A
fantastic new policy was unveiled by the Guild of Students on Monday, setting
out the Guild’s condemnation of harassment in any form on campus. The policy, accredited
by the NUS, was launched by the Guild Vice President (Welfare) Katherine East,
NUS Vice President (Welfare) Pete Mercer, Guild Women’s Officer for 2011 Kelly
Rogers and Guild Ethnic Minority Students’ Officer, Sacha Hassan.
A
key part of the legacy of last years’ Vice President (Welfare), Luke Reynolds,
this initiative is a brilliant way of ensuring that students on campus are able
to stand-up and resist harassment based on religion, sex, race, disability and
sexual orientation.
Pete
Mercer introduced the policy, legitimately arguing “we still have sexism in our
welcome weeks, homophobia in our halls and racism on our campuses” and spoke
about the recent piece of research conducted by the NUS entitled “No Place for
Hate”. Horrifically, one in six respondents had experienced hate crime yet less
than one in ten actually reported these incidents for fear of blame, worry of
shame and discomfort with talking about it. This is the first UK-wide piece of
research relating to hate crime and it is so vital and so beneficial.
An article by the Independent highlights how important this policy
is as it talks through the misogynistic and sexist events that are organised as
part of Welcome Weeks in universities across the country. The article mortified
me – harassment has no place in our universities and Students’ Unions should be
at the forefront of the fight against attitudes such as this, condemning
actions of those who see it as acceptable.
Kelly
Rogers stated “sexual and domestic violence does affect predominately female
students” and referred to an experience with a women’s association protest
against a beauty pageant in the previous academic year; she and other
protestors received threats, homophobic and sexist comments, simply for
disagreeing with sexual objectification, possibly one of the largest threats to
women in the media.
Sacha
Hassan, however, rightfully asked whether this policy was simply tokenism or a
PR stunt, referring to a recent example of discriminatory behaviour by
University of Birmingham students, saying the person in question “made a
mistake and needs to face the consequences” and this was a perfect example of
why zero-tolerance needs to be a policy that the Guild adopts.
Honestly,
I am surprised this policy does not exist as standard policy on all university
campuses, let alone our own Guild, based in one of the most multicultural
cities in the UK. It is yet another progressive piece of policy that will be
vastly important in the stepping stones to equality and tackling discrimination
in wider society. Using this policy, I implore students like myself to use this
policy to its full potential, challenging any form of action that can be
classed as harassment. The best way to defeat discrimination is to challenge
it, not to ignore it.