They will arrange meetings
The Goldsmiths Student Union has “concluded” its “investigation” of the ASH event where some men in the front row tried to disrupt Maryam’s talk. Here’s what they have to say about that:
We have now concluded our investigation into the events that took place at the ASH event on 20th November. [That must be a typo for 30th November]
Goldsmiths SU will be taking the following actions:
(i) We will arrange meetings with the Islamic and Atheist, Secularist and Humanist societies individually and identify actions that will be taken by each society. This may be followed by disciplinary action against individual society members and/or a society.
(ii) We will review our external speaker procedure and safe space policy in line with best practice from other institutions .
(iii) We will arrange a meeting with all our societies to brief them on the reviewed procedure, including our safe space policy. No society will be able to proceed with an external speaker event unless this briefing has been attended.
(iv) We will ensure that there is a comprehensive and compulsory annual training session for clubs and societies who wish to invite external speakers to events delivered as part of the training programme that takes place at the start of the year.
Equality, diversity and respect for others within the Goldsmiths community are core values at Goldsmiths SU and it’s important that all of our Societies and Sports Clubs adhere to these values.
It’s pretty opaque, but to the extent that it says anything, it says the ASH society and Maryam did something wrong, and the Islamic society not so much.
Pathetic.
Ugh. What’s the point of making a public statement if all the information is being kept from the public? It’s not even good spin. What are the odds that societies will be encouraged not to give public commentary on whatever the missing details are?
Good point. It’s terrible spin, isn’t it. “We had a meeting and we decided some things, and we’re being as vague and noncommittal and weird as we possibly can, and we have core values that we must all adhere to good night sleep well.” Ok…………………..
What are they; a bunch of trainee management consultants?
Direct descendants of the the ‘B’ ark crew?
Why not just have a policy in which it states what is unacceptable behavior and the consequences of said behavior? They could just have a basic policy for speakers that probably find from an organization that frequently hosts outside speakers. But, of course, would be too logical and direct.
I don’t think it’s terrible spin from their perspective. I’m reading the vagueness as a calculated “fuck you” to any uppity interlopers who think the GSU should answer to public pressure. They’ll do things their way behind closed doors and the world can fuck off.
Free speech apparently is not a core value. As for safe space, did someone force people to go to the ASH event?
So they’re arranging meetings with BOTH the Islamic Society AND the Atheist Society as though both were equally guilty? Yeah like both were disconnecting each others PP presentations.
In the real world, the sequence of events – the atheists and humanists invite a speaker, the Islamists gatecrash the event and do their level best to disrupt it and intimidate the speaker – should have led to an immediate and clear declaration of condemnation of the Islamists’ actions by the committee of the Students Union for breaches of policies re safe spaces, free speech, women’s rights…
Followed by a mea culpa, and a promise to do better, by ISOC.
But in the Through The Looking-Glass world of contemporary student politics, it seems that such normal, adult ways of doing things is regarded as suspect. Much better to blame the victims for arousing the ire of their attackers, and use what public statements they do offer to obfuscate as far as possible.