Free speech on campus

Our call for action on this prompted the Joint Committee on Human Rights to produce guidance, which in turn prompted the Equality and Human Rights Commission to do the same. This largely halted the incidents. More recently, in England there has been a higher education free speech act, and further guidance on it from the Office for Students.

In depth

A series of incidents between 2012 and 2016 saw universities or students’ unions attempting to restrict the free speech of member societies of Humanist Students, the student section of Humanists UK. Incidents ranged from a human rights activist’s talk being cancelled because the speaker was an ex-Muslim, to students being expelled from their own freshers’ fair for wearing a T-shirt that satirised religion. By generating publicity around these cases and offering legal support to the students affected, we invariably prompted a reversal of the restriction concerned. These outcomes reflect the strong legal protections that have long been in place for freedom of speech at universities.

Since then, there have been one Act of Parliament and three rounds of guidance designed to prevent this kind of problem. The Act is the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 and applies to England specifically. The guidance has come from the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) in 2018, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in 2019, and the Office for Students in 2025.

In 2018, we gave oral and written evidence to the JCHR on the incidents Humanist Students experienced and we advocated for guidance to be produced on the matter. We were the only group to call for guidance. The JCHR then did exactly what we called for, for universities in England and Wales. This put a halt to subsequent incidents involving Humanist Students societies. However, the guidance is now out of date because it predates the 2023 Act.

In 2019, picking up on the JCHR’s work, the EHRC produced longer guidance on this subject, again covering England and Wales. However, we are concerned that some aspects of the guidance in fact stifle free speech. The guidance contains an example that if an atheist society holds an event on the existence of God, the university could ‘explor[e] with the society whether an event where a range of views would be expressed was a viable alternative’. However, events focusing on the existence of god have not generally proved to be controversial in the past, and this suggestion therefore is disproportionate. Other requirements the guidance suggested also seem unreasonable – for instance, it is suggested that the university could require ‘an independent chair’, or require that all discourse is ‘respectful’, which risks silencing criticism of religion that some may find ‘disrespectful’ – a de facto blasphemy ban. It would be wrong for a university to demand faith-based societies take all of these steps every time they chose to hold an act of worship on campus. It is wrong to expect it of humanist and atheist societies too.

In 2025, new legislation came into force to protect freedom of speech and academic freedom in English universities. The EHRC guidance doesn’t cover the new law. As a result, while it is still up-to-date and accurate for Welsh universities, and for SUs across England and Wales, it is now out of date for universities in England.

In England, this new law imposes duties on universities to secure freedom of expression on campus. However, the UK Government has not enacted – and is set to repeal – regulations that were to impose the same duties on students’ unions, for fear of being overly burdensome. We are concerned about this, as it is students’ unions in many of the cases we’re aware of that unduly censored humanist student societies – although in practice Universities do have a role to play in governing their SUs’ behaviours. Despite this, the Office for Students (OfS) – which has regulatory oversight of the duty – has encouraged students’ unions to ‘continue to work with higher education providers to preserve their crucial role in ensuring and encouraging free speech’.

As a result, in 2025 the Office for Students published guidance for English universities on the new law. We broadly welcome this, as far as the advice contained within will likely support universities to protect against many of the incidents experienced by Humanist Students. The guidance is rooted in well-established human rights principles of what constitutes free speech within the law. Crucially, it is clear that ‘free speech’ includes ‘lawful speech that may be offensive to some’ but does not include speech that amounts to unlawful harassment or incitement to hatred or violence.

What we’re doing

In 2024, we responded to the Office for Students’ consultation on proposed regulatory advice and other matters relating to freedom of speech to help universities and students’ unions comply with their duties under new regulations. We broadly supported the content of the draft guidance as rooted in well-established human rights principles of what constitutes free speech within the law. Importantly, the draft guidance is clear that ‘free speech’ includes ‘lawful speech that may be offensive to some’. In responding to the consultation, the Office for Students maintained its position on established human rights principles and affirmed its support for open debates between groups as a means to foster good relations, warning that the suppression of lawful speech is more likely to create antagonism.

We work reactively to deal with all individual cases that arise, supporting Humanist Students and our affiliated student societies. Almost all incidents have eventually achieved a resolution in the society’s favour. We will continue to support Humanists Students if and when similar incidents arise.

Appendix: Past work on this issue

• In 2018, we secured comprehensive new guidance on protecting free speech at universities from parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) after we called for this guidance to be created in written evidence to the Committee’s inquiry. Our Chief Executive, Andrew Copson, called for the same when he appeared as a witness and gave oral evidence. We were the only group to call for this guidance to be produced.
• In 2019, this was followed up by longer guidance by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) – something that the JCHR had called for. However, we were concerned that some aspects of the guidance in fact stifled free speech. The guidance had initially included an example that said that whenever an atheist society holds an event on the existence of God, it must ‘ensure a range of views were being presented’. We secured an amendment to instead see it suggested that the university could ‘explor[e] with the society whether an event where a range of views would be expressed was a viable alternative’. But, we believe this is unnecessary and therefore disproportionate.

Examples of incidents in universities

As mentioned, between 2012 and 2016 there were a series of incidents involving different Humanist Students societies. The guidance produced since then has put a stop to these problems.

• The London School of Economics Students’ Union Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society (LSESU ASH) were instructed by its Students’ Union to remove ‘Jesus and Mo’ cartoons from its Facebook page. When the society refused, it was asked to remove the word ‘Union’ from its name and derogatory comments were made about its members. This led to ongoing discussions with Humanists UK, LSESU ASH, and lawyers which resulted in the University overruling the Students’ Union on both the removal of the cartoon and the name change.

• A talk organised by the Queen Mary Atheism, Secularism and Humanism Society on ‘Sharia Law and Human Rights’ had to be cancelled after threats of violence. Shortly after the beginning of the talk a man burst into the venue, started filming those in the room, claiming to know where they lived and threatened to murder them and their families if the Prophet Muhammad was talked about during the discussion. Police were called over the incident.

• Goldsmiths University’s Atheists, Secularists and Humanists had to abandon a talk entitled ‘Apostasy, blasphemy and free expression in the age of ISIS’ after the University’s Islamic Society disrupted the meeting. The guest speaker commented that members of the Islamic Society ‘shut my projector, shouted over me, threw themselves on the floor. They created a climate of fear and intimidation. I spoke as loud as I could… Security had to come in to allow me to carry on speaking and the same person who shut my projector came back into the room again.’

• University College London’s Students’ Union requested that UCL Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society remove a copy of the ‘Jesus and Mo’ webcomic from its Facebook group. After protests from the Society and us, the request was withdrawn.

• LSESU ASH received an official apology from the London School of Economics (LSE) after members were ordered to cover up T-shirts displaying a ‘Jesus and Mo’ cartoon at the University’s freshers’ fair in October that year. Students’ Union representatives had also physically torn down display materials without explanation of what regulation the stall’s display breached. LSESU ASH members were also compelled by security to leave the fair.The Director of LSE, commented after the complaint, ‘acknowledging that, with hindsight, the wearing of the T-shirts on this occasion did not amount to harassment or contravene the law or LSE policies… LSE takes its duty to promote free speech very seriously, and as such, will discuss and learn from the issues raised by recent events.’

• Reading University Atheist, Humanist and Secularist Society was removed from its Students’ Union freshers’ fair after it displayed a pineapple with a label on it saying ‘Mohammad.’ The pineapple was intended to promote an upcoming debate entitled ‘Should we respect religion?’ The society commented that, ‘We labelled this pineapple “Mohammed”, to encourage discussion about blasphemy, religion, and liberty, as well as to celebrate the fact that we live in a country in which free speech is protected.’

• London South Bank University Atheist, Humanist and Secular Society had posters advertising their society banned because they depicted the ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’, which was deemed to be offensive by the Students’ Union. The society used the posters as part of a display for their stall at the freshers’ fair. Their stall was removed by Students’ Union authorities and their official complaint against this action was still unanswered by the time the fair was over, preventing them from exhibiting. After we generated publicity surrounding the complaint the University issued a full apology to the society.