Page 3 closer to campus ban

After months of petitioning, The Sun newspaper is on its way to being banned from campus.

With over 900 votes in favour of the motion at the All Student Meeting (ASM), the petition to ban the paper from being sold in Costcutter was successful.

110 students abstained from voting, while 607 voted for The Sun to keep it’s place on campus.

Women’s Officer and No More Page 3 campaigner Louisa Ackermann was delighted with the result.

She added: “Us lot on the No More Page 3 team have been campaigning and lobbying hard for months now. It’s been ridiculously frustrating at some times (hi correspondence with university managers) and plain embarrassing at others.

“When we first wrote to Costcutter asking for them to stop stocking The Sun until the Page 3 feature was removed, the response was that we were a tiny, fringe group of activists who did not represent the broader student opinion.

Campaigners outside Costcutter…

“Well we can now happily say that is certainly not the case. I’ve stood up in a room of maybe 100 or so people and told them all how great my own breasts are – something I definitely didn’t anticipate as part of my university career when I filled in that UCAS form four years ago. But, all in the name of anti-sexist activism.”

Not everyone was happy with the result though. An anonymous business student told The Tab:

Third year Law student Brenda Wong begged to differ: “I thought it was really positive and a good indicator that people are properly attempting to understand the motions and put forward their views to affect change!”

Clarifying Rules Regarding Themed Events

Cowboys and Indians, chavs and pimps, we’ve all seen or heard the adoption of these themes from sports team in our weekly dose of Pop! It’s what makes a Wednesday night at Warwick.

But a motion was brought forward by two students, that would “make the rules governing themed events more explicit, highlighting that themes that use discriminatory stereotypes of the following characteristics are not tolerated: gender, age, race, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, political belief, perceived academic ability, appearance, social status, spent criminal convictions, HIV status or gender reassignment.”

Such costumes might be at risk of being banned from Pop!

According to the proposers of the motion, the aims were  “to make a specific instruction to avoid creating themes that actively encourage discriminatory stereotypes. The main power in this is to cause execs to more properly reflect on the themes they are promoting. This does not alter the fact that someone will have to take offence in order for infractions to be acted upon.”

The motion caused uproar amongst students. Aaron Bowater even released a document against it, arguing:

• The motion stretches intolerance to such a point that accusations of intolerance could be pointed at literally anyone and therefore misunderstands, and diminishes, real issues of racism, sexism, homophobia and other intolerances.
• Isolates and alienates students who have no desire to engage with their union already.
• Not the correct forum or way to discuss issues of this nature. Rules are already in place to deal with complaints of this nature.

Aaron Bowater is against the motion, laying down some reasonable arguments.

Complaints about the motion were expected from sports clubs social secs where the themes of the evening form the basis of drinking games, humour and individuality of the night.

Scott Alexander, a third year Politics students is also against the motion, he said: “It’s the hyper-sensitives at warwick trying to impose their extreme morals on the general student populous. If you hate what people wear so much, either don’t go, or talk to the social secs. What we see as morally correct is not something rules and regulations should attempt to influence”.

To the relief of the sporty amongst us, the motion was NOT CARRIED at this weeks ASM.