Defending the university against bad-faith policy interventions: Equality, diversity and inclusion, free speech, and institutional power

Recently, there has been a resurgence of claims that equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) initiatives threaten freedom of speech in UK higher education. Using the Alumni for Free Speech (AFFS) report (2025) as an example of this, we argue that the opposition between free speech and EDI is a politically manufactured false binary that obscures how power, voice, and harm are unevenly distributed within universities. Drawing on Critical Race Theory, decolonial scholarship, Black Radical Politics, and critical policy analysis, we conceptualise free speech as a socially stratified and relational resource rather than a neutral, universally accessible right. We show how the AFFS report mobilises methodological weaknesses, selective metrics, and claims of neutrality to construct EDI as a risk, deflecting attention from structural inequalities produced by racialised capitalism. Against this framing, we advance the claim that equity is not antithetical to academic freedom but a necessary condition for it, enabling participation, belonging, and knowledge production for marginalised groups within the academy. We conclude by outlining implications for higher education leadership and sector practice, arguing for proactive, principled engagement that resists defensive postures and reclaims the university’s democratic, public, and emancipatory purpose.