LSE Occupied!

LSE Occupied!
Students go into Occupation after 400-attend Emergency Union General Meeting

2nd December 2010
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact

Charlotte Gerada, Ashok Kumar
General Secretary Education Officer
LSE Students' Union LSE Students' Union
Ph: 07971395413 Ph: 07799793618

Over 120 Students have gone into occupation of the LSE. This began at 2pm today and has been entirely peaceful. We understand that these students have occupied the Vera Anstey in the Old Building - purposefully not disrupting any students, teaching or learning within the School. Students are demanding that Howard Davies write a joint open letter with the LSE Students Union and the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU).

Ashok Kumar, LSE Students' Union Education Officer said, "We have been trying to get Howard Davies to write a more powerful statement for a while now. Less than a month ago we asked that he write a strongly worded letter at the Union General Meeting, but he refused claiming to have done 'all that was in his power'. We know this isn't the case, its now or never - and when our university is losing nearly 100% of its teaching grant, the fact that Howard has barely lifted a finger to protest is a unacceptable."

Hero Austin, LSE Students' Union Community and Welfare Officer "The occupations taking place around the country have been at a mass scale. These aren't a few activists demonstrating, but hundreds of students who have marched, demonstrated and recognised the power of direct action." The occupation comes less than a week after students at the LSE staged a sit-in at the constituent offices of Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey), protested outside of a Nick Clegg lecture at Kings Place, and demonstrating on the streets of London on November 24th.

Voting is now underway across the entire student body of LSE about whether the Students' Union should directly support occupations like this or not. You can vote at www.lsesu.com/vote. We would ask the School directly liaise with those students in occupation about their demands until the Students' Union position is decided by our members. The results of this will be known shortly after 5pm on Friday 3 December.

The LSE occupation comes after over 25 universities around the country went into occupation on the 24th of November demonstration. Students at the LSE have one demand; that the university director, Howard Davies, co-draft an open letter to the government with the Students' Union.