The moment in the Sussex judgement where academic freedom and academic standards meet
There’s a “take” on University of Sussex vs OfS doing the rounds, which suggests that even though OfS may not be good at understanding its own rules (or the law), or investigating potential breaches, there is still cause to worry because now management are able to tell academics what they can and cannot teach with impunity.
That is not an interpretation borne out by the judgement itself.
There are many astute and thoughtful observations about free speech and academic freedom throughout the text of the judgement, but in this case I turn to paragraph 227, which deals with the “stereotyping statement” found within the Sussex Trans and Non-Binary Equality Policy. That statement (in the 2022 and 2023 versions of the policy) reads as follows:
The curriculum shall not rely on or [seek to] reinforce stereotypical assumptions about trans people
This is the only part of the current (2024) policy that deals with the curriculum. This most recent version of the statement even adds a supplementary point reminding the reader that this should not be taken to justify sanctioning academic staff for questioning or testing received wisdom or putting forward new ideas.
This is what Justice Lieven says about this “stereotyping statement”:
[T]he Stereotyping Statement only applies to the curriculum, the setting of which is an essential function of the university. Therefore, this is an area where the university has to make discretionary judgements, but will necessarily do so subject to the full suite of other policies. What is prohibited are “stereotypical assumptions”, which means in effect over-simplified ideas about trans people. Such assumptions would not uphold high academic standards. The university is not seeking to restrict discussion of stereotypes, but rather the reliance on them, or attempts to reinforce such simplified ideas about trans people in the curriculum. A policy restricting teaching based on the intentional promotion of stereotypes is a proportionate means of advancing the university’s core function of promoting excellence in teaching and learning
As the court saw it, universities absolutely have an interest in promoting excellence in teaching and learning, and a curriculum relying on stereotypical (over-simplified) ideas about trans people is unlikely to uphold high academic standards. It replaces a question of academic freedom with a question of academic standards.
Higher education, if it had such a thing as a motto, could likely adopt the old Ben Goldacre line that “actually, I think that you’ll find that it is a bit more complicated than that.” Simplistic stereotypes feel absolutely like the kind of thing, within the context of debate and civil discussion, that academics and students should feel free to question, test, and put forward alternatives to. And nothing in the policy, the governance of the University of Sussex, or the high court judgement changes that.
To take the other side of the argument for the moment, the only thing that is restricted here is (specifically) the reliance on simplistic stereotypes about trans people in the curriculum as the curriculum. Not the discussion of those stereotypes, not the use in the seminar room of literature or media that does rely on those stereotypes as illustrative examples to inform that discussion, not the testing and debate of new ideas that rely on those stereotypes.
To argue otherwise you would have to suggest that a statement like “trans people are [insert simplistic stereotype here]. End of.” represents in itself a suitable curriculum for higher level (or frankly, any level) of academic study.