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The University of Sussex has won a High Court challenge against England’s higher education regulator (PA)

The University of Sussex has won a High Court challenge against the Office for Students (OfS) over a finding that it had infringed on lawful free speech.

The OfS had fined the university £585,000, alleging its trans and non-binary equality policy created a “chilling effect” of possible self-censorship of students and staff and had breached conditions of registration.

Mrs Justice Lieven ruled in the university's favour, saying the OfS “misdirected itself”, and its decision was ”vitiated by bias” and “predetermined”.

The judge found the OfS made a “clear error of law” and ”failed to read the policy statement as a whole”, “closed its mind to anything that would lead to not finding breaches”.

The university's vice-chancellor, Professor Sasha Roseneil,…