Ruskin College has confirmed its decision to cut its Women’s Studies MA programme, after an extended period of speculation and online pressure.

Speaking to Cherwell, Chris Wilkes, Ruskin College’s Principal, confirmed the decision to close the course was taken on Friday 13th March  and explained the financial difficulties facing the College.

He commented, “This academic year has seen a dramatic change in the College’s funding which has resulted in the removal of a substantial higher education subsidy… It is within this climate of funding cuts that the College has undertaken a comprehensive curriculum review.

“The College remains committed to its mission and this is reflected in the revised curriculum offer… The key themes of gender, class and race will be embedded within all our programmes. Looking forward, the College is aiming to maintain the number of women on our higher education programmes.”

Founded in 1899, Ruskin College originally sought to provide university-standard education for working class people to enable them to act more effectively on behalf of working class communities and organisations, including trade unions.

The College continues to specialise in providing educational opportunities to adults who are excluded and disadvantaged, describing itself as “providing educational opportunities for adults with few or no qualifications”. 

The College has promised to support those who have already enrolled in the programme if they wish to finish their degree.

A petition to avert the discontinuation of the course on change.org had reached 824 signatures at the time of writing. Comments made by signatories to this petition suggest that the Women’s Studies MA may not be the only course to close with little or no consultation, with concerns also raised in particular about the future of the College’s English degree.

Saskia Ritchie, Chief Executive of Cheshire without Abuse and a student on the course who started the petition, agreed that the College had not been transparent about the nature of the proposal.

She told Cherwell, “There has been no communication. When asked in another meeting how much consultation had taken place, the Vice-Principal said that six consultations were undertaken but could give no detail. In addition, when pressed, he agreed that consultation opportunities were available only to resident students. The MA is a part time course and has never had a residential cohort.”

Ritchie added, “Women’s Studies is a unique programme of study that allows me to use personal experience to explore political, historical, sociological, philosophical and academic understanding of my chosen field [domestic abuse]. My dissertation will both inform and be informed by my work, my life and my politics.”

According to its website, the programme, believed to be the only one of its kind in the country, “asks students to consider the ways in which gender intersects with other power structures… [it attempts to] explain the ways in which women have been made invisible in the world and to think about the ways in which activism can and does change the world.”

The course was notable for being one of the few graduate-level courses open to students without prior qualifications. Instead, it accepted candidates with a similar level of intellect or those who could show evidence of relevant experience in organisations such as trade unions and political movements.

A group of Oxford alumni has occupied a University building in protest at the University Council’s ruling to defer a decision on fossil fuel divestment.

Cherwell understands that the alumni entered the Clarendon Building on Broad Street, an administration building for the Bodleian Library, at 4.30pm today, occupying one of the offices. The administrative staff present left the premises and were replaced by a group of porters. The police were called. Among the protesters was John Clements, formerly the University’s Director of Finance.

Andrew Taylor, the Fossil Free Campaign Manager at People & Planet, an environmental student campaign network, said in a statement, “It is unacceptable that the University of Oxford is refusing to take urgent action and call out the rogue fossil fuel industry that is driving climate change. This is a needless delay by powerful decision-makers at the University of Oxford, while the citizens of vulnerable nations like Vanuatu face the consequences of inaction.”

The University’s decision comes after a protracted divestment campaign from a number of student groups. Within Oxford, the campaign has received support from 14 JCRs and 14 MCRs, representing roughly 8,200 students. A number of alumni, including solar energy entrepreneur Dr Jeremy Leggett and journalist George Monbiot, have promised to hand back their Oxford University degrees if the University does not commit to divestment from fossil fuels.

Worldwide, divestment campaigns are gathering momentum. The UN yesterday announced its support for divestment campaigns, while the Guardian today launched the ‘Keep it in the Ground’ campaign, urging the Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust to divest from fossil fuels.

If the University does decide to divest, it will follow in the footsteps of leading universities including Stanford and Glasgow. Its endowment is estimated to stand at £3.8 billion.

A spokesperson for the University said, “Last October’s Oxford University Student Union resolution has raised an important and multi-faceted matter which requires thorough consideration. The University Council had a good discussion of the issues and agreed to consider the matter further at a future meeting.”

With regards to the occupation, Cherwell has yet to receive from the University a reply to its request for comment.

OUSU President Louis Trup was present at the meeting. In a statement, he said, “University Council has seriously considered the proposals and has decided it wants to get more information before making a final decision, most likely in May. I hope that in the time between then and now, students continue to make it clear that the university has a moral duty to the planet and to the Oxford University researchers who are leading calls to divest. My colleagues and I who sit on University Council will then be able to show that the significant student view and the undeniable scientific evidence must not be ignored.

“I also want to thank OUSU’s Environment and Ethics campaign for their work on this, which has proven that students can force the university to tackle these big issues.”

OUSU’s Environment & Ethics Fossil Free Campaign said in a statement,  “Today, Oxford University Council met to discuss proposals for fossil fuel divestment. We are disappointed that they have deferred this important decision until a future meeting. This deferral represents serious complacency towards the urgent need for action on climate change.”

It pledged to continue lobbying the University, adding, “We appreciate the University’s active engagement with the student body on this issue, and  strongly urge the University to make the right decision without delay.”

On Thursday, two students from St Catherine’s College intercepted a man in their staircase and chased him from the college, retrieving some of their valuables in the process.

Second-year Psychology student Jake Berger intercepted a man coming out of a neighbouring student’s room. After reportedly recognising the other student’s bag, Berger followed the man out of the staircase and confronted him, at which point the man fled.

Another student, second-year Mark Hamblin, was allegedly hit in the face by the man as he tried to obstruct him, sustaining a minor injury. The two then pursued the intruder down Manor Road as far as Holywell Manor, at which point the man dropped a bag which was found to contain two laptops, alcohol and other items. He was not caught, and is thought to have escaped with approximately £100 in cash and a bankcard.

Berger commented, “I had just come back from a meeting with the Master, so the sight of me chasing a thief down Manor Road in my gown must have been pretty disconcerting.

“I think [this incident] happening is a trade off for being as open a college as Catz is.”

Witnesses reported seeing an unidentified male sitting on a bench outside the staircase prior to the incident. He allegedly left a pair of gloves at the scene. The incident has been reported to the police who have spoken to the students whose rooms may have been entered.

Student Matthew Rose, whose money was taken, told Cherwell, “I think it’s a reality check. We’re not in an ivory tower – I almost lost my entire degree on my laptop because I assumed college was secure.”

Dean of St Catherine’s Richard Bailey said, “We take security extremely seriously and are looking in to ways to ensure we don’t have a repeat of this incident.”

JCR President Jack Hampton commented, “Yesterday at 2:15pm an unknown single man entered one of the Catz staircases, went through a number of student rooms, was interrupted in the act and ran, making off with a significant amount of cash.

“This is an isolated incident. As JCR President, I have no concerns about security at Catz. We trust college and the police to resolve this quickly and efficiently.”

In February last year, a spate of robberies from the Catz post room prompted the college to tighten security measures.

An extraordinary open meeting was held by St Catherine’s College JCR on Wednesday, due to a debate concerning an undemocratic poll on Facebook which would decide which newspapers should be stocked in the JCR.

The JCR voted on Saturday 7th March to reverse the decision made by this Facebook poll because it was deemed to have been made undemocratically, on the ground that the vote on the JCR Facebook page was not anonymous, did not include all JCR members and included members who no longer attend the college.

As a result of the debate earlier this week, the JCR President decided to hold an extraordinary open meeting in which two motions were proposed to around 80 students in light of the issue. The first addressed how the decision to stock tabloids in the JCR should be carried out and the second was in relation to stocking The Sun specifically.

The first motion noted, “A previous motion (Hilary Term Week 3, 2014) mandated the JCR to reduce spending on newspapers. This was conducted via a Facebook poll which was then decided to be unlawful and the results were reversed. We have reverted to all of our previous newspaper subscriptions.”

The motion resolved to conduct an anonymous poll on the College’s JCR website with a ‘yes’ to cut a paper, ‘no’ to not cut a paper and a ‘don’t mind’ vote, cancelling the JCR subscription to the newspapers which received more than 50% of ‘yes’ votes.

The outcome was an amendment to mandate the IT Representative to hold an anonymous poll on the JCR website, listing all papers from the current order with options to vote for ‘Keep’, ‘Don’t keep’ and ‘Abstain’ for each newspaper. Each paper which received more than 50 per cent of votes for the ‘Keep’ option would be ordered for Trinity term, and if fewer than six papers received 50 per cent of the ‘Keep’ vote, the six papers with the highest ‘Keep’ votes would be ordered.

This vote is to be repeated in 8^th week of each term in order to keep up to date with new members of the JCR and changing opinions. The amended motion passed 73 votes to one.

The second motion noted, “That ‘all national newspapers’ would include both The Sun and The Daily Star as options, newspapers which (among their myriad other examples of harmful attitudes & content) contain images that cause undeniable discomfort to a significant proportion of the JCR…The Sun’s Page 3 is currently the only widely legitimised form of female nudity in a society which otherwise deems it necessary that female breasts should be covered at all times (see, for example, Facebook/Instagram obscenity guidelines), thereby stating that the only acceptable naked female body is a narrowly sexualised one…The Sun and The Daily Star contained offensive content as well as controversial images with particular focus being placed on the female nudity of The Sun’s Page Three.”

The Sun was not included in the original Facebook poll intentionally due to the JCR’s past support of the NoMorePage3 campaign and The Daily Star was accidently missed off the poll.

The motion stated that by stocking The Sun in the JCR, Catz would be supporting the objectification of women and thus resolved for The Sun and The Daily Star to be removed from the poll as options until the sexualisation of the female body was removed from their content.

The proposition, made by members of Catz Feminist Society, argued, “The Sun is an ideological statement. We need to make a clear statement that Catz shouldn’t support this. It is a chance for Catz to make a really admiral statement. We need a binding motion, regardless of the newspaper ordering system.”

The speech in opposition then responded, “We are arching over what the JCR stands for. People have a right to vote on each individual paper. We shouldn’t censor the list. We remove the fundamental right for people to decide their own choices.

“To show how the JCR really feels, we need to poll beyond the people who are here today. The Sun is the most widely read paper in the country, reaching around ten million people. How can we construct opinions about The Sun without reading it ourselves? We need to continue to be aware of it. To only see broadsheets would have class implications. All papers should be treated the same to be truly democratic.”

The concluding opposition argument stated that the decision to not stock The Sun and The Daily Star should be voted by a poll rather than in the open meeting.

After a call for a secret ballot, 31 voted in favour of the motion to not stock The Sun, 61 voted against and three abstained.

Cherwell spoke to a student at St Catherine’s who was present at the open meeting. She commented, “The debate on the JCR Facebook page a few days ago clearly showed that there were two issues that people were conflating, that of the way we vote on papers and that of the JCR’s general stance on newspapers which feature Page Three-type content.

“I think students rightly feel very strongly about making sure they have a say in the types of newspapers the JCR orders. People feel strongly about Page Three for a number of reasons, one of which is that it is a very visible manifestation of the way women’s bodies are sexualized and objectified in the media – if it’s fair for the images in The Sun or The Star to be visible in the JCR, I should also be allowed to take my top off on Facebook without it violating obscenity guidelines – as it is, there’s a double standard.

“People also have strong views about anything that they feel censors the free press, so people were concerned that the second motion cancelled out the democracy of the first. The issues understandably became conflated, but the idea behind motion two was not to undermine the JCR’s vote on newspapers but rather for the JCR to make a stand and not consider The Sun and The Star as appropriate options until their Page Three images are removed.”

On the topic of the representation of the JCR at open meetings, she stated, “I think the attendance at last night’s meeting showed that people do attend meetings on the issues they care about, and the range of opinion showed that the meetings do represent a broad cross-section of views from across the JCR.”

Vincent’s Club, whose membership is all-male and overwhelmingly made up of Oxford Blues, has recently voted against the admission of their female Blue counterparts as full members.

The club, informally known in the sporting community as ‘Vinnie’s’, has recently released a statement covering the details of this consultation. The consultation was launched after the establishment of the V150 project, which was established in 2013 as a review of several aspects of the club and its administration. The project coincided with the club’s 150th anniversary. It was decided that there should be a consultation of members and alumni on whether the word “male” should be removed from the club’s constitution, thus allowing women to become Vincent’s members.

Currently, to access the club, any non-member must be invited as the guest of a Vincent’s member; however, members of Atalanta’s Club, a similar society for female Blues, have full access to the King Edward Street clubhouse.

The decision was made by both alumni of Vincent’s Club, consisting of around 5000 members, and residential members, of whom there are about 150. The statement regarding the vote, which was jointly issued by the committees of both Vincent’s and Atalanta’s, includes a breakdown of the vote.

According to the statement, “695 alumni members gave their opinion: 12% abstained, most saying it is up to the resident members to decide. 25.5% were against deleting the word “male” from the Constitution, and 62.5% alumni members were of the opinion that change should occur.” With regard to the residential members, a majority of resident members voted to remove the word “male”. However, in both cases, the barrier to female membership could not be removed because there was not the two-thirds majority support which is required for a constitutional change.

The statement continues, “In addition, Vincent’s Club consulted Atalanta’s as part of this process. Atalanta’s members expressed the view that they would rather Atalanta’s remained as the sole club representing women’s sport in Oxford. Vincent’s and Atalanta’s will continue to maintain their close relationship and women will continue to be welcome to enjoy the Vincent’s clubhouse.”

However the vote has met with a mixed response among the Oxford sporting community. The Oxford University Netball club told Cherwell,”As the only female-only sports club in Oxford, OU Netball Club believe that Vincent’s membership should not discriminate on the basis of gender and that women should be able to be members of Vincent’s club, should they meet the ‘social, sporting and intellectual’ criteria for membership. Having our options restricted because we are women is NOT gender-equality. As frequent users of Vincent’s Club space, OU Netball Club were deeply shocked and disappointed to hear that the vote did not pass. We honestly believed that there was no tolerance in modern-day institutions for gender-based assumptions, exclusions and segregation.

“Many of the men who voted against removing the stipulation of ‘male’ from Vincent’s membership requirements appear to have done so based primarily on the belief that it was not wanted by Atalanta’s Club, representative of the views of sportswomen of Oxford. OU Netball Club wish to make clear that the Atalanta’s position on the admission of women to Vincent’s Club is not an adequate nor accurate representation of the views of sportswomen in Oxford. Atalanta’s represents only 7.8% of sportswomen in Oxford and there are women’s Full Blue sports who have no Atalanta’s members at all.

“The outcome of the Vincent’s Club vote has reaffirmed the institutionalised sentiment within Vincent’s Club that women (or anyone who identifies as anything other than ‘male’) are not welcome, wanted, or worthy of Vincent’s Club membership. It is deeply disturbing that one of the strongest opponents of Vincent’s Club membership becoming open to women was from Atalanta’s, a club set up to strive for the equality of women’s sport in Oxford University. The extent to which this influenced the outcome of the vote remains unclear.

“OU Netball Club are, and will remain, committed to promoting gender-equality and decry the upholding of institutionalised sexism at Oxford University.”

Rosie Barker, Women’s Lacrosse Blue and a student at St Catherine’s College, also commented on the decision, remarking, “I think people aren’t really giving their opinions [on women’s membership of Vincent’s] because we are all quite divided on what should happen. I think we could just concentrate on making Atalanta’s a stronger club and have some integration with Vinnie’s. Equally, there should be equality between the sexes in sport and therefore I do think it is bad that the men’s club have voted essentially against this principle.”

 

 

 

Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre in Kidlington will not be expanded, the Home Office revealed today, after months of protest and an independent review.

Campaigners had feared that the centre, currently able to hold 216 detainees, would be doubled in size.

However, in a letter sent to Oxford West and Abingdon MP Nicola Blackwood, James Brokenshire MP said,”The Home Secretary has asked officials to initiate a detailed piece of work on future requirements, to take account of recent and potential future legislative changes.

“In light of this, the Home Secretary has decided to withdraw the planning application for the proposed expansion of Campsfield House.”

Commenting on the expansion, Blackwood declared, “Finally, common sense prevails. I am delighted that the Home Secretary is withdrawing the planning application.

“These plans would have made Campsfield one of the largest detention centres in Europe and it was clear to me that the case set out by the Home Office did not justify building on Green Belt land.

“And of course there were serious problems with the design of the building and how it would work in practice.”

The news comes three weeks after Cherwell District Council postponed a decision on  the expansion, after a letter written on behalf of campaigners raised legal issues concerning insufficient consideration of evidence.  

The letter was written by a team of solicitors on behalf of the Stop Campsfield Expansion group.

Bill MacKeith, spokesperson for the Campaign to Close Campsfiel, declared, “This is a great victory. But the new government in May must implement the recommendations of the parliamentary Inquiry into Immigration Detention: a 28-day time limit to detention and full judicial oversight of individual decisions to detain.

“This would be a further step forward and entail some closures of detention centres. Above all, this is a chance to point to the need for the end of the barbaric imprisonment every year of 30,000 innocent people under 1971 Immigration Act powers. Close Campsfield. Close all immigration detention centres.”

In November, a letter from Oxford academics arguing against the expansion was sent to the Prime Minister. In response, the Home Office insisted that a larger Campsfield “would provide modern accommodation and facilities for detainees”, and that “detention and removal are essential and effective parts of immigration control.”

The government’s current policy on Immigration Detention has been heavily scrutinised in the run up to the election after Channel 4’s recent investigation into the abuse of detainees at Yarl’s Wood IRC, while Cherwell also uncovered claims of poor living conditions and self-harm by Campsfield detainees.