English universities face a reckoning on academic freedom. Last month, the Office for Students (OfS) published its final guidance on implementing the landmark Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, whose main duties will come into force on August 1. The guidance outlines the OfS’ expectations of the “reasonably practicable” steps that universities in England must take to protect freedom of speech and academic freedom — in relation to recruitment, promotion, research, teaching, speaker events, and institutional policies. It is a robust and thoughtful document, remarkable in both scope and ambition, with the potential to restore higher education’s commitment to its core mission.
Yet at the time of writing, Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) has a live job advertisement for a Lecturer in International Relations that appears to breach these legal duties. The advert explicitly requires applicants to demonstrate a commitment to promoting “equity” — a principle commonly understood to prioritise equality of outcomes over equal treatment — both professionally and in their personal conduct. It further emphasises that the teaching of International Relations at MMU is focused on “challenging marginalisation and epistemic injustice”, and expects applicants to show expertise in “critical and post-positivist theory”.
While academic departments may have legitimate reasons to hire lecturers with expertise in particular areas or theoretical perspectives, the MMU advert effectively imposes an ideological litmus test. By mandating commitment to equity irrespective of candidates’ subject expertise or teaching capabilities, the advert directly violates paragraph 139 of the OfS guidance, which states:
Providers and constituent institutions should not require applicants to any academic position to commit (or give evidence of commitment) to a particular viewpoint.
The advert also appears to require applicants to embrace particular political aims, such as “challenging marginalisation and epistemic injustice”. This is contrary to Example 27 of the OfS guidance, which specifically identifies a “job advert requiring commitments to political aims” as likely to violate the Act.
While the guidance does not come into effect until August 1, the OfS already has regulatory powers to enforce academic freedom protection, which in England is codified as a public interest governance principle. Registration conditions E1 and E2 require English universities’ policies and governance arrangements to uphold these principles. Recently, the University of Sussex was fined £585,000 for failing to do so, and the OfS has indicated that future fines may be much higher.
The MMU advert may also amount to discrimination on the basis of protected philosophical belief, in breach of the Equality Act 2010. The language used demonstrates clear alignment of the department with perspectives associated with Critical Social Justice epistemology and Critical Race Theory. Candidates holding beliefs opposed to these critical theories — such as philosophical liberals who hold that every person should be treated as a unique individual rather than as a representative of some identity group — are highly likely to be disadvantaged in the recruitment process. Notably, in September 2023, the Sean Corby case established that opposition to Critical Race Theory qualifies as a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act.
Beyond these legal concerns, the MMU advert is fundamentally at odds with the core mission of the university: the pursuit of truth and knowledge. To fulfil this mission, universities must safeguard open inquiry, reward rigorous scholarship, and cultivate intellectual diversity. Yet the advert conveys an unequivocal message: these are our politics, and if you don’t share them, you need not apply. It is, in essence, a political appointment masquerading as a scholarly one, signalling a department committed to ideological conformity and the promotion of a particular political agenda.
The politicisation of higher education undermines public trust in the university as an independent truth-seeking institution
MMU is hardly alone in such practices. Goldsmiths, for example, has established a dedicated Centre for Identities and Social Justice designed to “challenge inequalities in education and in society.” Moreover, as a recent report from Alumni for Free Speech highlights, a growing number of UK universities now require academics applying for promotion to demonstrate support for equality (or equity), diversity and inclusion (EDI) agendas. As I have observed elsewhere, such requirements inevitably lead to compelled speech and undermine viewpoint diversity. Williams and Ceci have argued that declining viewpoint diversity in academia, particularly on socio-political issues, significantly contributes to bias in contemporary social science research. More broadly, the politicisation of higher education undermines public trust in the university as an independent truth-seeking institution.
The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act represents a historic opportunity to restore free speech and pluralism within English universities — but it is up to these institutions, and those who care about them, to ensure the law is not only followed, but fulfilled in spirit. Universities must embrace the principles of academic freedom outlined in the OfS guidance and firmly resist ideological conformity. Appointment, retention, and promotion of academic staff must be merit-based and free from ideological tests. As the University of Chicago’s influential 1972 Shils report put it, the criteria to be applied should:
… give preference above all to actual and prospective scholarly and scientific accomplishment of the highest order, actual and prospective teaching accomplishment of the highest order, and actual and prospective contribution to the intellectual quality of the University through critical stimulation of others within the University to produce work of the highest quality.
Universities that fail to uphold these standards risk forfeiting their core purpose.
