Today the University of Cambridge suspended a junior member of the university until the end of 2014 for his part in a protest last November against David Willetts, government minister for Universities and Science. In a hearing that lasted six hours, the university Court of Discipline ruled that for his part in the peaceful disruption of Willetts’ speech the student would not be allowed back into the university until October 2014, and would not be allowed to use its premises. He has a right to appeal the decision in the next 28 days.
During the protest, the student read out a poem criticizing Willetts for his role in the implementation of £9000 fees and the Higher Education White Paper. He went on to condemn the minister as “a man who believes in the market and in the power of competition.”[1]
In response, over 60 dons and students wrote a ‘Spartacus’ letter to the University Advocate admitting to their role in the original protest, and demanding that they be charged for the same offence. [2] In the letter the signatories object to the fact that only one person has been prosecuted for the protest. The signatories denounce the charges as “arbitrary and wrong” pointing out that the protest was “a collective act and that we the undersigned were all involved in it – whether directly or indirectly, actively or in a supportive capacity.”
Gerard Tully, President of CUSU (Cambridge University Student Union) said: “A balanced judgement reflecting the evidence and severity of the charges would not have handed down seven times what the University itself asked for. Should an appeal be lodged, we fully expect the University to apply reason and quash this heavy-handed and unfair sentence. For a University that so rightly prides itself on academic freedom and the justness of its procedures, there is simply no alternative.” [3] They have also launched a petition which has gained over 2000 signatures in less than two days from staff and students at the university. A petition open to all members of the public has reached over 3000 signatures. [4]
Rees Arnott-Davies, a student at Corpus Christi College said: “this is out of all proportion. Two and a half years for an entirely legal and peaceful protest is an absolute travesty and makes me ashamed to study at this university. The idea that you can protect freedom of speech by silencing protest is the height of hypocrisy.”
In a bizarre twist to the story, it has emerged that the presiding Judge had previously upheld the right to Freedom of Speech. Judge Colin Colston, QC, ruled that a publican whose customers simulated sex with an inflatable doll was protected from prosecution under European Human Rights legislation. [5] Judge Colston also previously acted as a character witness for a don accused of sexually assaulting a student. [6]
[1] http://www.defendeducation.co.uk/go-home-david-an-epistle-to-david-willetts
[2] http://www.defendeducation.co.uk/charge-us-all-mr-vice-chancellor-and-university-advocate-thornton
[3] http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/
[4] http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/support-suspended-cambridge-university-student/
[5] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1334383/Human-rights-invoked-over-blow-up-dolls.html
[6] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1536305/Don-cleared-of-Benny-Hill-sex-assault.html
In six years at Cambridge, this is the most ridiculous, arbitrary and malicious thing I’ve heard of. DSK at the union; and now this. I’m never telling anyone about Cambridge again without mentioning what disgusting, anti-free speech, reactionary backward simpletons they are. The puppet masters need their strings cut.
Anyone who thought Oxbridge was the nurse of the brightest young people in the country could surely be disavowed of that notion by a cursory glance round this site. Riddled with childish, anti-Tory dogma, it looks like it’s been produced by a group of ill-informed GCSE students. The great minds of its past would surely look on this adolescent, anti-intellectual rubbish with the deepest disappointment and contempt. A pathetic aversion to reasoned, mature debate pervades this whole anti-cuts/fees/bankers ‘movement’, but one honestly expects better from a so-called ‘elite’ institution. Grow up, guys.
I see my comment is awaiting moderation. I take it you guys censor anything which doesn’t agree with your ill-informed, faux-revolutionary line, or points out how ridiculous it is? Ironic, given subject matter of article.
Sorry for the delay; we get a lot of spam. Now that your comment has been approved, you should be able to make additional comments without moderation.
Pindar, the kneejerk equation of comment moderation with censorship doesn’t exactly speak to the kind of subtlety of intelligence conducive to your “reasoned, mature debate”, does it? Or to much of a capacity for discernment. Or, you know, to the basic inclination to give things a bit of thought. But you’re reasonably eloquent! You know the word ‘disavowed’. That’s something, right?
Both of your comments have been posted, by the way.
This suspension is a travesty.
The subject of this student suspension came up over my dinner table this evening. My daughter was pretty shocked. “For reading a poem out? For being annoyed about tuition fees?” She wants to write to the university about it. She’s an averagely intelligent child and it’s nice to see that she has a sense of justice & moral compass superior to certain highly qualified cabals of legal academics, etc. Like most ten-year olds.
Pindar, I wouldn’t bandy words like “ironic” around when you’re angry if I were you. Lest you lose in an ‘irony-off’. You have a nice line in mixed metaphors by the way. I’m trying to picture just how something can be “riddled with a dogma”.
And before you lump me with the ‘faux-revolutionary line’, it happens I also find some of the statements of the CDE campaign frustrating, sometimes over-heated and naive, and I don’t even think it was a good idea tactically to prevent Willetts from speaking. But anyone who values a civilised society where education is accessible regardless of privilege, must see that this is a fight for all our (children’s) futures and support the ends if not always the means.
Why is the sort of left wing McCarthyism which CDE wants to bring in to our society acceptable. For example “a man who believes in the market and in the power of competition.” used as an insult is just a left wing “Pinko” or “commie”
Well, given the obvious and unrecoverable failure of markets and competition all around us, the analogue of “a man who believes in the market and in the power of competition” as an insult would be not “pinko” or “commie” (which I don’t think are insults) but “flat-earther”: i.e someone who holds on to outdated, useless (except for the ruling class) dogma.
But it’s not an insult: it’s a severe criticism, and an attack on Willets’s intellectual honesty. He, like many tories, thatcherites and other conservatives, seems to believe that social control and preservation of a class structure is far more important than truth.
Now I’m confused. I don’t understand why as a society we didn’t see the fall of the soviet union in this way even though that communist system? But according to you the fact that we saw a small setback in the prosperity we are experiencing with our capitalist system makes markets a failure, but not communism. Wake up
Now I’m confused. I don’t understand why as a society we didn’t see the fall of the soviet union in this way even though that was a communist system? But according to you the fact that we saw a small setback in the prosperity we are experiencing in our capitalist system makes markets a failure, but not communism. Wake up.
* Sorry I missed out a few words
Funnily enough, I could have sworn I’d heard about several possible economic systems that fell somewhere *between* total unregulated free market capitalism and Soviet-style communism, and that some of these might even have been attempted, here and there. Even in this country? With a modicum of success? No? Must’ve been dreaming then. Tch!
I know right. Which is why blaming capitalism for all our ills is probably quite silly
Yes, especially when the system we have now in no way resembles true free market capitalism anyway. Anyone who says otherwise is either dumb or peddling a corrupt agenda.
Reams of overbearing regulation that favours big business creates effective monopolies, stifles competition and ruins productivity too.
But isn’t that the aim for left-wing fanatics who secretly crave its collapse?
It’s easier for communists to pretend that what we’re seeing is a failure of the “free markets” while they themselves will readily defend their own corner on the grounds that Soviet communism wasn’t “pure” and therefore shouldn’t be adduced as evidence in an argument against the Left’s flawed ideals.
But I suppose taking the moral high ground with this kinds of banal, demonising rhetoric is the only effective weapon in the arsenal of deluded, malicious Utopians.
… which I don’t, and I find ‘Gegenbeispiel’ is risking comparisons with Dave Spart (cont.p94). But, that said: I *do* blame capitalism’s current mutation for the dismantling of a social contract which has served us imperfectly – but pretty well – for the past 60 years or so.
The point is that the current mutation is inevitable. Vicious, exploitative, kleptocratic, competition- and risk-manic capitalism only tolerated a modicum of social democracy and a limited welfare state because it was under existential threat from the Soviet bloc. Now that that threat is gone (and we have yet to replace it with a resurgent movement of the 99%, although Occupy Wall St. was an excellent start) we see the inevitable decomposition of capitalism into a highly unequal and thus antidemocratic, plutocratic corporate feudalism and dictatorship of the capital markets.
Who was Dave Spart, btw? Souns as if he had a lot more sense than Thatcherc**t and her followers.
Whatever your feelings for the man, the office of any Secretary of State surely demands respect.
Certainly not. That’s regimented armed-forces-style thinking, unacceptable in democratic discourse.
Remember, in a democracy we are, supposedly, his ultimate bosses.
In a fashion this is my point – does respect for our democratic process not demand an equivalent respect for those offices so populated?
This incident is just another demonstration of the “hecklers’ veto”, a crude and unfair tool that has no place in the political environment of a free society.
Not at all. Willets could have attempted to stand his ground, although he would surely have been humiliated, as any politician MUST be prepared to be in a democracy. Instead he chose to be bundled out by security, as if he were some irrelevant royal courtier who happened to hold – wrongly – the tertiary education portfolio and whose vicarious royal majesty was under threat. Ludicrous, shameful behaviour from an MP. He does not deserve any respect.
As someone points out, he only needed to have persistent hecklers removed from the meeting – they were completely non-violent.
The so-called hecklers’ veto is a tiny annoyance for democracy compared with the democracy-destroying unequal power of wealth, the wealth-dominated and thus unfree media and the dictatorship of the highly unequal capital markets. Willets and the entire cabinet are their puppets, nothing more.
I am a PhD student in Greece, I just found out about this issue and I want to express my solidarity to the suspended student and to all people that support him/her. As a member of the academic society and as a person, I am insulted by this decision. I want you to know that we support your fight.