Open Letter: The Government’s Education Policies are Attacking BME and Migrant Students
by Unis Resist Border Controls
9 January 2017
On 12 December, it was reported that the home secretary, Amber Rudd, has pledged to reduce the number of non-EU international students enrolled at British universities from 300,000 to 170,000.
Many aspects of the May government’s treatment of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are disturbing; at present, however, we want to highlight two elements of these policies ignored in the above article, namely its continued attack on BME and migrants who attempt to further their education and the ongoing surveillance affecting non-EU international students. Rudd will be instituting these tougher visa restrictions on non-EU international students at universities deemed by the establishment to be of ‘lower quality’ – a not so thinly veiled attack on former polytechnics.
It is no coincidence that these tougher visa restrictions will not affect bastions of the elite such as Oxford or Cambridge. In 2012 the then home secretary, Theresa May, targeted London Metropolitan University, a former polytechnic, revoking the university’s licence to sponsor non-EU students. These actions left 2,700 students in the situation of having to find another university within 60 days, or face removal. Former polytechnics, such as London Metropolitan University, are often less wealthy than their counterparts in the Russell Group, and less able to attract private funding to offset government cuts. They are consequently less able to defend themselves against government attacks. At the same time, former polytechnics have more students from marginalised groups, including working class and BME students, than ‘elite’ institutions. The government’s austerity measures and their anti-immigrant policies thus go hand-in-hand. Restricting former polytechnics’ licences to sponsor international students sends the message that the education offered at these institutions is ‘less valuable’ than that offered at Oxbridge and other Russell Group universities. This, in turn, devalues the education being received by the students at former polytechnics, who are disproportionately likely to be from working class and BME communities. These restrictions are an attack on access to education for all marginalised students, British or migrant.
Many of the same vice-chancellors who are now objecting to the decrease in international students have long been complicit in implementing state-sanctioned racist and xenophobic policies – for example, Prevent and the sharing of international students’ attendance records with the Home Office. This in turn forces lecturers, particularly those who are migrants themselves, to be border and thought police, creating an hostile environment that stifles critical thinking and learning. Non-EU international students from Muslim and BME backgrounds have been especially subject to heightened levels of surveillance and victimisation.
Despite this, students across the UK continue to resist attacks on their right to an education, for example, boycotting the National Student Survey (NSS), and, having successfully occupied Warwick University, forcing management into making big concessions on casualised workers in addition to conceding that the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) is ‘fundamentally flawed’. As educators and activists, we stand with these students, and demand an immediate end to attacks on the right to an education, whether in the name of austerity, or ‘border security’.
Endorsed by the following organisations, unions, academics and students:
- Unis Resist Border Controls
- King’s College London Action Palestine (KCLAP)
- Demilitarise King’s
- King’s College London Undoing Borders
- SOAS Justice for Cleaners
- Justice4Sanaz
- Warwick for Free Education
- Docs Not Cops
- SOAS Detainee Support
- Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB)
- Campaign to Stop the Deportation of Luqman Onikosi
- Sanaz Raji, independent scholar, activist, Justice4Sanaz and Unis Resist Border Controls
- Illary Valenzuela, project coordinator, Sin Fronteras Project
- Rowan Davis, NUS Women’s Committee (Trans place)
- Caoimhe Mader McGuinness, PhD candidate, QMU, QMU UCU, Unis Resist Border Controls
- Dr Molly Geidel, lecturer, University of Manchester
- Gywneth Lonergan, University of Manchester
- Dr Adi Kuntsman, senior lecturer, Manchester Metropolitan University
- Dr Marika Rose, postdoctoral fellow, University of Winchester
- Katherine Mellor, NUS Women’s Committee
- Valeria Racu, SOAS Justice for Cleaners
- Marina Burka, research assistant, Glasgow Refugee Asylum and Migration Network, University of Glasgow
- Prof Luke Martell, professor of political sociology, University of Sussex
- Katharina Karcher, research fellow, University of Cambridge
- David Dahlborn, UCL union external accommodation officer
- Dr Tom Frost, lecturer in legal theory, University of Sussex
- Arianne Shahvisi, lecturer in ethics and medical humanities, Brighton & Sussex Medical School
- Anne Templeton, PhD candidate, University of Sussex
- Dr Jack Saunders, research fellow, University of Warwick and UCU
- Michael Collins, coordinator, Right to Remain
- Toby Atkinson, PhD candidate, Lancaster University
- Maxine T. Sherman, postdoctoral research fellow, University of Sussex
- Dr Samuel Soloman, lecturer in English, University of Sussex
- Jon Walker, teaching fellow, Sussex Centre for Language Studies, University of Sussex
- Dr Sabita Menon, teaching fellow, University of Sussex
- Dr Benedict Allbrooke, University of Sussex
- Prof Nuno Ferreira, professor of law, Sussex Law School, University of Sussex
- Dr Noam Bergman, SPRU, University of Sussex
- Dr Jessica S. Horst, senior lecturer in psychology, University of Sussex
- Tom Trevatt, associate lecturer, Goldsmiths College, University of London
- Lou Dear, PhD student and tutor, University of Glasgow
- Kalpana Wilson, lecturer, Birkbeck, University of London
- Prof Willy Maley, English literature, University of Glasgow
- Prof Martin Paul Eve, Birkbeck, University of London
- Jeremy Page, senior teaching fellow, University of Sussex
- Andrea Brock, PhD researcher and AT, University of Sussex
- Dr Nina Held, teaching and research fellow, University of Sussex
- Prof John Holmwood, professor of sociology, University of Nottingham
- Prof G.K. Bhambra, University of Warwick
- Dr Yuliya Yurchenko, University of Greenwich
- Katy Hastie, PhD candidate, University of Glasgow
- Federica Mazzara, senior lecturer in intercultural communication, University of Westminster
- Gavan Titley, Maynooth University
- Dr Leon Sealey-Huggins, senior teaching fellow, University of Warwick
- Jessica Baines, senior lecturer, University of the Arts, London
- Lucy Finchett-Maddock, lecturer in law, University of Sussex
- Andrew Chitty, senior lecturer in philosophy, University of Sussex
- Dr James Gordon Finlayson, director of the Centre for Social and Political Thought, University of Sussex
- Alexandra Campbell, PhD candidate and GTA, University of Glasgow
- Dr Ina Linge, postdoctoral scholar, University of Cambridge
- Nicky Melville, PhD candidate and GTA, University of Glasgow
- Waseem Yaqoob, temporary lecturer, University of Cambridge, and branch secretary, Cambridge UCU
- Dr Myka Tucker-Abramson, lecturer, King’s College London
- Diletta Lauro, PhD candidate, University of Oxford
- Dr John Drury, reader in social psychology, University of Sussex
- Lisa Tilley, research associate, University of Warwick
- Hilary Aked, PhD candidate, University of Bath
- Carlus Hudson, PhD candidate, University of Portsmouth
- Dr Kevork Oskanian, lecturer, University of Birmingham
- Mareike Beck, doctoral researcher and associate tutor, University of Sussex
- Prof Frieder Otto Wolf, philosophy, Freie Universität Berlin
- Dr Charles Dannreuther, lecturer, University of Leeds
- Tom Mills, lecturer in sociology, Aston University
- Stefan W. Schmitz, treasurer, Vienna Circle Society – Society for the Advancement of Scientific World Conceptions, Institut Wiener Kreis/Institute Vienna Circle
- Dr Krzysztof Nawratek, senior lecturer in humanities and architectural design, University of Sheffield
- Dr Francisco Castañeda, associate professor, Universidad de Santiago de Chile
- Elio Di Muccio, doctoral researcher, University of Birmingham, and UCU anti-casualisation officer, University of Birmingham branch and West Midlands regional executive committee
- Francesco Pasetti, researcher and PhD candidate, University of Pompeu Fabra
- Prof Habil Peter Hermann, Istituto di Studi Politici, Economici e Sociali
- Dr Lizzie Stewart, University of Cambridge
- Por-Yee Lin, organising director, Taiwan Higher Education Union
- Kate Begley, the Conference of Socialist Economists
- Prof Keith Reader, visiting emeritus professor, University of London Institute in Paris, emeritus professor, University of Glasgow
- Dr Alex Law, professor of sociology, Abertay University
- Anna Wilson, postdoctoral Researcher, Abertay University
- Dr Derek Averre, reader in Russian foreign and security policy, University of Birmingham
- Ben Fincham, senior lecturer, University of Sussex
- Dr Andrew D. McCulloch, visiting fellow, University of Lincoln
- Hulya Dagdeviren, professor of economic development, University of Hertfordshire
- Dr Julian Paenke, lecturer in European politics, University of Birmingham
- Dr Phoebe Moore, senior lecturer and UCU health and safety rep, Middlesex University
- Stefan Wolff, professor of international security, University of Birmingham
- Jo McNeill, president, University of Liverpool UCU and NEC
- Prof Christian Fuchs, professor of media and communication studies, University of Westminster
- Martin Upchurch, professor of international employment relations, Middlesex University Business School
- Jana Bacevic, PhD researcher, University of Cambridge
- Dr Sotirios Zartaloudis, lecturer in politics and director of postgraduate teaching, University of Birmingham
- Dr Daniele Albertazzi, senior lecturer in European politics, University of Birmingham
- Andreas Bieler, professor of political economy, University of Nottingham
- Dr Owen Worth, senior lecturer of international relations, University of Limerick
- Daniel Bailey, research fellow, Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute
- Dr David Bailey, lecturer, University of Birmingham
- Feyzi Ismail, senior teaching fellow, SOAS, University of London
- Dr Andrew Denis, senior lecturer, City, University of London
Formed in March 2016, Unis Resist Border Controls is a collective of British, EU and non-EU migrant students, lecturers, and university workers. We are opposed to UKVI surveillance inside universities. We want to see provisions in place for all non-EU migrants working or studying the ability to seek recourse against their university without it affecting their visa status and/or having their precarious immigration status repeatedly threatened both both the university and the Home Office. We call on British students, lecturers and university workers to not collude or be complicit with the border controls culture on university campuses.
Unis Resist Border Controls can be reached on Facebook.