The motion was adopted by a majority vote at Thursday\u2019s annual student union meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat freedom of speech should not be used as an excuse to attack the weakest and poorest members of society,\u201d<\/em> read the motion<\/a>, titled \u201cOpposing Fa[s]cism & Social Divisiveness in the UK Media.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Among its other statements are \u201cthat the media has a duty not to stir up racial tensions and hatred just to sell papers\u201d<\/em> and that \u201cfar right leaders and mouthpieces such as Nigel Farage, Richard LittleJohn and Katie Hopkins should have no place in the mainstream media.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n City University is the alma mater of Mahatma Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair \u2013 who all graduated from its law school \u2013 and home to one of the UK\u2019s leading journalism schools.<\/p>\n The Guardian reported that, out of a student body numbering nearly 20,000, only 182 were present for the vote to pass the motion. Its practical implications remain unclear.<\/p>\n \u201cA number of motions passed are committing resources of the union and will need the further consideration of the board of trustees,\u201d<\/em> said Yusuf Ahmad, president of the City University Student Union. \u201cThe union is currently unaware of any outlets on campus selling the mentioned media publications. As with all motions, the union will be considering how it implements this.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Read more<\/p>\n Potential consequences could include a ban on the newspapers in student facilities, and barring any of their employees from participating in debates, or lectures on-campus.<\/p>\n \u201cStudents on our journalism courses value being able to access the views of publications and broadcasters across the industry and the department will continue to enable all these opportunities,\u201d<\/em> Professor Suzanne Franks, head of the department of journalism at City University, told the Guardian.<\/p>\n \u201cThe students in the class I was teaching today were furious and understandably so at gesture politics from a fraction of the student body. They understand that the answer to journalism that you may not like is to do the journalism better,\u201d<\/em> said George Brock, a prominent lecturer.<\/p>\n The decision was also condemned the Index on Censorship, a pro-free speech group.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople should be free to choose what they read. Rather than banning things, we should be encouraging people to voice their objections to views and opinions they don\u2019t like,\u201d<\/em> chief executive Jodie Ginsberg said in the Guardian.<\/p>\n READ MORE: #StopFundingHate: Twitter users demand Daily Mail boycott over Brexit ruling coverage<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Some students have reportedly withdrawn their automatic membership of the student union.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a journalism student I\u2019m really worried that I\u2019m now a member of an organization whose official policy is to ban national newspapers,\u201d<\/em> undergraduate Jack Fenwick told the Press Gazette.<\/p>\n \u201cI have already emailed the chief executive of the Students\u2019 Union asking to opt out of my membership with them as I\u2019m simply not comfortable being part of a group that holds such views.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The students\u2019 union at London\u2019s City University has voted for a motion stating that \u201cthere is no place for the Sun, Daily Mail or Express\u201d on its \u201ccampuses or properties.\u201d It says the outlets in their current form fuel \u201cfascism, racial tension and hatred.\u201d The motion was adopted by a majority vote at Thursday\u2019s annual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":278818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-279988","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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