Committee for Academic Freedom

🚨 BREAKING: Another win for #academicfreedom! After intervention from the Committee for Academic Freedom (CAF), Plymouth Marjon University has restored the emeritus title of Dr David Harris, which was withdrawn last year after he published a critique of critical race theory. Internal emails secured via a Subject Access Request (SAR) show senior administrators describing Professor Harris’s research as “controversial” and suggesting the university should “sever ties”. CAF challenged the decision as procedurally improper and inconsistent with the terms under which his emeritus title had originally been awarded. The university has now reversed course and reinstated the title. As our Research Manager Freddie Attenborough told The Telegraph: “The episode raises serious questions about how easily lawful academic research can end up being labelled ‘controversial’ inside university administration, with damaging consequences for the individuals involved.” Professor Harris isn’t the first emeritus scholar we’ve had to defend — and we doubt he’ll be the last. 🙏 Much of CAF’s work, from supporting members in difficult cases to holding universities to account for breaches of #freespeech law, is only possible because of donations from supporters. If you’d like to help us continue and expand this work in defence of academic freedom, you can donate here: donorbox.org/support-the-co… 📩 Subscribe to our newsletter to see how CAF is pushing back against free speech breaches across UK universities: afcomm.org.uk/updates-from-t… 📰 Read the full story in The Telegraph here: telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/1…

STATEMENT: A recent report from Hope not Hate notes that the Committee for Academic Freedom (CAF) has received support from the British entrepreneur and billionaire @bendelo. That much is true. We are one of more than 50 organisations, spanning a wide range of causes and political outlooks, that he supports. We are grateful to him, as we are to all those donors without whose support our work defending #academicfreedom would not be possible. What is not true is the implication conveyed by Hope not Hate’s report: namely, that our institutional character can be inferred from the purportedly “right-wing” ecosystem in which others choose to place us. Donor preference does not guide our work on behalf of members, our efforts to hold universities to their legal obligations, or our engagement with parliamentarians and policymakers on questions of #freespeech in higher education. When we say that CAF is an academic-led, non-partisan organisation, we mean it. Under Dr Edward Skidelsky’s leadership, CAF has consistently defended the conditions of academic freedom across lines of ideology and political allegiance. We have intervened where institutional procedures, harassment frameworks, or vague and capacious “hate speech” rules risk chilling legitimate academic disagreement, whatever its ideological source. We have raised concerns where staff and students working on questions of biological sex have faced hostility or unequal treatment for holding lawful beliefs, just as we have stood up for academics whose freedom to explore and criticise gender ideology has been curtailed. We have spoken up for students facing expulsion or disciplinary sanction for taking part in pro-Palestinian protest on campus, just as we have criticised attempts to impose a heckler’s veto over university events involving Israeli academics or speakers associated with Israel. CAF has also defended academics critical of Zionism and Israel’s conduct in the Middle East, while supporting those subjected to pressure or sanction for positions taken on the other side of that argument. We have supported academics who were excluded, monitored or otherwise censored after criticising the policies of the then Conservative government, just as we have assisted those who were hounded for privately expressing pro-Brexit views. We have challenged government definitions of “extremism” liable to chill lawful expression by radical or dissident scholars of different kinds, and raised concerns about the speech-restricting implications of expansive institutional definitions — whether in relation to antisemitism, Islamophobia or, more recently, the government’s new non-statutory definition of anti-Muslim hatred. We have also sought to model the kind of university culture we wish to defend, hosting academic debates on contentious subjects in which opposing views were aired seriously and argument was met with argument. Judge us by our interventions, our casework, and our consistency. That record is public, and it speaks for itself. CAF’s Threats to Freedom bulletin is available here: afcomm.org.uk/academic-freed… To sign up for our free weekly newsletter, click here: afcomm.org.uk/updates-from-t…

More than one hundred academics — including CAF Director Edward Skidelsky, signing on behalf of our organisation — have written to the Prime Minister calling for universal anti-SLAPP protections in the forthcoming King’s Speech, warning that aggressive legal threats by wealthy and powerful individuals are beginning to deter, and in some cases distort, academic research in Britain. Time to #StopSLAPPs. thecritic.co.uk/its-time-to-sc…

Dr Nathan Cofnas, a philosopher of science whose work addresses highly contested questions around race, heredity and intelligence, is once again facing an organised campaign over an academic appointment. In 2024, Cofnas became the subject of a fierce backlash at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, after publishing a blog post on these issues. The controversy culminated in Emmanuel rescinding his College Research Associate status, despite the University later concluding that his published views did not breach either the law or its own #freespeech rules. Now, following Cofnas’s appointment at Ghent University, members of the institution have launched a petition calling on the university to reverse course, again citing his published work. Describing his views as “blatant racism”, the statement concludes with an explicit demand that his hiring “is to be stopped”. In response, CAF Advisory Board member Professor Abhishek Saha has helped to organise a counter-petition in support of Cofnas’s right to #academicfreedom of expression. CAF Director Dr Edward Skidelsky is among the signatories, alongside CAF Research Manager Dr Freddie Attenborough and a number of senior academics and free speech campaigners. This is not about endorsing Cofnas’s views, but defending the principle that disagreements of this kind should be addressed through open inquiry, criticism and civil debate. Academics must, of course, be free to contest ideas they regard as deeply objectionable. But that does not extend to a veto over appointments. Universities cannot function if lawful but controversial or provocative lines of research are treated as grounds for exclusion rather than argument. You can read the statement and sign the counter-petition here: docs.google.com/document/d/1T0…

@HarrygPettit @nathancofnas We don't condone exclusion of negative views about Israel: see our article about the cancellation of Israel critic Prof Avi Shlaim and many others: afcomm.org.uk/2023/10/27/uni…

@ComAcFreedom @nathancofnas 'Universities cannot function if controversial or provocative lines of research are treated as grounds for exclusion rather than argument.' You forgot the footnote: '*except when it comes to negative views about 'israel', then we condone exclusion.'

Dr @nathancofnas’s appointment at Ghent University has prompted a campaign by members of the institution calling on the university to reverse course, citing his published work on race, heredity and intelligence. In response, CAF Advisory Board member Professor Abhishek Saha helped organised a counter-petition in support of Cofnas’s right to #academicfreedom of expression. CAF Director Dr Edward Skidelsky is among the signatories, alongside a number of senior academics from leading universities. This is not about endorsing Cofnas’s views, but about defending the principle that disagreements of this kind should be addressed through open inquiry, criticism, and civil debate. Of course, academics must be free to strongly contest ideas they regard as deeply objectionable. But that does not extend to a veto over appointments. Universities cannot function if controversial or provocative lines of research are treated as grounds for exclusion rather than argument. You can read the statement and sign the counter-petition here: drive.google.com/file/d/1RRsGma… @ObhishekSaha @ProfDHayes @epkaufm @Furedibyte @HJoyceGender @drianpace @aytchellesse @JoPhoenix1 @sapinker

@ComAcFreedom @nathancofnas If you are an academic or public figure, and you wish to sign the statement, you may do so by leaving your signature as a suggestion/comment to the below google doc. I will try to update the signature list at least once a day. docs.google.com/document/d/1T0…

Well done @ComAcFreedom on holding universities to account for breaches of free speach law. Lawful academic research, should not have such consequences for the researchers.

@_frank_james_ @sharrond62 @ComAcFreedom Sounds like fertile lawyer territory.

🚨 BREAKING: Another win for #academicfreedom! After intervention from the Committee for Academic Freedom (CAF), Plymouth Marjon University has restored the emeritus title of Dr David Harris, which was withdrawn last year after he published a critique of critical race theory. Internal emails secured via a Subject Access Request (SAR) show senior administrators describing Professor Harris’s research as “controversial” and suggesting the university should “sever ties”. CAF challenged the decision as procedurally improper and inconsistent with the terms under which his emeritus title had originally been awarded. The university has now reversed course and reinstated the title. As our Research Manager Freddie Attenborough told The Telegraph: “The episode raises serious questions about how easily lawful academic research can end up being labelled ‘controversial’ inside university administration, with damaging consequences for the individuals involved.” Professor Harris isn’t the first emeritus scholar we’ve had to defend — and we doubt he’ll be the last. 🙏 Much of CAF’s work, from supporting members in difficult cases to holding universities to account for breaches of #freespeech law, is only possible because of donations from supporters. If you’d like to help us continue and expand this work in defence of academic freedom, you can donate here: donorbox.org/support-the-co… 📩 Subscribe to our newsletter to see how CAF is pushing back against free speech breaches across UK universities: afcomm.org.uk/updates-from-t… 📰 Read the full story in The Telegraph here: telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/1…

@ComAcFreedom Thank you.

@ComAcFreedom Excellent news

@ComAcFreedom @QcWynter Good 👍🏻

"This episode raises serious questions about how easily lawful academic research can end up being labelled ‘controversial’ inside university administration, with damaging consequences for the individuals involved.”

With Donald Trump back in the White House, the language of “institutional neutrality” is increasingly treated as though it were self-evidently a right-wing project: a way of preventing universities from taking institutional positions on “progressive causes” close to the hearts of many left-leaning academics who feel the point is not simply to interpret the world, but to change it. But is that actually true? Or are critics conflating two very different things: on the one hand, a self-binding restraint on the university’s corporate voice, intended to protect scholarly dissent within the institution; and on the other, a coercive compliance regime, driven by funding leverage and executive pressure, which merely borrows the language of “neutrality” while hollowing out #academicfreedom? Writing for @CAmericain_mag, CAF Research Manager Freddie Attenborough argues that this distinction matters. Properly understood, the kind of institutional neutrality advocated by CAF and other #freespeech campaigners is not a form of political capture but a safeguard against it — particularly at a moment when governments and campaign groups across the political spectrum are increasingly eager to press universities into ideological service. cafeamericainmag.com/is-institution…