Students

Since students returned to universities and colleges across the UK in September over 21,000 positive cases of Covid19 have been identified by the lecturers’ union, the UCU. These figures underestimate the true figures, since, according to research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as many as 80 percent of students may be asymptomatic and therefore are not being tested. Students are being subjected to a public health experiment in herd immunity without consent or any of the protection in place that would be expected in human medical trials.

In a context of growing political turmoil and polarisation, the far right are attempting to win the battle of ideas. They aim to seize on the racism that comes from the top of society — from islamophobia to myths about refugees — and sharpen it. In the process their goal is to make their ideas more acceptable and in turn to win larger numbers to their politics.

On 20 April, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre, students throughout the US will walk out of school again to demand action over gun control. On 14 March thousands left their classes together at 10am. Then on 24 March they took the fight to the White House.

The movement that has burst onto the stage is militant, informed, and shaped by previous struggles. The last walkout was called by the Women’s March youth branch.

During the last 100 years universities have shifted from training grounds of the ruling class to become significant sites of struggle.

The number of people going to universities has significantly expanded as capitalism requires a highly trained workforce. Many students will go on to work in the public sector or take up jobs in call centres, shops and fast food restaurants.

Students when studying are not part of the working class. They do not have to sell their labour power, face the discipline of the workplace and they have greater time to discuss ideas.

A study released earlier this year made the headline-grabbing claim that 5 percent of students are sex workers.

The Student Sex Work Project, based at Swansea University, was set up to explore the specific experiences of student sex workers and review support networks and advice centres inside Higher Education.

The study has reignited debates around sex work, choice and sexuality. Sex work is defined as “the exchange of sexual services, performances and products for material compensation”.

The cancellation of feminist comedian Kate Smurthwaite’s gig at Goldsmiths College in February — possibly out of fear of protests by other feminists over her views on sex work — has escalated into a row over who is allowed to speak on campuses and who decides.
Different examples are being lumped together with little clarity. A recent article in the Guardian is a good example:

Image: Loki English

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven."

So the poet Wordsworth hailed the French Revolution of 1789. In 1968 Paris activist Daniel Cohn-Bendit said of 10 May, the night of the barricades:

More than half of those polled would like the fees to rise to at least £5,000, with some even calling for either a £20,000 cap or none at all. The poll coincides with the government's announcement that fee levels are to be reviewed this summer.

The reaction of the media was to claim these were the actions of a privileged social layer, whose victories would come at the expense of the mass of working class youth, who would never get near a university. So in France they claimed that the students' demand for the end of the CPE law to take away employment rights from young people would make it more difficult for unemployed youth in the suburbs to get jobs.

It predicted that students starting a three-year course this September could face a debt of almost £20,000 at graduation.

A week earlier the National Union of Students (NUS) annual conference was dominated by financial concerns of a different nature. Claims that the NUS is facing bankruptcy had led to a cut in the size of conference and the decision not to hold an anti-fees demonstration in London for the first time in five years. So this year's conference was the smallest, and most dominated by student union sabbaticals (full timers), in years.