FemSoc Prez walks out amid ‘safe space’ spat

Chaos erupted in the Feminist Society when the President resigned and a committee member was accused of “violating safe space policy”. 

Incensed FemSoc members turned their group inside out yesterday as they hauled committee member Kirsty Haigh in front of an Extraordinary General Meeting claiming she breached their policy on safe space.

President Naomi Beecroft resigned in protest over the incident amid mudslinging slamming her as a “despot” leader of the group.

Kirsty Haigh

Kirsty Haigh, who also works in NUS Scotland, explained on Facebook that the Welfare Officer Lorin Murray-Campbell accused her of breaking the safe space of FemSoc – but never specified how.

Kirsty said: “In safe space complaints apparently the person who complains is not asked to lay out what the other person has done wrong. The welfare officer therefore comes to the conclusion that safe space has been broken with no evidence.

“This is so the person who is complaining doesn’t have to go into their experience, but this leaves it very open to abuse.

“All the complainant has to do, is get 3 emails sent in saying that person has breached safe space and then they are removed from the society.”

Kirsty added that some of the members made a secret page to plot how to oust her from FemSoc.

She said: “So, to be clear, some people wanted to remove me from the committee but needed to find a way how without making it look like they were simply excluding people and forming a clique.

“The way they chose to do this was by abusing the safe space policy. One of the members then wrote an outraged status about the fact that I had questioned them.

“The welfare officer, a close friend of this person and who, until recently, had been adjudicating this whole process, then commented on it calling me a “cunt”.

“These safe spaces complaints said nothing about what I had done wrong because, as you can now see, I had in actuality committed no breaches. There was no way to appeal or discuss it.”

Ex-President Naomi Beecroft responded: “Kirsty Haigh insinuated that our welfare officer made up safer space complaints and victim blamed those who launched complaints.

“Kirsty also wants you to know she has screenshots of things I’ve said, which, mainly, were that I didn’t want her involved in Feminist Society, because she had breaches safer spaces. I said I wouldn’t do anything, because that would make me a “despot”.

“Which is true, as ex-President, for me to instigate any such process would potentially have been an abuse of my power. I own it. I, unlike her, know when I have power and when I shouldn’t abuse it.”

Naomi walked out of her own EGM last night

Naomi posted she would send on her statement detailing her resignation to anyone but when we contacted she said: “No.”

She added: “I’m afraid I don’t see much use in me contributing to a continually misogynistic paper. Perhaps you can put that in your article.”

And her dramatic behaviour is no surprise to those who knew her at uni. 23-year-old Max who graduated this July said: “She is a fucking nutter.

“Like Robert Mugabe but with worse hair.”