About

Short Biography

Dennis is a visiting professor at the University of Buckingham and an Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Derby. He is the Director of the influential campaign group Academics For Academic Freedom (AFAF). AFAF is the leading body in the UK defending academic freedom. Dennis is also on the Advisory Board of the Free Speech Union, launched on 26 February 2020.

In 2009 he edited and contributed to a special edition of the British Journal of Educational Studies on Academic Freedom and he writes regularly in the national and international press on free speech and academic freedom. His latest book The Death of Academic Freedom: Free speech and censorship on campus will be published by Routledge in 2022.

In the educational world he is well-known for his controversial co-authored book The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education (2008) which has been described as ‘one of the most important books to have been written in at least the last twenty years in that crucial area where philosophy, policy and practice coincide’.  Routledge  re-issued the book with a new introduction ‘The Continuing Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education’ in their Education Classic Series in February 2019.