In February 2025, Sheffield Hallam University ordered Laura Murphy, a professor of human rights and contemporary slavery at the university’s Helena Kennedy Centre (HKC) for International Justice, to discontinue her research on economic supply chains and forced labor in China. After Murphy initiated legal action, the university reversed its decision in October 2025 and apologized.

According to internal emails that Murphy obtained through “subject access request,” Sheffield Hallam acquiesced to pressure from Chinese authorities in banning Murphy’s research. In May 2021, Murphy and her research team published a report on the role of Uyghur forced labour in global solar supply chains. Over the course of the next year, the team published several additional reports on the crisis in the Uyghur Region. In the summer of 2022, China blocked access to Sheffield Hallam’s websites and disabled email communication with the university, apparently in response to Murphy’s report. According to the university, these actions had a distinct impact on student recruitment during the 2023-4 academic year. At the time, the university administration chose to protect Murphy’s academic freedom despite the costs, and her team published several more reports.

In December 2023, HKC published a similar report on forced labor in China. A Hong Kong-based company named in the report responded by filing a libel case against Sheffield Hallam. Within months, the university’s insurance provider determined it would no longer cover HKC’s work because of defamation risk. The High Court in London found in a preliminary hearing that the case would continue to trial to determine if the statements made in the report could be defended as true and in the public interest.

In April 2024, three Chinese National Security Service officers visited Sheffield Hallam’s offices in China. They questioned a staff member there about HKC’s research and plans for future publications. In May 2024, Sheffield Hallam wrote, internally, “the continuation of the university’s scholarly activity with and in China and Hong Kong has been placed at risk because of the research activities, led by Professor Laura Murphy, in relation to alleged persecution of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, China.”

In September 2024, Sheffield Hallam apparently communicated to a Chinese security agency that it had decided not to publish additional research on forced labor in China. . The university took down the website for the Force Labour Lab, a team of researchers led by Murphy, laid off the research team, and returned hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant funding. In February 2025, Sheffield Hallam ordered Murphy to stop her research on China.

Murphy took legal action against Sheffield Hallam, accusing the university of failing in its responsibilities to protect free speech and academic freedom under the UK’s Higher Education Act, passed in 2023. In October 2025, the university reversed course, lifting the ban on Murphy’s work.

Scholars at Risk is concerned by a university’s decision to censor academic research in acquiescence to pressure from outside the university, specifically the government of another country. University leaders have a responsibility to protect academic freedom; to refrain from disciplinary actions that punish, restrict, or chill academic expression; and to resist outside interference into the content of teaching and research. Even when censorship is later revered, when university leaders fail to meet their responsibilities, they not only harm the immediate victims, they undermine academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and democratic society generally.

Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/nov/03/uk-university-halted-human-rights-research-after-pressure-from-china
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq50j5vwny6o
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/sheffield-hallam-apologises-china-scholar-over-publication-ban
https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/11/04/chinese-government-threatens-academic-freedom-in-the-uk
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/china-sheffield-hallam-university-uyghur-laura-murphy-b2857983.html
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/nov/04/counter-terror-police-investigate-claim-uk-university-halted-research-after-chinese-pressure