The Guild of Students has been made aware of another incident of racist and Islamophobic graffiti on our campus. We are shocked and saddened that this graffiti continues to appear at our University – and that, over the weekend, racist messages appeared on the walls of the Guild building itself.
Once again, we unreservedly condemn this graffiti – hate speech, racism and Islamophobia in any form have absolutely NO place in our Guild or on our campus and ALL students should be able to live safely without fear of attack on their campuses. We work hard to ensure that the Guild building is a safe space for all of our members, and we are angry that this has been threatened by the actions of hateful groups that have no place on our campus.
Although the graffiti has now been removed, we acknowledge that this is not enough to ensure that our members feel safe on campus. We ask the University to work proactively to ensure students’ safety, to take concrete steps to identify the individuals or groups responsible & to bar them from campus, and to work with us to ensure that Anti-Racism, Anti-Fascism work is central to the work we do. We will also be continuing our work with the National Union of Students to tackle hate crime on University campuses across the UK.
We urge all students to stand together with us against these cowardly and intolerant acts – and to offer support to fellow students affected by these incidents, particularly during Discover Islam week over the next couple of days.
In the meantime, if you feel unsafe on campus you can contact the Guild’s Advice and Representation Centre, which is also Third Party Hate Crime Reporting Centre, for free and confidential support. The University also operate a Harassment Advice Service and have a number of support and advice services you can talk to. We further urge anyone with information about these incidents to contact West Midlands Police via 101.