After significant media and online criticism of the decision to place more than 200 content warnings on several Shakespeare plays, the University of West England has now issued a statement defending the move. Although the story appears silly and superficial…
A new set of proposed reforms would change how £2 billion of government funding is allocated between universities, penalising those that fail to adequately promote diversity and inclusion. Such changes risk further politicising the higher education sector by incentivising conformity…
Michael Rainsborough has been through quite a lot. Readers who have followed CAF’s reporting over the past few months will be familiar with how he was hounded out of his role as Head of the Department of War Studies at…
After a punishing, four-month long investigation, James Tooley has finally been allowed to resume his position as vice-chancellor at the University of Buckingham. The KC hired by Buckingham to scrutinize Tooley’s personal affairs concluded that all accusations against him were…
On Friday, a group of pro-Palestinian protestors occupied the Radcliffe Camera, the most famous part of the University of Oxford’s central library system. In an uncharacteristically decisive move, the Oxford leadership briefly attempted to negotiate, but soon handed the issue…
In October, CAF conducted an exclusive interview with Michael Rainsborough, in which he talked about how he was driven out of King’s College London over his pro-Brexit views. Since then, we have talked with several current and former employees at…
The Times has reported that seven British Nobel laureates are now backing a campaign urging the education secretary Bridget Phillipson to reinstate a law aimed at safeguarding free speech at the nation’s universities. Specifically, they have all signed an open…
The University of Leeds has decided to allow Professor James Dickins to retain his emeritus status, despite the official investigation into the case suggesting that he be stripped of the position. As previously reported on the Threats to Freedom page,…
A major survey on how academic research should be funded, with significant consequences for academic freedom, closes on 13 September . The Research Excellence Framework is an assessment of UK universities which determines the allocation of two billion pounds of…
Under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, universities are required to publish a code of practice on freedom of speech. Such codes typically describe universities’ values and procedures relating to freedom of speech. They are authoritative bureaucratic documents…