In the evening of 6 May, Cardiff University students declared an occupation of the Glamorgan Building to demand an end of Cardiff University’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza. Cardiff UCU wish to point out that following a negotiated end to last year’s encampment at Cardiff University, senior management have almost completely reneged on the undertakings they gave during those negotiations and have over the last year shut Caerdydd Students for Palestine entirely out of all reviews the university has undertaken to conduct. Instead, the reviews into research partnerships with arms manufacturers, into the definition of armaments and into the invitation of arms manufacturers to job fairs were conducted behind closed doors; internally, senior management declared that arms manufacturers at jobs fairs is a matter of free speech (presumably of the arms manufacturers, rather than the students) and have ramped up donations, grants and partnerships with arms manufacturers. It is therefore entirely the fault of senior management that students have had to take such drastic measures to make their legitimate voices heard.

Cardiff UCU call on the University Executive Board to
•⁠ ⁠start negotiations in good faith with the students immediately and without preconditions;
•⁠ ⁠rule out ending the occupation by force instead of by negotiation;
•⁠ ⁠implement in full the commitments senior management have already undertaken, including re-running the reviews from which students were excluded;
•⁠ ⁠immediately re-admit the two students suspended last year for their Palestine activism.