Socialist Students is a democratic campaigning organisation with groups in universities and colleges throughout the country.

Read more at socialiststudents.org.uk

The Socialist Students contingent on the 19 November 2014 free education march in London, photo Jonny Dickens

The Socialist Students contingent on the 19 November 2014 free education march in London, photo Jonny Dickens   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Cops off campus!

Students in Warwick campaigning for free education were brutally attacked by police in December. Officers stormed their occupation with CS gas and Tasers, beating everyone in reach, and dragging one student across the room by her hair.

Manchester Socialist Students called a protest in response. Our vibrant, enthusiastic march from the students’ union to the local police station sent a clear message that police violence has no place on campus. We didn’t come across a single person who thought police actions were justifiable.

Laurence Maples, Manchester

Profit destroys lives

The violence at Warwick University was just part of ongoing attempts to undermine the right to protest. Attacks on democratic rights go hand in hand with austerity, and are designed to repress attempts to fight back.

So on 10 December, students at Leicester University gathered to show solidarity with Warwick students.

The event was also a vigil for Professor Stefan Grimm, the Imperial College London researcher who died last month, apparently by suicide. Stefan was attacked by bosses for failing to attract commercial interest in his pioneering work on an “anti-cancer gene”.

In a final email, he wrote: “What these guys don’t know is that they destroy lives. Well, they certainly destroyed mine. This is not a university anymore but a business, with a very few, up in the hierarchy, profiteering, and the rest of us milked for money.”

The two events are connected. Escalating tuition fees and deteriorating working conditions are both results of marketising education.

Caroline Vincent, Leicester

Rally against racism

Chants of “Hands up – don’t shoot!” and “No justice, no peace” were heard loud and clear in Huddersfield in December. Thirty university and college students gathered in the pouring rain to protest US police killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown.

Incensed by the justice system’s failure to indict the officers responsible for these brutal murders, Socialist Students from Huddersfield University and Greenhead College organised a solidarity protest and vigil.

Darren Wilson’s lack of remorse on national television, stating that he would do it all again, is not only disgusting but points to an overarching problem with the system. Victims of police killings disproportionally look like Michael Brown and not like Darren Wilson.

This is not a problem just for America. In Britain today, despite the mainstream media trying to convince us otherwise, we are eight times more likely to be killed by a police officer than a terrorist. In both Britain and the US, despite significant differences in the justice system, you are more likely to be killed by the police if you are black.

Students in Huddersfield increasingly realise the law enforcement and judicial system can’t solve the problem of embedded racism. Organisation and independent action are the keys to change.

Lily Green, Huddersfield