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No.939 Friday 14th November 2025 varsity.co.uk
The Independent Student Newspaper since 1947 ▼ ISAAC OHRINGER
Cambridge splashes £4ook on protest lawyers ● Russell Group spent over £1.3m on legal advice ● Uni heads claim legal orders do not restrict protest freedoms
EXCLUSIVE
Chancellor: free speech top priority Ben Curtis and Charlie Rowan Editors-in-Chief Lord Smith, the new Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, has said he will place the defence of free speech at the centre of his role, in an exclusive and wide-ranging interview with Varsity. Elected in a close contest in July, Smith told Varsity that there have been “occasions when Cambridge has hit the national press over particular freedom of speech issues”. He said his “number one” priority is “the defence of academic freedom and freedom of speech”.
While maintaining his commitment to freedom of speech, the Chancellor defended the University’s decision to seek injunctions on protestors over the last year. Although he acknowledged the University should “enable and encourage protests,” the Chancellor insisted that Cambridge had “been right to seek very specific injunctions to protect the ability of all students to be able to take exams”. Alongside freedom of speech, the Chancellor outlined his other priorities. They include “championing […] Cambridge as a centre for innovation and
a catalyst for growth,” as well as “enabling the colleges and the University to work more closely and collaboratively together”. Lord Smith also stressed the need to “make even further progress on widening participation” and make Cambridge a “welcoming and inclusive place” for any prospective student. This statement comes amid the launch of the Cambridge University Society of Women (CUSW), an organisation criticised as “transphobic” by other student groups due to its criteria for membership, which is restricted to
● Cambridge currently holds a 12-month injunction on protests
those designated as women at birth. Asked about the ongoing debate surrounding women’s only spaces, the Chancellor said that “there is an important ability [sic] for women to be able to feel safe in spaces that are designated for them”. However, he also said that the University must ensure transgender students “have spaces available to them as well” and trans people must have their needs “genuinely met”. When pressed on the issue, the Chan
Wilf Vall Associate Editor The University of Cambridge and its colleges has spent over £400,000 on legal action to restrict protest on its sites – the most of any university in the UK. The central University, along with Trinity College and St John’s College, paid law firms £402,868 to help tackle encampments on their sites according to freedom of information requests. This included obtaining high court injunctions to ban protests at the University’s head offices and College sites, a move that was labelled an “authoritarian reflex” by a senior academic. Universities across the country spent almost £1.4 million on legal advice to tackle encampments, with elite Russell Group institutions making up the vast majority of the spend. Cambridge currently holds a 12-month injunction against all protests on its Old Schools site, which hosts graduations and the University’s administrative offices, and Greenwich House, its financial centre. The sites had been subject to multiple encampments over 2024 and 2025, with
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Inside ● Women’s Society funding revealed pg.5 ● Should students start a Reform UK society? pg.12 ● A Cambridge double date... pg.20