On Friday 10 May, students at the University of Nottingham began an encampment on Jubilee Campus outside the Advanced Manufacturing Building. On Friday 12 July, after two months of peaceful protest, the students agreed to dismantle the camp by midday in the face of University management’s threat to seek very high legal costs from an individual member of the encampment.
UCU at the University of Nottingham has strongly supported this entirely peaceful protest. We welcome students’ actions condemning Israel’s ‘plausibly genocidal acts’ in solidarity with the Palestinian people. We admire their resolve to speak up when so many people in the West stay silent.
The students have correctly highlighted the University’s close partnerships with several companies supplying arms to Israel; notably BAE Systems, Europe’s largest arms manufacturer (£19 million received in funding) and Rolls-Royce (£31 million in funding), both of which are at risk of corporate complicity in war crimes, according to the UN. The students also correctly pointed out that a University of Nottingham alumnus, Dr Said Al Zebda, was killed by Israeli airstrikes along with his entire family last December. The University’s collaboration with companies whose weapons killed their own alumnus is concerning to all.
As the UN expert on the right to education, Farida Shaheed, who spoke at a University of Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre event in April said:
‘I am completely, utterly shocked by how many universities have close links to the armaments industry and I don’t think this is something we would expect our academic universities to have and it just then shows the control over academic spaces which needs to be countered.’
Despite two meetings between students and management, facilitated by the Students Union, and the encampment students’ attempt to settle outside court, management continued to rely on intimidatory tactics in their dealing with the students, silencing their visible asks.
Andreas Bieler, President of the local UCU branch, states:
‘Our management shows itself from its worst side. The fact that management pursued legal action after only four days without prior engagement with the encampment and that they threatened our students with legal costs is appalling. It demonstrates that management was never interested in constructive engagement but focused on suppressing students’ voices.’
UCU at the University of Nottingham will continue working with the students to explore ways in which the University can be moved to a position of divestment from all companies linked to Israel’s war on the Palestinian people.
More information:
Prof. Andreas Bieler, UCU President at UoN,
- 07955 143829, or
- Andreas.Bieler@nottingham.ac.uk