1 of 9

Student protest and repression

​

​

Educational resources produced by UCU (UoN branch) and Nottingham Camp for the Liberation of Palestine

2 of 9

Students protest

  • Students (and young people generally) are both celebrated and feared as potentially rebellious subjects; student movements have been powerful sites of social challenge, visioning, and transformation.
  • Students have long used creative and disruptive tactics – including occupations, boycotts, demonstrations, banners, ‘die-ins,’ and direct action – to challenges injustices they see around them.
  • In the UK in recent decades, students have protested:
    • tuition fees; Iraq war; treatment of students as renters during pandemic lock-downs; cuts to mental health services; police violence and racism (#BLM); teachers’ working conditions; white- and male-dominated curricula; university ties to fossil fuels and the arms industry, and more...
  • Taking a global view, further tactics, demands, and solidarities emerge:
    • high school students in Chile collectively refused to pay for the metro to protest against neoliberal policies (Abuform et al, 2019)
    • students used a fire truck to ram the gates of the palace of dictator Marcos during 1970 uprising in the Philippines (Woodman, 2017)
    • ‘Gen Z’ protests in Nepal aim to bring down government (Kharel, 2025).

Educational resources produced by UCU (UoN branch) and Nottingham Camp for the Liberation of Palestine

Cape Town

London

3 of 9

Facing repression

  • Student actions often face backlash from governments, police, university management, and other powerful groups and institutions.
  • Some notorious examples of repression include:
    • USA, 1970: students shot dead by National Guard at Jackson State and Kent State universities during civil rights and anti-Vietnam war protests (1970)
    • UK, 2010: philosophy student Alfie Meadows required emergency brain surgery after being ‘kettled’ and truncheoned by police at London anti-fees protest (El-Enany, 2014)
  • However, repression also takes less visible forms, such as: disciplinary action including (threats of) suspension; court injunctions that make students liable for 10K+ legal fees; baillifs evicting protest sites under cover of night; securitision of events, preventing student societies connected with dissent from booking rooms...
  • We can also think about structural factors that may act as barriers or deterrents to protest, e.g. high fees, debt, living costs; visa precarity for international students; police racism and transphobia making protest riskier for some...
  • Effects of repression are complex; crackdowns may stifle dissent, but can also galvanise movements, showing strength and sparking solidarity actions by other groups (as in top picture).

Educational resources produced by UCU (UoN branch) and Nottingham Camp for the Liberation of Palestine

New York, 2024

London, 2010

4 of 9

Case study: Global Student Intifada

  • Spring/Summer 2024: students around the world take action against the ongoing ‘live-streamed genocide’ of Palestinians, in a movement dubbed the ‘student intifada’.
    • 'Intifada’ means (in Arabic) to throw off something that oppresses; in the Palestinian context, it refers to movements against Israeli occupation, apartheid, and genocide.
  • Through a variety of tactics – most prominently, peaceful protest encampments – students have exposed their institutions’ and governments’ complicity in these atrocities.
  • A key demand has been that universities should commit to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).
    • BDS is a Palestinian-led movment inspired by the international solidarity campaign that helped bring down South African apartheid.
    • It urges nonviolent international pressure on Israel through cutting ties with Israeli and other institutions/companiesactively engaged in apartheid and genocide.
  • Despite heavy repression – violent evictions, attempted deportation of organisers, demonisation by authorities, and more – the movement has won victories at many universities worldwide, and students continue to push for change.

Educational resources produced by UCU (UoN branch) and Nottingham Camp for the Liberation of Palestine

Germany

USA

Scotland

5 of 9

Discuss

  1. What examples of student protests (past and present) have you heard of, or taken part in? What were their demands, tactics, or slogans? What repression (if any) did they face?
  2. ‘[T]he University [of Nottingham] has repeatedly attempted to repress Pro-Palestinian voices by taking legal action against students, used threats of legal fees to silence student voices…  [and] avoid[ed] taking accountability for their complicity in Israeli occupation, apartheid and genocide.’ (NCLP, p. 72) What does this statement mean to you?
  3. What forms of dissent and repression do you see around you at UoN? If you don’t see any, reflect on why that might be. What would you like to see?
  4. ‘By trying to make things different, one can learn […] where power lies and how it is exercised’ (Railton, 2015). What do you think students can learn through protest? How does thinking about students as protesters compare with dominant views of students as consumers?

​

​

​

Educational resources produced by UCU (UoN branch) and Nottingham Camp for the Liberation of Palestine

‘Disclose, Divest, Support, Invest’

6 of 9

Activity

  • Design your own protest badges
  • What makes you feel angry/energised/some kind of way? What do you want to change? What better world can you imagine? Draw it in the circle.
  • Resources needed: print-outs of activity sheet; coloured pens.
  • It may be possible to get your design made into a badge if you go along to the Feminist Archive (East Midlands) on Kings Meadows Campus to arrange a go on their badge machine!
    • Contact: Mss-library@nottingham.ac.uk
  • Opening hours and directions can be found here.

Educational resources produced by UCU (UoN branch) and Nottingham Camp for the Liberation of Palestine

7 of 9

Learn more

  • Get involved
    • Nottingham Camp for the Liberation of Palestine (NCLP) @nottspalestinecamp
    • People for Palestine Notts @people-forpalestine_notts
    • Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) - Nottingham Branch https://palestinecampaign.org/
    • These groups organise regular events and demonstrations – ALL WELCOME!
  • Know your rights / protest advice
  • Learn about Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)
    • What is BDS? – explainer from the Palestinian-led international BDS Movement
    • BDS Pledge - staff-student BDS campaign at UCL
    • Apartheid Off Campus - resources from Palestine Solidarity Campaign

​

Educational resources produced by UCU (UoN branch) and Nottingham Camp for the Liberation of Palestine

8 of 9

Learn more

​

​

​

​

Educational resources produced by UCU (UoN branch) and Nottingham Camp for the Liberation of Palestine

9 of 9

Learn more

Sources (continued)

​

​

​

​

Educational resources produced by UCU (UoN branch) and Nottingham Camp for the Liberation of Palestine