Despite votes by UCL's unions, EDI committees, LGBTQ+ & Allies groups to the contrary, UCL's leadership has sided with an anonymous Academic Board vote to leave both Stonewall schemes, citing academic freedom concerns.

The debate centred on a single stipulation around not debating the rights of trans people. Whatever your position on whether it is right to debate the existence and rights of a group, we do not believe UCL should leave an entire, established, effective and external diversity programme - the absolute best available - due to a single issue and because an unrepresentative group of senior academics votes in this way.

To quote the UCL Students Union - "UCL has encouraged our community to learn to ‘disagree well’. This notion in any other context is valid; academic freedom and freedom of speech are fundamental to a functioning university, democracy, and society. But conflating freedom of speech with the right to use discriminative language sets a dangerous precedent. It’s unacceptable to use the cover of academic freedom to exclude trans students and promote transphobia, and we’ll continue to call this out. All trans people deserve to be treated with respect, dignity and humanity in our university – this is not an issue on which we can learn to disagree well."