More than one in five English universities still require job applicants to demonstrate commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion principles, a practice the Office for Students considers likely to breach free speech protections.
Alumni for Free Speech examined recruitment at 162 higher education institutions and initially identified 70 as non-compliant. Following warnings and reports to the regulator, 36 removed the requirements entirely, nine made partial changes, yet 33 remain in breach. Seventeen institutions that failed a 2025 review were still failing in 2026.
The group reported 43 English universities to the Office for Students for insufficient action and recommended formal investigation of nine as particularly serious cases. Four Russell Group universities — Birmingham, Durham, Newcastle and University College London — featured in both the 2025 and 2026 lists of persistent offenders.
The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 came into force on 1 August 2025. Subsequent Office for Students guidance is clear: institutions should not demand that applicants to academic positions commit to or provide evidence of support for any particular viewpoint. Requiring evidence of commitment to EDI falls into that category.
Russell Group universities performed markedly worse. They recorded a 20.8 per cent rate of zero compliance, compared with 5.1 per cent among other institutions, according to the Free Speech Union.
William Mackesy of Alumni for Free Speech said universities had been warned so often that, in the absence of another explanation, it was reasonable to assume the worst offenders knew they were acting non-compliantly. "This is very serious and should be causing management panic," he added.
