Last Friday, eleven people, including several students, were arrested at the University of Leicester after they attempted to “occupy” the Attenborough Tower. This is the second student-led occupation of a university building this month, but the first time that the police has been involved.
Early on Friday 15 November, the Leicestershire Police were contacted about the incident and promptly responded. A spokesperson from the Police told the student-paper Leicester Gazette that “a number of people had gained access to a building off University Road” and that they “reportedly refused to leave”.
In a video posted to Instagram, several police officers can be seen rushing towards the entrance of the Tower and subsequently emerging with the ‘occupiers’, who were being detained. A total of eleven people were arrested, aged between 19 and 35. It remains unclear how many of them were students at the university.
According a police statement, ten of the occupants were arrested on “suspicion of aggravated trespass”, while four were arrested on “suspicion of obstruction/disrupting a person engaged in lawful activity”. They have all since been released on bail.
During the brief occupation, a banner was hung out of a window of Attenborough Tower, listing the group’s demands. The list will not surprise anyone familiar with recent student encampments and occupations. According to the banner, in order to regain access to its own property, the University of Leicester would have to “cut ties with arms companies”, “stop banking with Barclays”, and “implement Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)”.
All these demands feature on the Leicester Action for Palestine student group’s Instagram page, as well as a demand for the public “reprimand” of Emeritus Professor Malcom Shaw, who defended Israel against the charge of genocide at the International Court of Justice earlier this year. Despite this, the group claims to have had no involvement in the protest. It did, however, issue a statement of solidarity with the students, urging “all members of the public and students to rally support”. Indeed, as news of the police intervention spread across campus, a large number of students showed up at the Tower, either to show their support for the occupiers or simply to watch events unfold.
Writing to a Palestine Society group chat on Whatsapp, the Leicester Student Union’s community and welfare officer, Reed James, also expressed sympathy “on behalf of the SU”, and reassured his fellow students that the Student Union would support those arrested, including by “giving them legal advice if necessary”.
The Leicester University and College Union also chimed in with a statement saying that they were “alarmed to hear of the arrests today of several students involved in an occupation on campus.” It went on to say that the Union considers “the involvement of the police in matters of student discipline [to be] entirely disproportionate and unacceptable”.
The decision by the University to alert the police is particularly noteworthy because of a similar occupation of the Engineering Building the week before. Then, the students likewise barricaded the doors and demanded an end to the University’s ties to Israel or any Israeli companies. However, during this short-lived occupation, the University did not call the police and no one was arrested.
According to the Leicester UCU statement, “[o}ccupations are a longstanding form of student protest.” They draw a comparison to campus protests against the Vietnam War and South African apartheid, asserting that those students are now generally considered to have been “on the right side of history”.
While it is true that student-led occupations of university buildings are certainly nothing new – Leicester saw several of these back in the 1960s – barricading doorways to prevent fellow students from entering remains illegal. It is not merely a matter of being “on the right side of history”. These students were not arrested because of their viewpoint or the specific nature of their cause. For the University of Leicester, this was not about the ends; it was about the means.
One could worry that calling the police in on student ‘occupations’ is ultimately counterproductive. After all, no one likes seeing idealistic students in handcuffs, regardless of their political beliefs. However, this particular occupation probably prevented scheduled lectures, seminars, and meetings, and the University of Leicester has a duty to its students and staff who are simply going about their day. It cannot always defer to those who insist on getting their way through force.
Perhaps it would have been wiser to let the students get bored and leave of their own accord. Perhaps university security staff could have handled the situation on their own. Some combination of these appears to have been the University’s strategy during the occupation of the Engineering Building, and it seemingly worked. These are prudential calculations. But if other options fail, universities retain the right to call on the police.
Student-led occupations aim at disrupting a university’s ability to function normally, and to the extent they succeed in interfering with their fellow students’ access to teaching and other educational resources, they cannot be tolerated. At the same time, having students arrested should be a last resort for any institution of higher learning. Several of those detained were barely 20 years old, and a permanent mark on their records might be too severe a punishment for an over-the-top act of protest, encouraged by their peers.
The University of Leicester was contacted for a comment on the story, but has yet to respond.