Colin Campbell (legal scholar)

Sir Colin Murray Campbell DL FRSA (26 December 1944 – 20 May 2022) was a British academic lawyer who was vice-chancellor of the University of Nottingham from 1988 to 2008.

[1] An influential but controversial figure, Campbell's 20 years in charge of running the University of Nottingham were a pivotal time for the institution.

According to one of his successors as vice-chancellor, Shearer West, "he had a vision to grow the university not just through infrastructure, but through student numbers, reputation and by forging new links".

[10] Further controversy arose in 2008 when Campbell issued a statement in response to the arrests[11] under the Terrorism Act 2000 of a student, Rizwaan Sabir, and a member of staff, Hicham Yezza, at the University of Nottingham.

They were held for six days before being released without charge after downloading documents relating to terrorism from a United States government website for research purposes.

Appearing to reject the notion of academic freedom, Campbell said in his statement, "There is no 'right' to access and research terrorist materials.

[13] Rod Thornton asserted that Campbell appeared to have lied in a public statement to Times Higher Education about the case when he claimed that the university had conducted a full risk assessment before reporting the matter to the police.

Thornton asserted that this was contradicted by several other sources, including Campbell's own version of events in his account to the Minister for Further and Higher Education.