A new Liberation committee has been introduced by the Students Union, where the Representative committees now exist as sub-groups within this structure.
The new committee aims to bring together Ethnic Diversity, Transgender, LGBTQ+, Disabled, Neurodivergent, Mature and Women’s committees together to work on campaigns throughout the year.
However, it means the constituent representative committees no longer exist in their previous forms.
We spoke to Rowan Garwood, the former chair of the LGBTQ+ Representative Committee, who told us that this news came as a huge shock to them.
They said: “We had no clue that this was coming, no one had spoken to us about this.”
On the morning of Wednesday 4th September, they received an email through the committee inbox that outlined the change.
A meeting was then held with the SU President, Liberation and Inclusions Officer and Activities and Development Officer on the Friday afternoon.
Rowan told us that they were then told that they had already been removed from the constitution and ‘were no longer in existence’.
They continued: “The meeting was to discuss and it did not feel like a discussion, I don’t entirely blame the officers for that.
“I can see how this decision was made, I would not have done it in the way that it’s been done.”
The committee was also told that their AGM would be moved to October, which is one of the reasons why they didn’t expect another big change to occur.
We reached out to Daisy Watson, SU President, who explained: “The situation is that the Student Union is in the process of doing a huge review of the democratic system.”
She told us that ‘years of historical feedback’ has led to this structure and organisation and that it has become more common across various student unions to have a liberation committee.
This was workshopped by staff members over the past year, but she says it wasn’t until July when the officers became aware of it.
The Student Union said: “Your SU Officer Team made the decision to establish the Liberation Committee as part of their regular Student Executive Committee (SEC) meetings.”
Daisy said: “In a way, they’re not being disbanded and they’re not really being removed, they’re just being added to an additional structure.
“The essential reasoning behind that was predominately to enhance the opportunities for collaboration and campaigning on intersectional issues whilst still allowing them to have their own individual representation.”
Rowan explained that they do recognise the need for a Liberation committee that oversees the different representation committees.
They said: “The sticking point for us is one, the removal of us as an individual entity and then becoming sub-committees that are purely just little side groups run by the part-time officers which doesn’t give a lot of flexibility.
“Also part of the reason we’re an independent committee is because we’re there to hold (people to) account”.
Both Rowan and Daisy recognised the decision lacked communication and consultation with the representative committees.
Rowan said: “There’s a lot of shock and a lot of anger about it and also a big feeling of betrayal, this was done behind our backs, without our knowledge, without us and it feels incredibly unfair.”
Daisy explained that the issue they ran into was the way the news came out. She said: “But that was down to the Students Union’s lack of communication as well.”
Daisy clarified that the officer team will investigate the consultation process and that it ‘should have been a lot more robust’.
She said: “We are very much on the side of resonating with that thought process too, because it was also just kind of dropped on us.
“But I will say that we worked on it over the summer to make sure that every single group was able to get their own representation as well as just broader representation.”
She added: “We will be looking to address that through our own internal investigation: why everything happened the way it did and that the Students Union would never intentionally do anything to harm those marginalised communities.”
The LGBTQ+ Instagram posted a statement on Friday 6th September explaining the information they believed to be true at the time, which was that the LGBTQ+ Lounge will be repossessed and rebranded as a “Liberation Lounge”.
Rowan said: “We were told originally that the change would be now, but now we’re being told that the change will be at the end of the coming academic year. There’s no clarity on who would run it next year if it stays the LGBTQ+ Lounge, so it’s all very up in the air.”
Since then, developments had been made, and they posted an updated statement on Wednesday 11th September.
Within this post, it stated that ‘no blame’ should be placed on the officers for the ‘proposed changes to the LGBTQ+ Lounge’.
Daisy attempted to eliminate any confusion around this idea that the lounge no longer existed.
She said: “That was a misrepresentation, on the basis that yes that may happen in the future but when we communicated with the LGBTQ committee specifically, we were saying that we wanted to get the Liberation Committee up and running.”
She also confirmed that nothing is going to change in that space for this academic year so they can use this year to ‘consult with students’.
Daisy added: “It will just no longer be owned by a specific society, it will be co-owned or co-utilised.”
The Students’ Union added: “No decision has been made on the LGBTQ+ Lounge, but your SU Officer Team is keen to hear from students across all liberation groups about how it might be transformed.”
Rowan shared his feelings around this and said: “That space has absolutely been a lifeline for people; it was a space that people could come in and know they could find someone that ‘gets it’”.
In an attempt to create better communication between the officers and the different representative committees, a Q&A-style meeting was held Thursday 12th September.
Rowan was unable to attend the meeting, but they saw messages on their group chat describing how it went, and said: “I feel like some interesting conversations came out of that, but I know that we’re still not on the same page.”
Daisy also shared her thoughts on how this meeting went. She said: “We were all sat there working together with the actualised aim of intersectionality, and I think by the time we reached the end of that Q+A, there was a really generally positive outcome.”
In terms of what the future holds for the new Liberation Committee, it ultimately aims to encourage coordination whilst ensuring that each sub-group retains their power as a singular identity.
Rowan told us that they understand that the officers will do their best to make it work but there could be ‘a lot of conflicting needs’.
Daisy said: “What I really want to emphasise is that this change is not a solidified one, it is one that we’ll be going through this year, we will be trialling it and transforming it consistently based on consultation that we get back.”
