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The Guild have deemed gender balance in Student Officer elections ‘unlawful’

The guild presidential team is currently made up of entirely men


In March this year, our Student Officer Elections saw an all-male team elected. This caused uproar, and in an exclusive article for The Tab, one of the female candidates said "no one can understand the impacts of decisions affecting women, quite like a woman"

In response to this, the then Vice President, Yasmin Gasimova submitted an idea to Change It for Gender Balanced Representation. This idea asked for ‘the Guild to ensure that at least 50 per cent of the Officer team is reserved for women, trans people and non-binary people’.

This idea was put forward at Guild Summit in May, but unfortunately no final decision was made. Therefore, calls were made to ask the wider student body in a "preferendum".

However, the Guild sought legal advice on this issue and concluded the following: "The legal advice concluded that, as Student Officers are not only elected officials but employees of the Guild, it is unlawful to reserve places for women and marginalised genders in our Student Officer posts under Employment Law."