LSE Students’ Union Backs Occupation in Record-Breaking Turnout

In a record-breaking turnout of 464 in favour and 291 against, the results of the vote for LSE Students’ Union results were announced at 5pm today. The Motion mandated the following to the LSE SU:

1. To demand that the LSE makes a public statement against the cut in the teaching grant and changes in the funding system.

2. To support democratically decided actions against the changes to higher education funding, fees and EMA.

3. To commit itself to using the full range of tactics available, including non violent direct action and occupation of our university property, to campaign for these demands.

This comes one day after an Emergency Union General Meeting where over 400 students debated the motion and Over 150 Students wend into occupation at the LSE. Students at the LSE are continuing to occupy the Vera Anstey Suite in the Old Building – purposefully not disrupting any students, teaching or learning within the School. Students are demanding that Howard Davies write a joint open letter with the LSE Students Union and the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU).

Ashok Kumar, LSE Students’ Union Education Officer, “This is the largest turnout for a vote on any motion in living memory. This was inconceivable only a few weeks ago, but now anything seems possible. This vote indicates the commitment by students on this campus to put our full backing and resources behind this occupation.”

Charlotte Gerada, LSE Students’ Union said “This represents a mandate. The kind of mandate that tells the university that students are serious about their demands, and that it isn’t just a small group of radicals dictating the responsibility the university owes to students and staff – to stand up with the students and lecturers unions against the governments proposed cuts and fee hikes.”

Some randomly collected solidarity messages

Dear All at LSE,

I would like to convey support for your campaign against HE funding cuts and increased tuition fees on behalf of the Loughborough UCU branch. We share many of your concerns and hope that the University engages with you to support the cause.

Loughborough UCU

Solidarity and love from SOAS students and occupiers!
Good luck and keep us posted!

Dear Occupiers,

We are sending this message of support and solidarity for your continuing occupations and all other activities you are undertaking. The government cuts agenda will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in society and is going to have a devastating impact on communities across the country. By your actions you are making a difference in highlighting and opposing the damage the proposals will do. Your actions are also an important part of the nationwide mass movement of resistance and promoting of alternative solutions to the economic crisis.

York Stop the Cuts – Right to Work Campaign

Well done LSE students! I am fully in support of your important activism. Something must be done to stop the destruction of public education in England.

John Chalcraft
Reader, Dept of Govt, LSE

Dear LSE Occupiers,

I am an organizer at the City University of New York and myself former
student in anthropology. You are real inspiration to us and our own
fight against cuts to public higher education. Thank you for being a
beacon in the night.

Congratulations on the occupation. Hang on in there. There is a growing momentum that could roll this back.

With you in spirit. Not in body which is currently in Abu Dhabi Airport.

Jonathan Rosenhead
(Emeritus Professor, Management Science Group)

Well done, support and solidarity.

Naomi Bain, Branch Chair, Birkbeck UNISON (technically I'm sending this in a personal capacity, but our branch committee voted to send messages of support to UCL and SOAS, so I think it's safe to say we all support you!)

Best wishes and congratulations.

Joel Anderson

Branch Secretary, CSSD University of London UCU Branch (pc)


Support from greek students:

http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/2010/12/02/athens-sends-its-solidarity-to-the-struggle-of-british-students/

LSE in Occupation: ’68 and ‘10 Tariq Ali and Jon Rose to Speak to the Occupying Students at the LSE

Contact:
Rafi Faruq - Ph: 07714266684
Lucy Mcfadzean - Ph: 0798677516

After a LSE Students’ Union Emergency General Union Meeting on Thursday attended by over 400 students, staff and students at the London School of Economics (LSE) have gone into occupation against the proposed rise in fees and cuts.

Ashok Kumar, LSE Students’ Union Education Officers, said “The support of the Students’ Union is rarely sought or given at the occupations we’ve seen around the country, but in past occupations, such as those in the 1960s, the LSE Students’ Union had fully backed the occupations.”

The 1968 occupations at LSE became the birthplace of the movement of resistance in universities at the time. At the forefront of these movement were Jon Rose and Tariq Ali. Tonight, Rose and Ali will be returning to the very building they occupied to speak to the students and staff on “Student Revolt: Then and Now”.

Lois Clifton, an occupier at LSE, said, “It is inspiring that we’ll be having the speakers who led much of the movement at LSE and across the country in the 1960s.”

The primary demand of the occupiers in that the Howard Davies, the director of the LSE, write a joint letter with the University and College Union (UCU) and the Students’ Union condemning the cuts, fees, and the attack on the Education Maintenance Allowance.

The talk will be at the occupation in the Old Building at 6:00pm. For updates on the occupation, please check: http://lseoccupation2010.blogspot.com/

Gender Institute Supports the Occupation

Faculty and Support Staff at the LSE Gender Institute supports the LSE student occupation and the national campaigns against raising the cap on fees, cutting teaching budgets for humanities and social sciences, and getting rid of the Education Maintenance Allowance.

The coalition government's attack on access to education for all, and the withdrawal of support for an internationally respected sector at precisely the time when other countries are increasing that support, is unacceptable. The impact of the proposed HE and other public sector cuts will not be felt equally by everyone. Women account for two thirds of public sector workers, are more likely to be in precarious or part-time employment, and earn over 16% less than men over their lifetimes. Black and ethnic minority women are further over-represented in low paid jobs: 40% of black and ethnic minority women live in poverty in the UK. Women and minorities are thus less likely to be able to pay back loans and are less likely to take 'risks' with their education. This is not the elitist future we want for young people in the UK.

Raising the price of education at the same time as freezing public sector salaries and slashing benefits reinforces gender inequality in other ways too. Who will bear the burden of reduced welfare provision? Who will care for those the state is abandoning? Who will be encouraged to go to university if tough decisions about paying fees have to be made by families already struggling to make ends meet? Already government spokespeople have made it clear that it is women who are expected to pick up the slack through unpaid labour and a reconstitution of the private sphere for the 21st Century.

For these reasons, and many more, Faculty and Support Staff at the Gender Institute support the LSE student occupation, NUS and UCU protests against raising fees and cutting public sector budgets.