KANT PAY, WON'T PAY

Students at Middlesex University have occupied a campus building in their campaign against the closure of the university’s philosophy department.

The deep-thinking students spontaneously occupied a meeting room after the university management failed to show for a meeting to discuss the closure.

Around 50 students had shown up on Tuesday (4th) to demand an explanation for a decision they have labelled “abrupt, unjustified and unacceptable”. They were left fuming after the Dean of Arts Ed Esche and Deputy Vice Chancellor Margaret House pulled a no-show without even a hint of an excuse, in what one occupier described as a “complete lack of respect”.

The students refused to budge from the meeting room until management agreed to a meet. After their phone calls and emails met with a deafening silence, they opted to occupy the room for the night. With no response forthcoming, the next day they seized the entire building. Later that day over 100 students staged a solidarity rally outside the building.

A delegation from the occupiers met with Esche and House yesterday (6th), but no agreement was reached. The students have now announced they will hold the building indefinitely, and today will open it up as a free space where they will hold seminars and reading groups. All are welcome. The occupier spokesperson told SchNEWS, “We’re going to turn this place into what it should have been in the first place, a place for education and not just a skills factory for making money.”

They will open up the Mansion Building at Trent Park today at 5pm.

* See www.savemdxphil.com