Sheffield Hallam University has apologized to a professor whose research into alleged human rights abuses was blocked from publication after political pressure from the Chinese security services.
In late 2024, a study by Laura Murphy, an American professor of human rights and contemporary slavery at Sheffield Hallam, into forced labor practices Uyghur Muslims allegedly face was refused publication by her institution after a campaign of harassment and intimidation from Beijing, The Guardian and BBC News reported.
Sheffield Hallam staff working in offices in mainland China faced visits from intelligence officials over the research, while access to the university’s websites was blocked for more than two years, hampering student recruitment, officials say.
In an internal email from July 2024 obtained by Murphy using a subject access request, university officials said “attempting to retain the business in China and publication of the research are now untenable bedfellows.”
After taking a career break to work for the U.S. government, Murphy returned to Sheffield Hallam in early 2025 and says she was told by administrators that the university was no longer permitting any research on forced labor or on China, prompting her to start legal action.
Her solicitor, Claire Powell, of the firm Leigh Day, said that Murphy’s “academic freedom has been repeatedly and unlawfully restricted over the past two years.”
“The documents uncovered paint an extremely concerning picture of a university responding to threats from a foreign state security service by trading the academic freedom of its staff for its own commercial interests,” Powell added.
Murphy, who claimed her university failed to protect her academic freedom, has now received an apology and the institution has told her it “wish[ed] to make clear our commitment to supporting her research and to securing and promoting freedom of speech and academic freedom within the law.”
“The university’s decision to not continue with Professor Laura Murphy’s research was taken based on our understanding of a complex set of circumstances at the time, including being unable to secure the necessary professional indemnity insurance,” a spokesperson for the university added.
These circumstances relate to a defamation case brought by a Hong Kong garment maker which initiated a libel case against Sheffield Hallam after its name was included in a report into forced labor published in December 2023. A preliminary rule at the High Court in London found the report had been “defamatory.”
The apology comes months after new free speech laws came into effect in England in August, with the Office for Students’ free speech champion Arif Ahmed warning the regulator would take action if universities bowed to pressure from foreign governments regarding contentious areas of research.
A U.K. government spokesperson said, “Any attempt by a foreign state to intimidate, harass or harm individuals in the U.K. will not be tolerated, and the government has made this clear to Beijing after learning of this case.
“The government has robust measures in place to prevent this activity, including updated powers and offenses through the National Security Act.”
The Chinese Embassy in London told the BBC that the university had “released multiple fake reports on Xinjiang that are seriously flawed.”
“It has been revealed that some authors of these reports received funding from certain U.S. agencies,” the embassy added.
Murphy told the BBC she has received funding over the course of her career from multiple U.S. research agencies, including the U.S. National Endowment for Humanities for work on slave narratives, the U.S. Department of Justice for work on human trafficking in New Orleans, and more recently from USAID and the U.S. State Department for her work on China.
The Chinese Embassy said the allegations of “forced labor” in her reports “cannot withstand basic fact-check.”
