Academics are planning to refuse to go along with rules requiring them to effectively become immigration snoopers on behalf of the UKBA.
University academics say they will boycott new visa rules for overseas students that would make them into “immigration snoopers”.
Delegates at the University and College Union’s annual conference said they did not want to become a branch of the UK Border Agency.
Under the new rules universities are expected to monitor whether overseas students really attend their courses.
Of course as the home office points out, they would normally monitor attendance as a matter of course.
“The records we expect education providers to keep are those which most will keep for their own purposes anyway.”
The key phrase here is their purposes, not those of the state. There being a difference. It seems that the home office wants them to monitor rather more than mere attendance at lectures, though:
Institutions must also report concerns that a student could be involved in terrorism.
How, I wonder will lecturers be able to determine that? Note also the weasel word “concerns”; not hard evidence of criminal activity, just “concerns”. Fuck me, the Gestapo were mere amateurs compared to this bunch of bastards. There is something deeply wrong and deeply pernicious about a state that expects, nay demands, that its citizens spy on its behalf. So, I applaud this group for saying no. I would too.
General secretary Sally Hunt said: “UCU members are educators not border guards.”
She said later: “Politically, UCU is absolutely opposed to this legislation and we know that many members have strong and principled moral objections as members of society and as professional educators.”
“One of the more pernicious effects of this new system will be to turn our members into an extra arm of the police force, placing monitoring and reporting responsibilities onto academic and support staff.”
Actually, you don’t need to be a professional educator to have a principled moral objection to this nasty legislation; merely someone with basic morality, common sense and humanity will do.
Anyway, the union is planning to boycott:
It deplored “this pandering to anti-immigration racism” and committed the union to “non-compliance with all such policing and surveillance duties”.
Good. We need more of this type of refusal – mass civil disobedience is precisely what is needed to send a message (they like messages) to the control freaks in Whitehall. A stronger message, of course, would involve pitchforks, rope and lamp posts…
Three cheers for them!
Yes indeed – even a broken clock etc etc. However, I suspect that if it were Israeli students who were the main culprits here the UCU would be first on the phone to Gestapo HQ giving them the details.
wow, it was really a big issue… I hope they should considered for the sake of education.
http://rpillerin.blogspot.com
http://econnects2.net23.net
One of the things I’ve noticed over the past few years is that the cause of liberty involves some strange – and sometimes temporary – bedfellows. They are outrageously wrong on Israel, they happen to be right on this one… If I was a member of a union that issued such a press release like the one you link to, I would immediately resign and let them know in no uncertain terms why. Their role is to represent their members, not fuck about in middle eastern politics. Refusing to go along with the latter day Stasi is representing the interests of their members, getting involved in Palestine is not.
LR
As you say, the cause of liberty creates strange bedfellows. However, as I implied, UCU is not refusing to provide aid and comfort to the snoopers on the principle that such a refusal is (more or less) a universal good. On the contrary, they are not cooperating with the Stasi on the “principle” that, in this particular case, such an act would be disadvantageous to UCU’s victims of choice. Although my enemy’s enemy can (temporarily) be my friend and in the eternal search for liberty such “friends” serve a purpose, it’s unwise to praise outfits like UCU just because, on rare occasions, they’re on the side of the angels.
My praise was rather that someone – anyone – had dared to say “no”. Even if, on this occasion, they may be doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. We need more people to say “no”, loudly and often. So this is a start.