The College's efforts to gag student media are continuing, this time with the ICU President as partner in crime. The attempt to bring College staff under the staff-student protocol appears to have been dropped, however the 'defamation policy' has remained in the revised Code of Practice with additional changes by ICU.
Both the Live! and Felix Editors have criticised the revised document, as the changes make essentially no difference while appearing to endorse its existence. Concerns about scope of appeal and lack of an independent arbitrator have not been addressed - indeed, the bulk of the changes appear to be a tighter definition of what 'defamation' is. The most concerning addition is a change of wording, from what is essentially a College directive to a formal agreement between ICU and the College.
The Pro-Rector (Educational Quality) remains the 'independent' arbitrator, there is still no limit on how long a publication may be impounded for and there is no appeals process. The ICU President has an explicitly subservient and powerless role in the process, being required to remove a publication when told to do so.
Rushed approval?
Monday's Council has a long list of business to get through, with nearly a dozen lapsed policies to re-pass and many new ones coming in. As the last meeting of Council this year it also has to pass the governance changes to set-up a trustee board, approve colours, agree in principle to proceed with the next phase of the Beit masterplan, make nominations to Court, approve the annual report and receive reports from all sabbaticals and faculty union presidents.
Amongst all this is the ICU Code of Practice, including in Annex F the defamation code of practice. This Annex, which would allow the College Secretary to impound Felix if it criticised a member of staff who then complained, looks likely to be rubber stamped as it gets lost in the other papers. Amendments can not be brought from the floor due to time constraints, meaning any changes not submitted before the meeting will be rejected. An amendment to strike the Annex at this reading has been submitted.
Justification
The ICU President, John Collins, has provided a number of justifications for retaining Annex F and his reasons for not opposing it, the core principle behind them being 'the College owns the Union, so it can shut down the media anyway'. He told Live! that this provides a formal and transparent route for them to take action against potentially defamatory material, without resorting to ad-hoc methods (one could surmise this would involve College staff collecting newspapers and disposing of them).
Mr Collins concurred with other points raised regarding the defamation code, in particular that the Pro-Rector (Educational Quality) was not the best 'independent' arbitrator. However, he stated that it would have to be someone in College as they would be available at short notice to consider the issue. He also supported adding a note on conflicts of interest, where the College Secretary or Pro-Rector was the subject of the alleged defamation but at present could order or support impounding a publication.
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