The State of Student Politics

Politics is a hugely divisive issue in almost any section of society today, and it's an issue treated with respect and integrity. Well except for one section of society who feel the need to use politics as a tool to drag their members by their feet through a massive pool of shit. These are the student unions of Britain who feel the need to challenge the right to free speech in order to brainwash their members. As a libertarian I take this issue very seriously, and if I'm honest it's becoming a worrying and radical trend that is unfortunately seeping into the public eye, and even more worryingly politics in general. To make my point we'll take a look at the University of Sussex's Student Union. In terms of British universities Sussex is seen as a radical left wing establishment, heavily emphasising policies regarding equality and diversity. In actual fact I have the introduction to their roles right here:

This utilitarian approach to running the students of a university sounds fine to me, and in fact there appears to be a minimalist approach to political movements that would appear to contradict what I said in the introduction, but let's see how this operational policy stands up when we look further into their policies voted for by the students themselves. May I suggest remembering the line 'We will not tolerate any form of discrimination':

No it turns out I was 100% correct. This Student's Union are a bunch of fucking hypocrites. Maybe I would be slightly more sympathetic if they'd simply forgotten about such an outdated policy, but they actually decided to retain the damn thing without editing it in 2013. How is it humanly possible to read this policy and for some reason not see that even by definition this policy is purely discriminatory against men? Hell it's even in the fucking wording. Again, may I remind this Student's Union that they are committed to not tolerating 'any form of discrimination', unless of course it turns out that that this discrimination plays out advantageously to their biased agenda in which case it's apparently fine, and even fucking supported. 'Positive discrimination'. Surely the alarm bells must be ringing when you have to word one of your policies like that.

This policy becomes even more ludicrous when you actually look at the statistics. Apparently it's fine to 'positively discriminate' in favour of underrepresented women even when 54% of students at Sussex University are female, which follows the national trend, and despite all the full time Student's Union officers at Sussex University being women. Unless I'm missing something here how the fuck are female students underrepresented at this university? This may have been the case in 1974 when the policy was first drawn up, but in 2008 this is just an absurdity that clearly isn't true. It doesn't matter if the Student's Union claim this will equalise the level of discrimination because at the end of the day what you're doing is still discriminating, with your only justification based on a fallacious argument about the greater society as a whole. As my mum always said to me 'two wrongs don't make a right'; especially when those two wrongs make you sound like a hypocrite. You may be thinking this policy is just a one off. Well let's see some more of this 'Sussex equality' then shall we?

Oh dear this sounds all too familiar. Let me guess, do we now need to positively discriminate in favour of women to counter the general trend of society? The fact is that although violence against women may be silenced by customs, this Student's Union are in no position to take the moral high ground when they themselves silence the violence against men. At no point in their policies do this Student's Union even mention issues surrounding their male students, and I don't want to sound like one of those 'Men's Rights Activists' but the statistics show that a significant portion of men also suffer from violence. Yes that figure of 4.5% witnessing domestic violence is marginally lower than it is for women, but surely it's still significant enough for you to even mention it. I don't know if anybody has ever told this Union what the word 'equality' means in their policies, but they signs so far are that this is a very biased political organisation.

Once you get past the stupid policies you arrive at what is in my opinion the worst thing by far about the majority of universities now. That very cancer is the 'safespace' policy, which if you're a student you will hear all the time at any political gathering. But what is the 'safespace' policy you ask? Well let's head back to Sussex for them to prove once and for all why student politics is so fucked at the moment:

May I just remind you that this is a centre of higher education; albeit a centre where serious intellectual debates cannot occur thanks to the Student's Union. To have the audacity to say that every point in an argument will be respected equally when you actively ban people you consider to have racist or offensive views is so profoundly ignorant it baffles my mind. Can this Student's Union honestly say that it doesn't tolerate discrimination when their organisation is centred around a policy that refuses to allow people deemed offensive to express their opinions? It's clear that anyone who doesn't have the same political agenda is being marginalised with the Union even going as far as to claim 'The alarming rise of fascist activity in the South of England. Racism/sexism/homophobia in all forms should be actively and consistently opposed'. And that 'The Union resolved to take steps to defy the government attacks on no-platform and defend existing NUS policy and to prevent speakers, e.g. Enoch Powell, with a record of racist ideas and incitement to racial hatred from speaking in students' union rooms or using union property.' To be honest I would be very surprised if Enoch Powell, a man who's been dead for nearly twenty years, showed up to do a speech. But even a man with profoundly right wing views such as Powell must surely speak towards a considerable demographic, otherwise how did he reach national fame and get elected into parliament? But that's exactly the sort of thing this oxymoronic safe space policy is preventing, and it's destroying the world of student politics by simply catering for a radical group of self-centred morons who simply ban ideas they don't like.

It's not just Sussex Student's Union with this attitude. This is the trend throughout the country, with people deemed offensive being banned for the most stupid of reasons by an apparently inclusive system. Is it any wonder why people don't take Student politics seriously? Even the universities affiliated with these Student Union's couldn't give a shit about these imbecilic policies. Take 'The violence free science policy' implemented by our old friends in Sussex in 2008. This policy claims the Student's Union "condemned the use of the most repeated and out of date experiments on animals." Well that policy is so well adhered to that as of 2012, 3369 animals were still kept on the campus with the nature of their experimentation not revealed, so you can see how well this policy is taken seriously. Are people honestly expected to follow such stupidity passed by people who clearly have no fucking clue what they're talking about? The University of Southampton take their Union so seriously that they've elected a cat as the honorary president. Back at the University of Sussex they've gone so far as to ban making an innuendo, making an offensive gesture towards another person, or even making a sexual noise.  They've even decided to take an active role in wars and ban the sale of Israeli goods, because apparently that's not discrimination either. This is all very rich coming from a University with a Barclays bank located on campus, who are noted for not being ethical, but I'll stop there in case I give these morons another motive to censor things they disagree with. When you start reading about this level of stupidity you would be forgiven for thinking that this is a nursery school and not a serious intellectual establishment. Maybe the Student's Union should instead be telling its members to just grow up instead, although as we've already established that probably wouldn't be taken seriously. The only things it seems Student Unions can do well is ban things, which is all you really need to know about the dire state us students find ourselves in.

It's clear to me that at institutions were the broadening of ideas should be displayed and promoted, there is a dark underbelly that seeks to cripple the idea of free speech by the political censorship of thought. This is an active war against the very radical behaviour that gave students and minorities a chance to stand up and speak out against the social norm, and so I now find it simply unacceptable to just dismiss and ban ideas that you don't agree with. My real issue however is this horrific double standard in which the Student's Union is all too keen to bring up controversial topics that they themselves support and then censor different ideas that it doesn't agree with. Now to me that sounds like a facist regime, a power hungry dictator on a power trip, with the results being that there is clearly not an equality in the validity of arguments. Evidently students now study in areas where ignorance and discrimination are actively supported and that is why this regressive attitude towards free speech at universities must be challenged.