A high court case by four women prevented from studying at Oxford by the government’s visa brake was rejected in August, with an appeal pending.
At least 15 students offered places at Oxford have been prevented from taking up their places this October after the government introduced a student visa “brake” on nationals of Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar, and Sudan. The policy, introduced in March, was challenged in the High Court by women from the four affected countries, including Oxford offer-holders.
The Home Office introduced the measure following an increase in asylum claims from people who had initially entered the UK through study and work routes. Measures are intended to “prevent abuse of the visa system” and ensure that study and skilled-worker routes were used for their “proper purpose”. The government estimated that the policy would prevent around 4,300 student visas being issued over 18 months, while reducing asylum claims from people on student visas by around 1,300.
Claimants challenged the process by which the four countries were selected and alleged that the Home Secretary failed to consider or investigate the discriminatory impact of the student visa brake on women.
Zeinab Mohamed, a current Sudanese student at Somerville College, attended the court case. She told Cherwell: “For many of us, this case was about more than visas. It was about whether students from countries already going through war and crisis would still have a fair chance at an education… The visa brake closes one of the few doors that were still open.”
The Court recognised that the policy had “dashed the hopes and expectation” of students who had secured places at prestigious universities, including students who had received or been shortlisted for scholarships.
Safar Amin, a student from Afghanistan who had an offer to read an MPhil for development studies, told Cherwell: “For me, Oxford represented a possibility: the belief that, if people with the fewest resources are given an opportunity, they can become catalysts for change within societies that have endured decades of war and violence.” His offer has now been withdrawn. He told Cherwell that there was no option to defer it because the visa brake is expected to remain in place for at least 18 months, into the next application cycle.
Another affected offer-holder, Afghan human rights activist Aisha Khurram, had planned to read for MSt in Diplomatic Studies in Oxford this October. Khurram told Cherwell that studying her offer to study in the UK was part of a life-long plan: “I somehow wanted to pursue the dream I had left off in Afghanistan which was this diplomatic studies in Oxford.”
She told Cherwell: “Studying in Oxford is a dream in itself, but also a dream that started in Afghanistan. I wanted to take it to the next level, I would have been studying in Oxford.”
Alongside her studies, Khurram has piloted an e-learning programme providing university-level, certified education to women in six Afghan provinces. She said she had hoped to use her time at Oxford to expand the programme through the University’s networks. “One of the reasons I also wanted to join Oxford was to bring that idea into that network and expand it with their support,” she told Cherwell.
The Court acknowledged the “appalling systemic eradication” of women’s and girls’ access to education in Afghanistan, but ruled that the Home Secretary was not legally required to consider the impact of an immigration measure on gender inequality overseas. Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, women have been barred from secondary and higher education.
Khurram added that she was “quite speechless” about the court’s resolution: “people have been finally able to survive the Taliban, then they are faced with policies that are only based on a prejudice that excludes them from opportunities or from their right to stabilise themselves and have a dignified future, just because they have a certain passport, not because they are not qualified.”
A spokesperson from the University of Oxford told Cherwell: “’We receive a significant number of talented students from countries affected by war and persecution. As a University of Sanctuary, we are committed to ensuring that outstanding offer-holders from crisis-affected backgrounds can take up their places at Oxford.”
Alongside the University, Mansfield and Somerville became Oxford’s first Colleges of Sanctuary in 2021. In a joint statement, the colleges told Cherwell: “When the student visa brake was announced earlier this year, we said that preventing talented scholars from travelling to the UK on legitimate student visas would do nothing to address the complex causes of irregular migration.
We continue to believe that ability and potential, not birthplace or background, should determine who has access to education at Oxford.”
