Written by Jack Baker
Following an exclusive investigation by The Beaver, LSE have confirmed that not a single member of staff received any form of disciplinary action for any complaint made using the Report + Support tool, since September 2024. A Freedom of Information Request showed that there were over 202 reports made using this tool, between then and 31st of August 2025.
Of this total, 28 were designated ‘sexual misconduct’, 76 ‘harassment’, 46 ‘hate incident’ and 29 ‘assault’ incidents. Multiple categories were able to be selected, and other cases were spread between various other categories. Not a single one resulted in any disciplinary action against a member of staff. There were less than 5 instances of disciplinary action taken against LSE students, with the exact number not shared due to privacy concerns.
LSE Report and Support is the School’s online reporting tool for students, staff and visitors, however reports can also be made through HR and legal teams. This data is not included in these statistics.
When pressed for comment, a spokesperson for LSE told us that this has “no place in the LSE community” and that “many [reports] led to informal action.” When stating what informal action is they listed “an individual [being] made aware of the impact of their behaviour or recommendations for training are implemented.”
This investigation comes in the wake of a Beaver article last year that examined the School’s mishandled sexual misconduct investigation into an LSE professor. In this case, individuals involved told us that the “complaint system at LSE seems to be set up to protect the faculty, and does not just let these abuses happen, but discriminates against the people who complain.” These recent findings seem to suggest that a lack of disciplinary action is systemic across the LSE.
The information received from our investigation shows that since 28 March, 29 complaints have been made about staff and 20 against students. A breakdown of data into staff or students before March was not shared – the reason for this is not currently known.
Aliyyah Tahir, President of Hands Off LSE – a campaign group of the Student’s Union dedicated to tackling sexual violence on campus – stated that this “points to a persistent and troubling pattern of institutional inaction, reflecting LSE’s ongoing failure to take reports of sexual violence and harassment seriously.”
She stated, “it’s clear the school has not learned from past mistakes. Survivors continue to be let down by a system that lacks accountability and meaningful action.”
The Report and Support website states that LSE “encourages reporting any incidents that you experience or witness as this helps to build a safe campus for everyone.” They state that “together we can end sexual violence, harassment, bullying, discrimination and hate crime” on campus.
LSE publishes an insight report each term, with details of complaints made at the aggregate level. During Autumn Term, 6.9% of cases were reportedly referred for disciplinary action. However, the results of our investigation suggest that none of these resulted in any action taken. Further information shows that 65.6% of cases in AT received no further action, or were closed as anonymous. 22.4% received informal action and 1.7% were referred to law enforcement.
LSE’s publicly available reporting suggests that 13.2% of individuals in Winter Term 24/25 chose to remain anonymous due to fears of repercussions for themselves and others – a response reminiscent of the earlier Beaver investigation.
When approached for comment LSE stated that “all forms of harassment, bullying, discrimination and sexual misconduct are wholly unacceptable. There is no place for this kind of behaviour in the LSE community.”
They stated that a “large proportion of reports were anonymous” and that this “cannot, generally, lead to a direct follow-up.” They further stated that “of the remaining cases, many led to informal action.” The examples of what constituted informal action were listed as where “an individual is made aware of the impact of their behaviour or recommendations for training are implemented.”
LSE also stated that they will be “publishing an annual report on the system for Academic Year 24-25 by the end of Autumn Term” and that they have recently trained “over 6,500 incoming students on Report + Support through Consent Ed training.”
