OUSU votes to condemn Union for hosting Marine Le Pen

The “last bastion of free speech” received a significant blow to its title last night as OUSU Council voted to condemn the Union for hosting extreme speakers.

In response to French Front National leader Marine Le Pen’s appearance at the Union tonight, OUSU Council voted in favour of signing an open letter asking the Union to refrain from inviting “such speakers” in future.

And on top of this, OUSU Pres LJ Trup was mandated to send an email to all Oxford students informing them about this evenings protests outside the Union.

They had Morgan Freeman last term

An amendment to the resolution which would have added a no-platform clause to OUSU policy failed, however.

Marine Le Pen has been widely condemned for her Islamophobic and extreme views. The open letter to the Union says: “The views of people such as Marine Le Pen are so troubling, so dangerous and so extreme that we believe that in giving them a platform the Oxford Union, far from aiding the cause of free speech, in fact harms it by contributing to the intimidation of oppressed groups.”

The Oxford Union exists separately from OUSU and the University, so some have questioned whether OUSU should be interfering in the Union’s policies.

And some compared the OUSU resolution to le Pen’s own ideologies. A student said: “No-platforming people you don’t agree with on the grounds of some vague notion of ‘safety’ IS a form of fascism.

“It’s the most hypocritical practice of the left, to say that we can successfully just cull harmful ideas by gagging them.”

The editor of Spiked already hates Oxford

The motion comes just as Oxford has been ranked red in Spiked Online’s Free Speech University Rankings. The report, published in partnership with The Tab, says that the University creates “a hostile environment for free speech”.

Speaking to the OxStu, journalist Tom Slater said: “The idea that students need to be shielded from the invective of Marine Le Pen is patronising in the extreme. Oxford students should put more energy into tackling ideas, rather than silencing them.

“The students and professors who signed the open letter calling for Le Pen to be banned clearly think little of their peers.”

But others agree with OUSU’s decision. On Facebook group Skin Deep, one student said: “I’m fucking petrified that she is here and I feel threatened a fascist is speaking within a stone’s throw of where I live. All because wankers in tuxedos wanna have a debate.”

People really don’t like her

And Annie Teriba, who proposed the amendment mandating Trup to send the email, compared le Pen to an SS officer: “Would it also have been cool for the union to invite an SS officer in the 30s so long as he wasn’t actually physically hurting people on campus?”

Other students think the motion is irrelevant. One fresher said: “No one gives a shit about OUSU, so thankfully this doesn’t matter.”

It is expected that both Le Pen’s talk and the protests will go ahead this evening.