Former Cambridge professor Arif Ahmed is under pressure to resign from his role as the Office for Students’ (OfS) Director for Freedom of Speech, after a High Court judge said he had “in all probability” been biased in his role in a major free speech investigation into the University of Sussex.

Ahmed has previously faced criticism at Cambridge, including for inviting gender-critical activist Helen Joyce to speak at an event at Caius.

The former philosophy academic has also been associated with a group of right-wing Cambridge academics, funded by Trump donor Peter Thiel, that reportedly aimed to oust the University leadership at the time.

Ahmed, a former philosophy professor at Caius, was involved in an OfS investigation into the University of Sussex over its treatment of philosophy academic Kathleen Stock, who resigned in 2021 after protests over her gender-critical views.

The OfS investigation resulted in Sussex receiving a record £585,000 fine in 2025 for failing to uphold freedom of speech and academic freedom.

The University of Sussex challenged the OfS’ decision. The High Court ruled on 29 April that the OfS had made significant errors in its investigation and handling of the case.

In the judgement, Justice Lieven said: “if Dr Ahmed had been the decision-maker, I would in all probability have found that he had predetermined the decision by reason of having a closed mind”.

Court documents also revealed email exchanges between Ahmed and Stock before the investigation took place. In one email to Stock, Ahmed criticised the fact that undergraduates are “especially subject to […] peer pressure to have the right thoughts on these matters”.

He suggested in the same email: “so many of the staff here are either spineless or complicit, when what students really need is articulate, intelligent resistance to Groupthink”.

Ahmed has also publicly sympathised with Stock, described her treatment as “appalling hounding” and a “serious threat to freedom of speech on campus”.

Ahmed’s position as Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom on the OfS board, which he has held since 2023, means that he is “responsible for investigations of breaches of the new freedom of speech duties”.

The OfS originally decided not to include Ahmed in the Sussex investigation. However, the chief executive of the OfS at the time, Susan Lapworth, later decided to involve Ahmed, suggesting in an email that his role was to “shepherd the case to its conclusion”.

Justice Lieven concluded that, while Ahmed’s involvement was a “significant aspect of the case,” it was not significant enough to have influenced the OfS report entirely.

The High Court also criticised the OfS’ broader handling of the investigation, finding that the regulator misapplied concepts of freedom of speech and academic freedom, refused to properly consider any changes made by the University of Sussex over the period, and exceeded some of its defined regulatory powers.

The only witness testimony cited in the OfS report was that of Kathleen Stock. Stock says she self-censored due to the University’s trans and non-binary equality policy statement, which stated that “transphobic propaganda […] will not be tolerated”.

However, the court noted that the policy has since been amended to state that “the curriculum shall not rely on or [seek to] reinforce stereotypical assumptions about trans people”. Justice Lieven said the modified wording reflected a legitimate attempt to ensure that the University promoted “excellence in teaching and learning” and avoided “over-simplified ideas” in its curriculum.

The ruling has led to renewed criticism of Ahmed’s position at the OfS. Professor Sasha Roseneil, the current Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex, told Times Higher Education that “it is hard to see how the director for free speech role can continue with him in it”.

The OfS states in its own policy that employees should “not act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests”.

Josh Fleming, the OfS’ interim chief executive, said the regulator was “disappointed” by the judgement and “will reflect on the judge’s findings and use them to help inform our future approach”.

In a statement to Varsity, Fleming added: “Arif Ahmed has the full confidence of the OfS as he continues in his important work to uphold and promote freedom of speech and academic freedom in English universities. This includes the establishment of a new scheme from September, which gives academics and visiting speakers a direct route to complain if their free speech rights are constrained.”

The OfS also referred to the judge’s statement that “it is critical to bear in mind that Dr Ahmed was not the decision-maker and that he came into the process after the PD [preliminary decision] had been issued […] for those reasons I find no vitiating apparent bias in respect of Dr Ahmed’s personal role in the decision-making”.

The ruling comes before the launch of a new OfS “first-of-its-kind” complaints scheme in September, which will give the regulator more powers to investigate, fine, and deregister universities over alleged breaches of free speech.

Arif Ahmed was contacted for comment.