The University of Cambridge has said it will not take action against one of its head engineers, who was outed last week as a member of the British National Party.
Arthur Nightingale, the head experimental design engineer at the university's centre for industrial photonics, feared dismissal after his name was one of those on the list of BNP members published on the internet last week.
But a university spokesman said no action would be taken on the grounds that the political affiliations of members of staff were "a matter for them provided they do not affect their performance in the workplace".
This would include not promoting the party within the university or trying to recruit students, he said.
Nightingale claimed to have joined the party after Gordon Brown refused to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
He told the university's student paper Varsity that he "didn't have a choice but to look to the BNP or Ukip" because all the three main parties were pro-Europe.
But he claimed not to be active within the party despite holding membership.
The chief executive of the Equality Challenge Unit, Nicola Dandridge, said: "Higher education institutions were established to be places of free debate allowing the interchange of ideas. Indeed the promotion of free speech and enquiry retains special legal status within the higher education sector.
"Although Equality Challenge Unit deplores the aims and objectives of the BNP, the primacy of freedom of speech is fundamental and should be upheld even if the views expressed are widely regarded as offensive.
"However, universities also have social and legal obligations to promote good race relations on campus. It is hard to see how institutions can reconcile their duty to promote good race relations with staff being members of the BNP.
"This is particularly the case in relation to staff who have contact with students. Institutions may therefore consider that it is inappropriate for BNP members to have teaching and/or pastoral care responsibilities, or other direct contact with students."