In this interview, Professor Diane Rasmussen McAdie spoke with Professor Dennis Hayes. He is the Director of Academics for Academic Freedom (AFAF), a Visiting Professor at the University of Buckingham, and an Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Derby.
According to the Academics for Academic Freedom’s website:
Academics for Academic Freedom (AFAF) was founded in late 2006 as a campaigning group for all lecturers, academic-related staff, students and researchers who wanted to defend unimpeded inquiry and expression. It began with a statement of Academic Freedom that lecturers, and others, could sign but has since taken up the case for free speech and academic freedom throughout the UK and Ireland. AFAF is also heavily involved in case work, much of which never hits the headlines.
In 2022 AFAF began to establish branches and a formal membership network that is open to anyone who has signed the AFAF Statement of Academic Freedom.
Dennis is the editor of Beyond McDonaldization: Visions of Higher Education and a co-author of The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education. He situated his controversial work on the “therapeutic culture in education” in relation to the current-day university setting, in which students may literally cry about lecture or tutorial content that offends them, for example. The therapeutic culture has led to universities to set up “safe spaces” for students and bring in “therapy dogs” to support their mental wellbeing. Dennis believes that universities “should not be a safe space for ideas” and that all ideas should be discussed and explored freely.
The suppression of free speech and academic freedom forces academics to follow Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) policies, complete mandatory unconscious bias training, and decolonise the curriculum. Speaking out against these regulations, which are really in place to tell academics and students what they are allowed to think, can force academics through months-long disciplinary grievance procedures, serious charges such as gross misconduct, or be sacked.
Some recent cases have garnered high-profile coverage on UK mainstream media, such as Professor Kathleen Stock, Professor Jo Phoenix, and Leeds University undergraduate student Connie Shaw. Most remain unmentioned, however; the university tells people under investigation that if they speak out, it could trigger even more disciplinary action.
Diane shared her first-hand account of almost two years of disciplinary actions taken against her, including a formal grievance against her, forced mediation, gross misconduct charges and more. She contacted Dennis for support when she was in the midst of these procedures, and she was one of his many “cases” until she gratefully joined UK Column full-time in February 2025. The process is the punishment. As Dennis said, the mobs who come after academics contain the people who say “be kind”, but they’re out to get you.
Diane is a former Steering Committee Member of the Edinburgh AFAF branch, and now serves on the AFAF Advisory Board. Diane became a proud member of AFAF’s Banned List in June 2024, which is “a list of individuals who were banned from speaking at universities in the UK and Ireland, or faced campaigns to silence them, or sack them for their views”. She is proud to now have UK Column as a true free speech platform on which she can continue to expose this evil, and she wants the British public to know what their tax money is supporting as well as what any students they know are experiencing.
Diane covered an event at which Dennis spoke about free speech absolutism on the 3 March 2025 edition of UK Column News (starting at 9:02). If you haven’t seen it already, also see Diane’s interview “Students Are Being Bullied into Submission” with Heather McKee. Heather was the Convener of Student Academics for Academic Freedom (SAFAF) at the time of the interview. SAFAF is a subgroup of AFAF.
Dennis can be found on X. Follow AFAF on its website, on X, and on Facebook.