Campaigners have reported the University of Oxford to the Office for Students (OfS) over free speech concerns after a series of lectures were cancelled because of protests.
Earlier this month, Michael Foran, an associate professor at Oxford, called off the talks he was due to give on “gender critical and gender identity belief”, after pro-trans protesters disturbed the opening two events.
Oxford’s faculty of law has since announced that the lectures will instead go ahead in the next academic year but the group Alumni for Free Speech (AFFS) has written to the university alleging that its response has been inadequate.
AFFS says that it identified “apparent serious free speech protection failures” regarding its “handling of [the] protests”.
The concerns come ahead of the OfS launching its free speech complaints scheme this autumn while universities are already bound by stricter rules regarding free speech that came into place last year.
