Anti-abortion charity banned from Warwick freshers fair

[dutchman]

The charity accused students' unions of operating as "a law unto themselves"



Warwick Students' Union has refused to let an anti-abortion charity have a stand at its freshers fair.

The pro-life charity, which described the move as "a violation of the right to freedom of expression" and "wholly unacceptable", says it has had applications for stands denied at three universities including Warwick.

Charity bosses at Life have written a letter of complaint to the Office for Students, the independent regulator of higher education in England.

It has asked the organisation for "a guarantee" that their presence at the campuses "will not be impeded in future".

The charity's director of education accused students' unions of operating as "a law unto themselves" and criticised universities for not taking responsibility.

Warwick Students' Union said it supports a "pro-choice stance" on the matter of abortion following a democratic vote and has no obligation to allow the charity on campus.

The Office for Students said, although it "champions" freedom of speech at higher education institutions, their responsibilities extend to universities and not students’ unions.

Anne Scanlan, director of education at Life, said: “Life has on many occasions been impeded in its right to freedom of expression on university campuses because of the actions of student unions some of which have adopted a pro-abortion policy.

"We had at least two serious confrontations with student unions at university freshers’ fairs last year with threats by them to make us leave the premises if we didn’t remove fetal models which we had on display.

"No university or institution on their campus should be allowed to discriminate against prolife students or prolifers in general.

"For too long, student unions have operated as a law unto themselves. Whilst universities provide lip service to the principle of free speech, on their campuses free speech is often impeded or blatantly violated by student unions.

"When it happens, universities remove themselves from any responsibility for this contradictory state of affairs.

"Last year our complaint to one university vice-chancellor about the way we were treated, received the response that this was a matter that needed to be dealt with by the student union.

"We now call on the Office for Students to give weight to its words by taking action to ensure student unions are not impeding freedom of expression and university campuses remain places of rigorous and healthy debate.”

[rebbonk]

In my experience, university campuses are anything but free speech arenas.