Arms Investment Demo - Monday 5th Wk - 1.45 - Protest University Gag on Student Calls for Socially Responsible Investment in Oxford

****University Gags Student Calls for Socially Responsible Investment (SRI)****

Demonstration Outside University Council – Monday 5^th Week (Tomorrow) - 1.45 – 2.15 – Be there!

(Meet 1.45 at Oxford University Press Building, Great Clarendon Street Entrance just off Walton Street)

Since 2001 Students in Oxford have been calling on the University to invest its £2bn ethically. We don’t want our education funded by investment income from the Arms Trade – and we believe that a University, an institution set up for education and progress, should be use its funds to support companies which sell weapons and torture implements to corrupt governments, or engage in the destruction of the environment.

On Monday of 5^th Week – University Council were due to receive a paper from OUSU and the SRI Campaign – calling for them to engage genuinely with Socially Responsible Investment – and to look to take Oxford money out of the Arms Trade. They have known about this paper since at least November 2005. On Friday - they decided they didn’t want to see the paper. They decided not to listen to the thousands of students who have put their names behind the calls of the SRI Campaign.

We need to show that this University cannot ignore its students any more. Spare just 30 minutes of your Monday to make sure every member of Council has to walk past you on their way into their meeting – and see that the students they are trying to silence are not going to go away.

You can find a map to OUP where Council takes place here: http://www.oup.co.uk/images/map.gif . We’ll be meeting near reception at 1.45 to greet all the Council Members as they enter for Council to start at 2.15. Please make the effort to be there...

**Any questions? Call:

Emma Norris: 07811745413

Richard Ollerhead: 07814 396013

Tim Davies: 07834856303

Please forward this message to any relevant mailing lists you have access to…

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More information on the background of the SRI Campaign is below, or is available at www.srioxford.org.uk

The Background:

• Throughout 2000 / 2001 – Students campaign in colleges to call for ethical investment.
• May 2001– Over 40 students stage a die-In on Cornmarket Street to call for Oxford to take its money out of the Arms Trade.
• 17^th June 2002 - The ‘Not in Our Name’ SRI campaign takes a paper to University Council calling for ethical investment. University Council adopts the ‘Good Corporation Charter’ – which fails to exclude arms investments – and bring no real changes in University investment policy.
• January 2004 – Student campaigners return to research University investments and examine any impacts of the 2002 paper…
• June 2004 – Research uncovers significant Arms Trade investments in the Universities central £400m fund, and in other College investments.
• November 2004 – The SRI Campaign takes a paper to JCC Committee (the body between Students and Council) calling for a further review of the investment policy to implement genuine SRI. This paper is referred to the University Investments Committee.
• January – November 2005 - Dialogue with Investment Committee produces fails to produce answers to any the concerns raised by Students. Investment Committee claim they require a mandate from Council to take any further action on SRI or to take money out of the Arms Trade.
• November 2005 -Campaign Against the Arms Trade release figures showing Oxford to be one of the worst University Investors in the Arms Trade. Students demonstrate outside colleges calling for SRI to be taken seriously. Joint Consultative Committee agree that OUSU and the SRI Campaign can take a paper to University Council to call for genuine SRI and for Oxford to take its money out of the Arms Trade.
• January 2006 - After apparently accepting the comprehensive paper submitted, University Council requests that the paper is reduced to two sides of A4 – giving less than a weeks notice for this to be done.
• February 10^th 2006 – 3 Days before University Council is due to meet, the paper is removed from the Agenda – without any notification to student members of Joint Consultative Committee.
• February 13^th 2006 – All students who are incensed by the University’s consistent failure to listen to them, and who believe that we have a right to be heard and to know that this University is not funded by investment income from the Arms Trade turn up at 1.45 outside University Council, in the University Press building on Walton Street, to demonstrate and make sure we are not ignored!

Posted on 12/02/06 by Anon