When there is near universal opposition of opinion to your actions, it is time to reconsider what you are doing.
It can only be hoped that Queen’s SCR are willing to do so. They should listen to the thirty JCR presidents who, in a statement issued to Cherwell, have condemned the decision to force Queen’s JCR President Nathan Roberts from his position.
In their statement, the JCR presidents make the case that “it is the undeniable right of people to choose their representatives through their own democratic process. For the SCR to summarily dismiss the legitimate choice is neither free nor fair.” In this case, Cherwell agrees. His dismissal clearly implies that the acceptable pool of candidates for JCR president at Queen’s must now be diminished to those who will go on to get at least a 2:1 in prelims. That can only be seen as an intolerable violation of free and open JCR elections.
There are restricted instances when it might be appropriate for an SCR to intervene in the affairs of a JCR. However, this was not one of them. Why exactly has he been dismissed? Because he had failed his exams? Because he was involved in grossly inappropriate behaviour? No, because he got a 2:2 in Prelims. Hundreds of students get a result equivalent to a 2:2 in prelims and mods every year.
Cherwell will hazard a guess and suggest the other members of Queen’s JCR who received that kind of mark are not currently chained to their desks in the library, having been compelled to drop all extra curricular activity.
It is well known that prelims results are by no means indicative of finals results. This is probably why they aren’t even graded as finals degrees are. If a 2:2 standard is sufficient to earn you a degree from Oxford, it should also be sufficient to proceed into your second year unmolested by the SCR.
It might be argued that, despite clearly passing prelims, Mr Roberts was not ‘living up to his potential’, or that his academic results would suggest he was not capable of effectively carrying out his duties as JCR president. The latter point is without question a matter for the JCR to decide, and at any rate seems total unfounded given that he had managed perfectly well during Trinity. The former, Cherwell would argue, is a matter for him to decide, and not the SCR.
The fact of the matter is that the actions of Queen’s SCR constitute not just an unacceptable interference in the dealings of the college’s JCR, but an unjustifiable intrusion into the freedom of Mr. Roberts himself. It is something that every student should take note of, because it betrays an attitude that seemingly views University life solely in terms of exam results.
There is more to being at Oxford than trying to get a first. When we arrived, we didn’t sign a form agreeing to get the best degree possible, to the exclusion of all other activity. Some people choose to do that, and it is a perfectly acceptable path of action. Others do not, and that should be celebrated. That Queen’s SCR apparently believes that they have the right to decide what any student’s priorities should be while at University is an example of the most intolerable, arbitrary and frustrating nannying, and should be roundly condemned as it has been.
It is a virtue of our autonomy as students that we can choose how much time we put into our degree. If Nathan Roberts wants to split his time, for a year, between his work and the JCR, and make up for it later on, who are the SCR to tell him he can’t?
The irony is that of all the people receiving a 2:2 at prelims or mods, they have picked on an individual who was so clearly and obviously contributing to the University. Only an SCR that sees a successful career at Oxford entirely in terms of exam success would be blinkered enough to miss it.
Queen’s SCR have fundamentally damaged the democratic process at their college, earned the disapproval of virtually every JCR in Oxford, and have, ultimately, unjustifiably tampered with the freedom of one of their students. It can only be hoped that they are not too stubborn to reconsider.
