Petition to ban Germaine Greer highlights lack of debate on campus

The petition calling for Germaine Greer to be banned from campus at Cardiff University is yet another attempt by some students to bar feminist campaigners they find offensive from speaking. Earlier this month, student unions chose to prevent Julie Bindel from appearing at the University of Manchester and attempted to stop Maryam Namazie from attending […]

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SOAS speakers claim undermined by event history

Last week, following a government press release which ‘named and shamed’ several universities for hosting extreme speakers, one of the institutions identified hit back at these claims. Laura Gibbs, registrar of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), argued in a statement that the college had “not hosted any extremist speakers in the last […]

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‘Students not Suspects’ continues to work with CAGE

Yesterday, the government launched its Counter-Extremism Strategy, which included the expectation that the National Union of Students (NUS) “avoid providing a platform for extremist speakers”. This follows a week in which NUS officers have toured the country spreading misinformation about Prevent, and shared platforms with a CAGE official at a number of events. They have […]

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Maryam Namazie barred from Warwick University (Update: Warwick SU reverse decision)

UPDATE 28/09/2015: Following widespread coverage of this story the Student Union at the University of Warwick has changed its decision and allowed Namazie to speak. In a statement released over the weekend, the union has said that: “Warwick SU has a process for assessing any potential risks or legal issues associated with any external speaker, […]

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Government outlines need to challenge campus extremism

The government has clarified that the legal duty for public bodies to “have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism” will apply to universities from 21st September. This will put a legal requirement on institutions to have policies in place to challenge on-campus radicalisation, including at extremist events. Guidance […]

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Heriot-Watt blog highlights student misperceptions

In July, Student Rights’ new report ‘Preventing Prevent? Challenges to Counter-Radicalisation Policy on Campus’ highlighted how misunderstandings were driving student opposition to the Prevent strategy. A blog posted over the weekend by Heriot-Watt University Student Union (HWUSU) demonstrates many of these fallacies, and shows the extent to which students have failed to understand the policy […]

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NUS campaign works with IHRC to attack PreventOur recent report, ‘Preventing Prevent? Challenges to

Our recent report, ‘Preventing Prevent? Challenges to Counter-Radicalisation Policy on Campus’, highlighted how student opposition to counter-radicalisation policy has been influenced by extremist narratives. Student groups have also compounded this problem by working alongside the very extremists that such programmes seek to oppose. This was demonstrated again last week, as the NUS Black Students’ Campaign […]

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UCU opposition to Prevent leads to support for extremists

In recent months, government attempts to deal with campus extremism have faced opposition from students, lecturers, and even the former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. Following the General Election, plans to give universities a legal duty to prevent students from being drawn into extremism have returned to the agenda – as has the resistance to […]

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