Congratulations on the boycott of The Sun

Last night, the University of Leicester Students’ Union Council voted to pass through a motion to boycott The Sun until page 3 is removed, and it’s pretty clear that this is one of the most divisive policies to be passed through Union Council in recent years.

If you cast your mind back to the very start of this academic year, you might remember a campaign that was put to the SU to ban Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines. In what can only be described as one of the best ‘let’s hide behind the sofa until the scary thing has gone away’ moments, the people in control of our Students’ Union elected to ‘temporarily ban’ the song for Freshers’ week.

Huzzah, they’re listening to the student population. Well, err…no. See the ban was only temporary, the song had been at the top of the charts for a while and was, inevitably, going to start it’s elegant fall from grace very shortly.

A number of people recognised the situation and suggested that the SU had only placed the temporary ban on the song to make it look like they were doing something about it, when in actual fact they were shying away from the issue until it was no longer popular and out of the media spotlight.

Shocking decision by Union Council to boycott The Sun on campus. At least let a campus-wide referendum decide.

— Jamie Burton (@jamburt) March 18, 2014

I’m not saying that the song should or shouldn’t have been banned, the simple matter of fact is that the action that was taken was, ultimately, pretty pointless and shows the student population the SU are scared to make big decisions about censorship and bans. Why was it pointless I hear you ask, because, well, they basically did nothing.

Members of the sabbatical team were quick to point out to The Tab, when the song was played during a performance in refreshers week, that the song was no longer banned. Does that mean that it no longer carries the same meaning just a few months further down the line?

The Tab actually spoke to Sabbs after the event and they clarified that the song was no longer banned but said it was regrettable that the song had been played. Then, once the article had been published they messaged The Tab to ask if, not just their name could be removed from the article, but the whole comment and reference to sabbatical officers be removed.

Union council has just voted to boycott the Sun. This is the beginning of the end – absolute bullshit. I’m ashamed to be part of this union

— Lauren Swain (@LaurenTheOwl) March 18, 2014

Okay, you don’t want to be associated with the song or any potential controversy surrounding it but it is YOUR JOB to engage with the student population. If you don’t want to talk about certain problems and issues, why are you in a role that means you might have to? If someone else came up to you and asked you about it would you tell them that you don’t want to be associated with it?

The same could not be said for what happened last night. Unfortunately you’re going to be faced with a little bit more background to the issue first though.

At the end of last October, students at the University of Leicester queued at the ballot box to vote for who they thought would best represent them on the Students’ Union Council. I use the term ‘students’ with some trepidation because in actual fact only 1233 people cast a vote out of a total of 23,000.

The fact that voter turnout was up was sung from the rooftops but it still means that on the whole, students don’t really care. That’s not to say that they shouldn’t care, it’s important that they do, but that the way elections are organised and marketed at Leicester is clearly not working with a large percentage of people feeling disengaged in Union affairs.

It’s not a great advert for the uni if #ULSUCouncil think the students are too thick to make their own decisions about what paper to buy

— Emma (@RebelRevell) March 18, 2014

You only have to look at the recent elections and it’s not hard to see why so many people don’t vote. It’s probably the dirtiest election on record.

Anyway, to return to the point. The votes cast in October elected 58 people to the Union Council who were then tasked with representing all Leicester students, all 23,000 of them.

Returning swiftly to the successful proposal to boycott The Sun. It is truly shocking to see that only 32 members of council were able to make the vote  last night on what is arguably the most important issue that will be voted on this year.

Some might have genuine excuses for not being there, fair enough, but to think that such a small number of people have been involved in the process, apparently ‘on the behalf of all students’ is ludicrous.

22 people voted to remove The Sun from sale in Nourish, the only location on campus where the SU has authority to prevent things from being sold, played, watched, read etc. That’s 22 people, less than half the number of people elected in October to the one body that is supposed to represent our views and opinions.

Union Council, you’re a joke.

— Karina Maduro (@KarinaMaduro22) March 18, 2014

What is perhaps worse, from the democratically elected body in place to voice students concerns and opinions, is that they voted against a motion to start a campus wide referendum which would have given EVERYONE on campus the chance to have their say. Well “not everyone cares about it”, “you’ll never get every student to vote in a referendum on it” are the typical responses. You’re right as well not everyone will vote, some people don’t care but that’s not the point. At least they will have had the CHANCE to vote.

Given the number of people that voted for the proposal to pass, it seems fairly obvious that a fair proportion of those very same people voted to deny Leicester students the chance to have a say simply because they wanted to get the motion passed and into action.

It is ridiculous to think that the members of Union Council voted to silence students on campus. For a ‘democratic’ body to deny students the opportunity to have their say about a seriously important issue on campus is abhorrent. Are the views of students not valid in council?

We are forever hearing pleas for more engagement with Union politics and increasing the number of students that vote in elections, but what’s the point? We voted for the people on Union Council and it seems like they don’t care about what we think now, so that was really successful. The only real outcome has been to push a lot of students further away from the Students’ Union and what it does.

This isn’t a defence of The Sun and it’s content. It’s definitely not saying that the objectification of women is okay, not just on campus but anywhere. The simple matter of fact is that the members of Union Council behaved outrageously in their refusal to grant the student population at the University of Leicester an opportunity to voice their opinion.