and academic freedom, including an “up-to-date understanding” of their own free speech rights and how the Code “applies in practice”.
It would be an exaggeration to suggest the report’s qualitative and quantitative data establishes a causal relationship between a possible information deficit on campus and levels of student self-censorship. But it is certainly suggestive, and this issue would undoubtedly benefit from further study over the coming years as universities implement their new free speech duties and successive cohorts of students receive induction on their rights. As the OfS’s own regulatory guidance seems implicitly to recognise, a poorly understood right is one that a young person, in the foothills of adulthood and still working out who they are, will be less likely to feel confident enough to exercise.
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.
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