#occupykcl

Since March 17th 2015, students of LSE have occupied the university’s Vera Anstey Room in rejection of the marketisation, bureaucratisation and commodification of our university. In the UK, LSE is leading the way towards a US-inspired, privatised ‘business model’ of higher education. We’ve transformed the Vera Anstey into a space for education and knowledge and critique, renaming it the Free University of London.

From the outset, Occupy LSE has been proactive with negotiations and has met with LSE management four times. We engaged in these proceedings in good faith, believing that these were genuine negotiations, with the aim of collaborating on common ground to meet our demands and better the current university structure. Yesterday morning (March 27th), LSE management released a letter, which puts an end to current negotiations. LSE authorities threatened that unless the occupation ends immediately, they will “escalate this to legal proceedings”.

The threat of legal action is in direct contrast to the school’s public assertions so far, which claim that “LSE was founded on the principles of open discussion and fervent debate” and that Occupy LSE is part of “dynamic and vibrant campus life”. Given this openness to student protest, the occupiers demand a public guarantee that no student’s continuation of education at this institution will be jeopardised by their participation in this occupation. We believe that this kind of intimidation is unwarranted and unbecoming of LSE, particularly given our willingness to engage in negotiations and dialogue, and our peaceful and non-confrontational actions. We are reclaiming our education, learning for free and learning freely, but the school is aggressively trying to close this space down.

The statement fails to meet any of the detailed demands that were put forward by Occupy LSE. It contains no concrete proposals, but instead resorts to vague references to existing processes and structures, thus confirming management’s unwillingness to genuinely consider our demands. The only discernible proposition in the document is a tripartite meeting with the SU and the Provost of the school, which falls far short of our demands and will only be granted if we vacate immediately. Rather than engaging in negotiations and collectively building genuinely democratic processes within the university, their response merely directs us back to the existing formal and undemocratic channels. Directly challenging such ineffective and exclusive avenues was a core motivation for the initial occupation.