In the event of student protest

In the wake of a fresh occupation at the School of Oriental and African Studies over a raid by immigration officials and the deportation of several cleaners, I thought I'd share this from Indymedia. It's a copy of emails sent between SOAS admin and a legal firm, detailing the legal recourse available to institutions facing 'trespass' by protesters.

There seem to be 3 principal ways of evicting protestors from private property:

1. Under Common Law, the owner can physically remove the trespassers, using no more force than is reasonably required.
2. A Possession order may be aquired though an emergency High Court injunction whereby the administration must show that they have a greater right to the land than those occupying it.
3. Police can order trespassers to leave a property (and arrest those who do not comply) if:

• at least two people are trespassing on the campus with a common purpose of residing there for any purpose
• the institution has taken reasonable steps to ask them to leave; and
• any one of them has damaged property, or used threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour towards a member of staff.

Pertinently, the advice picks up on the fact that after occupations, negotiations or concessions granted by the administration with the purpose of ending the occupation are not pursued with the same level of efficiency, and tempo as during the occupation:

"In some cases, it appears that the original organisational energy is not sustained post occupation and the follow up actions are not pursued as rigorously by the students."

While some occupations gained notable concessions, and many universities have initiated processes for disinvesting from arms companies, granting scholarships to Palestinian students etc, the failure of many occupations to consolidate the demands of their occupation - even where successful - was an important feature of workshops during the National Student Co-ordination conference in April.

The email shows that the university administrations were legally well prepared for the January Gaza solidarity occupations, even if the initial occupations at SOAS, Kings, and LSE may have come as a surprise.

Over the next 3 months, occupations spread to over 30 universities from Sussex to Strathclyde and while technology allowed the occupations to maintain contact and disseminate tactics and ideas, it did the same for the university vice-chancellors.

Many would no doubt have been aware that conceeding to '"negotiations" after putting up a show of token resistance, would have been the policy best suited to dispersing the anger, and hoping that the students would not apply the same dedication to protracted rounds of "talks about talks" as they did in the initial demands stage of the occupations.

In many cases they have been proved right.

With a wave of actions, including occupations, sit-ins, demonstrations, speaking tours etc, planned for the autumn term, it is vital that students utilise all the resources at their disposal to organise effectively on campus, form cross-campus links, and fight to consolidate the smallest of victories.

This email proves that the administration was preparing for protest during the depths of nearly two decades of dormant student activisim.

We must likewise prepare for the coming struggle in autumn.