University of Birmingham’s scenic campus is a lovely place for a demonstration. Most of the buildings in the picture have been occupied at some point including the clocktower in 1977.

Students at, the University of Birmingham have called a demonstration to fight the controversial “ban” on protests. The injunction has been widely condemned as censorious and regressive by groups including Amnesty International.
It is clear that it will take more than strong words to make the university remove the injunction. So now student groups including the national campaign against fees and cuts, the education activist network and the student broad left are uniting and calling for students across the country to mobilise for a massive demonstration on the University of Birmingham campus on February 15th.

Fighting the injunction is far more than just protecting our “rights”, we are also fighting for the conception of the “university”. Traditionally the university as public institutions are more than just education “machines”, they are bastions of free debate and the homes of radical new ideas. Increasing corporatized universities couldn’t give a damn about free speech. Fighting for free speech to be restored on campus is a fight to protect one of the key tenets of what makes a university a university.

Further to this is not just about the injunction. One of our own – Simon Furse – is facing expulsion for taking part in an occupation. He will be having his disciplinary hearing at the same time as the demonstration. He is the only student in the country to face a disciplinary for taking part in the wave of occupations last term. So now that same wave of occupations is coming to call on the University of Birmingham.
Accommodation is available in Birmingham for anyone coming down to the demo, in case you need to stay overnight, so make sure you bring a sleeping bag with you!

UCU represents academic and what’s known as academic related staff – that is IT support, librarians etc. – in both higher (HE) and further (FE) education. Higher education is then often, and indeed in the case of pensions, split between “post-92″ and “pre-92″ institutions (post-92 referring to the polytechnics and colleges that were awarded university status in the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, pre-92 naturally referring then to older universities). Staff in pre-92 institutions are members of a pensions scheme called USS (universities superannuation scheme), which is a private pension plan with a dedicated fund from members and universities as employers. Staff in FE and post-92 HE are, instead, members of TPS (teachers pension scheme), which is a government programme also covering school teachers.

Both schemes are currently in the process of being altered in ways which will increase contributions from staff, increase the retirement age and leave members with smaller overall pensions. (To go through all the changes being proposed would take too long, so I’ll simply advise the interested reader to see here and here.) Changes to both schemes have also seen industrial action over the last year – first in March of 2011 over USS changes, then again in June of last year and finally on November 30th in coordination with other public sector unions.

That action forced some (small) concessions. The government’s “final offer” to the unions in December, which covered the TPS dispute, but not USS, offered a slight improvement in the accrual rate (the amount earned each year), an 8% increase in the “cost ceiling”, the maximum that the government is willing to spend on the pensions, and some protection for people near retirement. At approximately the same time the universities employers association offered to restart negotiations over USS. However, the changes to USS were already unilaterally imposed last Autumn and the new negotiations offered were for reviews of two specific areas that have been changed. Firstly, new entrants to USS are now placed in a different scheme than current members; current members have a “final salary” pensions where what they get in retirement is proportional to their final salary, new members have a “career averaged” (CARE) pension, which is proportional to a weighted (and inflation uprated) average of your salary. One review would consider the CARE pension and hopefully ensure that it ends up being no worse than what is offered to people in TPS. The other review would consider the abolition of the right for staff over 55 to take an unreduced pension.

This month a meeting of UCU’s national executive committee voted by a margin of 3 to 1 to reject the government’s offer over TPS and to continue industrial action in coordination with other teaching unions. The largest school teaching unions the NUT, NUSUWT and EIS have all also rejected the offer.

Which all brings us pretty much up to this week and the special conference for USS. Despite the general consensus that the offer for new entrants in USS is worse than the current offer for new entrants into TPS and the clear decision to keep fighting over those changes, our national negotiators recommended going into the meeting that we accept the offer, suspend action and re-enter negotiations. At the meeting three broad positions were laid out: accept the the negotiators position and suspend all action; return to negotiations but time-limited and whilst continuing our current work-to-rule action; or reject the offer and immediately escalate strike action.

Sadly, the delegates at the meeting voted (66 to 41) for the first of those options, suspending all current industrial action. There were, as slight amelioration, several amendments to that decision however. First, a commitment to ‘respond quickly and decisively’ with further action ‘if the review does not deliver improvements for our members in a timely manner’. Second, that by June of this year we have agreement on an accrual rate no worse than in TPS and full pensions for those made redundant. And thirdly, that Andrew Cubie, who chaired the original negotiations prior to the imposition of the agreement and used his casting vote to force the changes through, despite supposedly being independent of the two sides, should be immediately excluded from the negotiations. (It’s not clear at this stage what the result would be if the employers refuse to exclude him – would this lead to further action now? or would we just accept it?)

Personally, I think this is a serious mistake. The reviews will have as much management participation as the original negotiations which forced through these changes, and when the changes are already in place a settlement is really a victory for management – they have no need to negotiate except to stop us taking industrial action, which they have already succeeded in doing. At a time when other unions are taking further coordinated action, when we have momentum by making them offer ‘something’, on the back of November 30th it seems poor strategy to back down now whilst offered no independent arbitration, no guarantee of any improvement and almost certainty that anything that does come from the reviews will still be worse than what we had to start with, before these changes happened. Come June it will be too late to do anything which substantively disrupts management till the Autumn and there will be no chance to not mark exams (a tactic for which there is evidence from previous disputes of success) till the end of the year.

By suspending action we choose to disarm ourselves for no substantive gain. It baffles me that lay trade union delegates would vote to do that, but that is what they have done.

Despite this we have reasons to be hopeful as the NUS is making good calls, calling for a “week of action” between March 12^th and 16^th and proposing a “national student walkout” for later in the term. However we can’t just count on the NUS to organise these weeks of action and walkouts, the NUS leadership and many student unions are far too detached from their activist bases. Whilst the NUS and Liam Burns may call the days for these walkouts, it is going to have to be us who will have to mobilise to make them happen.

If we don’t get in gear and organise actions ourselves we are going to be left with glow stick vigils. A good tactic for students now is to call and start organising good events now on campus and then attempt to get your student unions on board with them on the grounds that the NUS are supporting it. Leaving it for your student union to organise themselves will not produce good enough results.

We need to get it fixed in people’s minds that the White Paper is not being scrapped or shelved. It was never originally proposed to go as bill to parliament and many were surprised when it looked like it would; only for a brief period did it mutate into this now dropped bill. We should be very wary about describing the dropping of the bill as a “victory”, the NUS and others are right to declare that “the fight goes on”.

An issue with the White Paper’s proposals is that while they are rotten to the core, they have none of the certainty of implication that the scrapping of Education Maintenance Allowance or £9,000 in fees had. The problem facing the national student movement with the White Paper was nationalising a narrative to build a movement against the government plans.

The White Paper means that universities all across the country are readying themselves for the “market” in higher education; overpaid university executives are pushing rapid changes to their universities to prepare for this fundamental change in our higher education system. These changes mean anything from cutting perfectly good departments because they don’t fit with the universities “research profile” to raising student fees and cutting staff pay to make universities more “competitive”. In the near future it will mean a dramatic shift of university demographics as open bidding for “top quality” students begins, making our elite universities more inaccessible than they have been in generations.

These changes, set to happen despite the withdrawal of the bill, will naturally generate anger and resentment towards university executives, but not the government or the white paper. The difficulty for our movement is explaining and relating these; changes, cuts, closures and fee hikes to the ideological waffle spouted by the government. In terms of mobilising none of them are as immediate to people lives as “they’re going to put fees up to £9,000 and they are going to vote on it in Parliament on December 9th;” they are also different in every university, making the national narrative hard to build. The White Paper bill was this chance to nationalise this narrative and its withdrawal should be seen as a canny move by a government knowing it will face serious opposition.

With the NUS now finally getting ready for a fight for education we have a chance to organise actions that capture the public imagination and this time with the full weight of the NUS and the student movement behind us.

The Rector is chair of university court – effectively its board of governors. He or she is elected by staff and students. Previous rectors have included dignitaries – Gladstone, Lloyd George, David Steel, and Winston Churchill; and prominent local activists – Gordon Brown managed to secure the position whilst he was a student – though this has now been banned, and former student president Malcolm Macleod was returned in 1993. The current rector is journalist Iain Macwhirter, and he was preceeded by Bright Green editor in chief and former Green MSP Mark Ballard.

Peter, a prominent activist in Edinburgh, agreed to stand for rector after being approached by the the university’s anti-cuts groups. He quickly secured support from the university’s progressive student activist community including feminists, environmentalists, global justice activists and significant numbers of student council members. Against this backdrop, no other student group ran a candidate, and he was returned unopposed today.

We’ll have more on this soon, but, in the mean time, on a personal note, many congratulations to Peter. I can’t imagine a better person for the job.

Peter McColl

Simon faces this disciplinary because the conservative president of his student union has singled him out amongst many occupiers who came in and out of the occupation. Thankfully Simon is well supported and the president already has been forced to withdraw his statement.

I have nothing but very great respect for the students who are willing to run the same risk of expulsion as Simon and have in solidarity essentially hung a sign saying “come and get me them you b***std’s” around their necks.

They have today sent this letter to the university with their names and courses attached.

Dear David Eastwood,

We hope this finds you well. We are writing because you have decided to take Simon Furse to a full college misconduct committee at which he potentially faces expulsion. You and your university team are doing this for no other reason than that Simon was in the north gatehouse for a part of the time it was occupied from November 23rd to 25th, not even the full duration as he entered on the second day.

Simon is a prominent activist on campus. We believe he has been singled out for disciplinary above others who are known to have taken exactly the same actions. We believe this is because of his vocal political opposition to your proposed course cuts, forced redundancies, support of tuition fees and the education white paper which proposes the damaging privatisation of the UK higher education system.

We would like to establish for the record that we also attended the occupation; we took the same actions as did Simon Furse. If you want to discipline him you must discipline us as well.

We would appreciate if you could take note that we will carry on with our campaign despite any injunctions “banning” protests or disciplinary handed out. We will do this because we stand in total opposition to the hypocritical pay rises and bonuses for you and your executive while the rest of the university faces cuts, job losses and the insecurity of a privatised education sector.

We look forward to hearing from you soon,

Sincerely

1. Edward Bauer (VP Education)
2. Claire Lister (DAMSA Chair)
3. Leander Jones (Community Action Officer)
4. Kelly Rogers Guild of Students Women’s Officer, President Student Broad Left
5. Carmen Castrillon (President Friends of Palestine, Languages Guild Councilor)
6. Sean Farmelo (Philosophy, Theology and Religion Guild Councillor)
7. Sebastian Egerton Read (Secretary Student Broad Left)
8. Mma Felicia Yeebo-Agoe (Guild Councillor for Ethnic Minorities)
9. Elio di Muccio 3rd Year Sociology Volunteering Guild Councillor
10. Alice Swift President People & Planet, Campaigning & Political Mini-Forum Guild Councillor
11. Daniel Harrison Chair, Birmingham Labour Students, Campaigning & Political Mini-Forum Guild Councillor
12. Bryn Gough Politcal Science Guild  Councilor
13. Hattie Craig (Pritchatts Park RA Representation Officer, 1st Year  International relations and political science)
14. Matthew Franklin 2nd Year Anthropology and Classical Literature and Civilisation, Secretary, People & Planet
15. Emma Atkins Computer Science – Software Engineering
16. April Reilly (1st Year Philosophy and Political Science)
17. Pauline notley Medical Biochemistry 1st year
18. Asad Zadi (3rd Year Political Science)
19. Dale Steanson – 1st year political science
20. Jake Pembroke – 1st year political science
21. Nick Mcoy 2nd year International relations
22. Charlotte Cruze 2nd Year Environmental Science
23. Dan Doherty 3rd Year International Relations
24. Nick Collis 3rd year political science
25. Jenna Woolven 1st year Bsc Psychology
26. Laura Hamilton 2nd Year Geology Student Rep
27. Lindsey Birtles 1st year CCE
28. Lawrence Murphy ‎2nd Year Geology and Geography
29. Jack Copley 3rd Year Political Science
30. Micaela Rocha Archaeology and Anthropology BA
31. Richard Higgs 3rd Year Political Science
32. Lottie Rowling 1st Year International Relations with Political Science
33. Pauline Notley 1st Year Biochemistry
34. Jacob Weir 1st Year Philosophy
35. Kez Sleeman 1st Year Mechanical Engineering
36. ‎Jaskaran Sarkaria 3rd year political science
37. Alex Thompson 1st Year BA Hispanic Studies
38. Azfar Shafi 1st Year Psychology
39. Nathan Woodward 2nd year computer science
40. Michaela Christofi 3rd year political science
41. Martha Smith – 2nd Year political science
42. Jon Robinson 3rd year Political Science
43. Lucy Whalley Graduate
44. Nicolas O’Brien Graduate
45. Tom Holness graduate
46. Matthew Alton graduate
47. Katherine Ellis
48. Tom Farrell 2nd year physics
49. Mita Desai -2nd year Social Policy
50. Nadia Williams 1st year English Literature and Drama

Mark Harrop, the Tory president of the University Of Birmingham Guild Of Students (student union), has Colluded with the University management to try and suppress a peaceful protest. Harrop identified one of his own students for disciplinary action and helped the university in the deployment of an injunction that was condemned by amnesty international and other human rights groups. Knowing that this would not be accepted by the student body Harrop lied about, misrepresented or neglected to mention how he was acting.

Mark Harrop arrived at the occupation that took place on the 23rd of November pretending to be looking after the students human rights when in fact he was taking down names that he could later pass on to the university. He is now the most important prosecution witness in the case against the only student in the country to be disciplined following the wave of occupations. His testimony even goes beyond a simple eyewitness account as he speculates negatively about the involved student’s integrity and character. Because of his actions the disciplinary of the involved student, Simon Furse, has progressed to the stage where he is facing expulsion from the university.

Harrop was briefed about the injunction, by university senior managers, before it was delivered to the occupiers. Knowing the University was preparing to remove the protesters, possibly by force, if they did not comply with the injunction, Harrop’s concern when being called to scene was not with the students but that if he didn’t keep his distance they might become “suspicious.” He then refused to condemn or even tell students about the existence of the injunction until over two weeks later when he was forced too by political pressure and the condemnations of human rights organizations. This complacency could easily have put students at the university in danger of prosecution.

The full referenced story of this can be found here

Unfortunately action that puts the interests of the University and Harrop himself over the interests of students is not the exception but the rule of Harrop’s presidency so far. Earlier this year Harrop suspended Edd Bauer his VP Education. He suspended Edd without any vote in student council for his participation in a peaceful protest at the liberal democrat conference that unfortunately led to his arrest. This sparked mass protests on campus, objections from academics and sabbatical officers across the country. It even lead to a early day motion being put to parliament.

The right to protest and freedom of speech is under attack at the University of Birmingham. We have a long and proud history in this country of student protest. As students working in the education system we can’t go on strike. Instead we take our equivalent of a strike: we do sit-ins and occupations. We withdraw space because we can’t withdraw our labour. This has been a key feature of UK student activism for generations. In fact, at the University of Birmingham, all the student representation we have on university committees was won, in 1968, when 800 students occupied the Great Hall demanding a democratic voice.

Sadly it is now these same student representatives in conjunction with the university who seek to discipline students for taking part in sit-ins, suspend officers for unfurling banners off bridges and take out injunctions banning protests on campus.

Yesterday I was reinstated by Andrew Whitehead. He chaired my “undemocratic” disciplinary panel. I have been asked to “draw a line” under my “disciplinary” and get on with “my work” in the guild in the time left to me as a officer. However, I will not draw a line under democracy and I will fight for a democratic guild of students. I can draw a line under incorrect individual decisions. However, I cannot draw a line under the Guild’s recent systematic democratic failings as it one of my manifesto promises to implement democratic reform to the by-laws of the guild of students.

Yesterday Andrew Whitehead the chair of the disciplinary panel delivered me the “written warning”. He is a lawyer, guild trustee and senior executive of a firm that works for the university. He is also the senior executive of the firm responsible for the widely condemned* injunction “banning” protests. Yesterday he had requested in him a vote of no confidence by Guild councillors.

The disciplinary against me was a battle for student democracy and a representative guild of students. The panel who made the decision was made up of 3/5ths non-student, non-elected representatives; the other two “elected” members of the panel were elected on an undemocratic “gimmick mandate”.  The reasons I received a “written warning” was one for my “arrest” for a peaceful banner drop for which I have not been found “guilty” of any crime, two for my imprisonment and thirdly for writing this article in The Guardian . If it was not for the immense public pressure for democracy, I do not believe this positive outcome could have been attained.

On all the points ruled against me I will be appealing the written warning as I consider these decisions to be political decisions made by a board with no political legitimacy. Additionally, the board which made these decisions has made done so based on a disciplinary policy that has never been agreed to by the student body but rather a narrow majority of the unelected trustee board.

The policy which the Guild of Students used to suspend me was never passed by Guild Council however, it was passed the majority unelected trustee board. I hope this case is warning to all students who hope to defend education, it is not enough to get elected officers on a mandate to defend education but, we must also address the democratic deficit.

*including by Amnesty International, Liberty, and Index on Censorship.

The norms of democratic “due process” give the expectation that when individuals are put in positions by democratic means then they can only removed from position by similarly democratic means. Anything else would be damaging democracy due proccess, the right to protest and the freedom of speech of democratically-elected representatives.

I’m not the only student officer in the country to be facing politically motivated and undemocratic attacks this year. Many more officers I know live and work fearful of removal by powerful, unelected officials and boards within their own unions. Increasingly as the situation in higher education gets worse due to government cuts and privatisation the student body is going to elect increasingly more militant officers and additionally require more militant action from them. If we are going to win the fight to defend public education we must at the same as winning elections address the democratic deficits within our unions.

The reasons the guild of students policy is so undemocratic is because it is so ambiguously worded in terms of timeframe. This allows essentially indefinite suspensions at the discretion of individuals with no democratic mandate. Additionally, in the guilds policies the disciplinary and suspension procedures have no democratic oversight or accountability by students.

Some good but, not perfect policies like Birbeck student union’s , have elected student committees that oversee any disciplinarys or suspensions and they can end the disciplinary or suspension democratically.  Furthermore, an unusual system at Birmingham whereby the majority of the Guild of Students trustees are unelected and the powers to remove an officer have been given to this unelected board of trustees; compounds the democratic deficit at the university of Birmingham guild of students.

A Check list for any students or student unions seeking to create a democratic officer disciplinary policy should be.

• Clear timeframes that are not open to abuse by unelected official seeking to drag out  groundless suspensions.
• Transparent and accountable democratic oversight of the implementation of the policy by an elected body of students and disciplinary panels that made up of a clear majority of elected students.
• Most importantly ultimately the power for political decisions that need to be made on disciplinary issues to be taken at democratic student bodies like general meetings not unelected boards.

The best way to get these changes passed at a student union is by building a quorate gerneral meeting and setting new policy. It should aslo be bourne in mind that officer disciplinary policy is only a small part of wider battle for student union democracy, which involves empowering and protecting gerneral meetings as well as making trustee boards accountable.

1.

to		xxxx xxxx <x.xxxxx@guild.bham.ac.uk>
date		Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 12:33 PM

Dear xxxx,

Can I ask what are these due processes and how long will they take?

best

Edd

to		Edward Bauer <edd.ma.bauer@gmail.com>
date		Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 2:51 PM
subject		RE: Strictly Private & Confidential
mailed-by		guild.bham.ac.uk

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Dear Edd,

Thank you for your email. 

The panel are following the processes as laid down in the Guild officer Group Disciplinary & Appeals Policy.

Point 8.17 The Chair shall endeavor to communicate the decision to the Guild officer and to the complainant within 5 working days of the hearing.

Regards

xxxxxxx

 

*The hearing took place on the 29th of november. As of  friday the 16th of december I have recived no comunications.

Dorries first introduced this bill in May 2011, when nobody really expected it to be taken seriously. It proposes that lessons on sexual abstinence should become compulsory for all girls aged 13-16 in English state schools. The only elements of Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) that are currently mandatory are the scientific explanation of where babies come from, and, in free schools and academies, a duty for teachers to promote marriage. Individual schools have the freedom to decide what else should be taught, and in the face of tabloid-inspired moral outrage about SRE encouraging young people to have sex and driving up the number of teenage pregnancies (despite the fact that the number of teenage pregnancies in the UK is actually falling), there is a risk that more schools could shy away from providing young people with practical, factual information about sex.

The same moral outrage has already influenced policy in the USA, where the rise in abstinence-based sex education during the years of George W Bush’s presidency corresponded with an increase in pregnancies and STIs among teenagers – proving conclusively that it doesn’t work. The approach that Dorries suggests isn’t exactly the same, as it could in theory be used in addition to lessons about contraception instead of replacing them entirely, but the fact that it is aimed at girls means that there are certain similarities with some of the well-known American abstinence movements, such as purity balls. Defenders of abstinence education claim that this is because boys don’t have to live with the consequences of a teenage pregnancy, but it is rooted in older traditions that value women’s virginity over that of men. Virginity used to be one of the major indicators of a woman’s worth in the marriage market, and because it was signified by a physical state – having an intact hymen – it could be proven, either by physical examination or through traditions like displaying blood-stained bedsheets the morning after a wedding. Even though the hymen has become redundant as a test of virginity in many parts of the world (they tend to be broken during exercise or by tampons before a woman’s first sexual partner shows up), sexual experience is still more stigmatised for women than for men.

Leaving boys out of abstinence education isn’t the same as encouraging them to have sex, but it perpetuates the idea that women should be sexual gatekeepers. By saying that it is a woman’s responsibility to say no to sex, Dorries implies that men (abstinence education tends to only be concerned with sex between a man and a woman) can’t be trusted to make the right decision on whether or not to have sex, so women have to do it for them. This is insulting to everyone involved, implying that men can’t – or shouldn’t be expected to – control their own sexual behaviour, and it’s part of the same logic that blames women for “inviting” rape.

In stressing the importance of young women saying no to sex, Dorries is also showing ignorance of young women’s experiences. Consent is a far more complex issue than pro-abstinence campaigners would have us believe, and sometimes women agree to sex that we don’t want. Many young women are already saying no, but some men won’t accept that answer, and will continue to press the issue. The “no” that might be have been relatively easy the first few times becomes increasingly difficult to maintain under repeated pressure, and eventually a reluctant “yes” is granted.

This might sound like an argument for abstinence education – if girls find it difficult to say no, then shouldn’t we help them? Yes, but the problem here is that this isn’t just about sex, it’s about society’s expectations for masculine and feminine behaviour. We expect men to pursue women; we call it seduction, and it’s supposed to be sexy, but sometimes it’s used as an excuse for coercion. We teach men that they need to get consent for sex, so most will wait for a “yes” before they proceed, but some only learn the importance of the word, not the sentiment behind it, so it becomes acceptable to badger a woman until she verbally agrees, regardless of whether she really wants to have sex.

While men are encouraged to be persuasive and forceful, women are taught from an early age that they aren’t supposed to say no – not necessarily to sex, but in general. We teach girls to be considerate, obliging, and to put others before themselves. These lessons aren’t consciously intended for the bedroom, but they’re not something we can easily leave at the door. The “no” that Dorries expects from teenage girls is a difficult answer to give, because it’s at odds with how they are encourage to behave in all other aspects of their lives. Abstinence lessons won’t undo the effects of living in a culture which discourages women from being assertive, and neither will Dorries’ proposals teach men to listen and accept what a woman says when she does assert herself.

Abstinence is a loaded term, and it’s very black and white, which means that it isn’t particularly useful for discussing how and why we make decisions about sex. Sex doesn’t happen in a vacuum – not for teenagers, and not for adults either – so putting it in a box marked “just say no” isn’t going to work.

Last week I took part in a peaceful sit in to try and raise awareness and dialogue about the effects of the white paper. My university responded by unleashing what are essentially hired thugs to harass us and I was assaulted. Because I gave my name to the police for this assault the university have singled me out and brought disciplinary procedures against me.

On the 23rd of November there was a national day of action against the White Paper and the impending privatisation of the Higher Education system. Since then students from around twenty universities have gone into occupation; including students from my own university, Birmingham. At every other university the occupiers’ rights to speech, assembly and access have been tolerated (see the experience of Cambridge or Edinburgh). However the Birmingham university management act with a mafia mentality, not just trying to stop protest but actively trying to intimidate students into being silent.

Last year the university violently forced its way into an occupation and then disciplined several of the students involved. This year we occupied an unused house on campus causing no disruption and the universities overreaction was truly staggering. They employed between six and ten security guards to stand guard around the occupation twenty four hours a day making sure no-one could go in or out; several senior managers and the universities legal team spent huge amounts of time during the day and night co-ordinating the universities response and the university paid for a special sitting of the high court in order to get a possession order against us in only two days (it normally takes around two weeks.)

On the second night of our occupation a few students tried to break the siege and get in. One of the students was almost through the window when a security guard tried to drag them out by their ankles. Luckily they got inside at which point the security guard completely lost control and started punching me repeatedly in the face. He only stopped because he was led away by the other security guards. At that point, far from being apologetic or embarrassed, the university security started a co-ordinated campaign of harassment: ringing our doorbell, knocking on the windows, shouting abuse and pressing their face to the glass of the toilet all through the night.

Instead of shame from their management about their hired thugs the Vice-Chancellor came to the occupation to express his personal gratitude to the security. The fact that I reported an assault to the police has been used to identify me and put me through disciplinary procedures alone.

The occupation was standing up for the principles that a university is supposed to be about but the management reacted with nothing but threats, violence and harassment. They know that students and staff are overwhelmingly against them and their policies and that they have no option but to try and scare people away from taking action. If the university system is to be an institution that promotes social mobility and knowledge for the public good the principle of democracy urgently needs to be re-instated. Power needs to be taken away from the businessmen who don’t care about their students or the quality of the education and put in the hands of students and staff.

The lesson I have learned from my experience is that we need more and stronger action to really start to assert the principle of democracy in the university if nowhere else.