Following an unprecedented referendum of its members, the Cambridge Union will offer a platform to Julian Assange for a talk on 11 November via video link from the Ecuadorian Embassy.
The vote was decisive: 76.9% of the 1,463 votes cast were in favour, while 23.1% voted no to the question “Do you agree that the Cambridge Union should host Julian Assange via video link on November 11th at 7pm?”
This is the first time such a vote has taken place in the society’s 200-year history. The decision to invite the Wikileaks founder has been heavily criticised by women’s representatives at Cambridge University including the student union women’s officer, Charley Chorley. It has also led to the resignation of Helen Dallas, women’s officer of the Cambridge Union, the university’s prestigious debating and social society.
Explaining her departure, Dallas cited exclusion from key meetings in the lead up to the invitation. She felt her position as women’s officer was “being treated as a public relations post for decisions made without my consultation... Consequently my post, and the voice of women within the union, were undermined.”
Oliver Mosley, union president, told the Guardian that he agreed mistakes had been made around Dallas’s inclusion in meetings and added that: “It’s fair to say [the debate] has encouraged more speech than we expected.”
Chorley says: “By inviting Assange, the union reveals its inability to attract new, provocative, diverse speakers. It demonstrates its skewed priorities which have, for years, alienated women and minorities.”
The vote comes in the wake of several decisions at UK universities to deprive controversial speakers of publicity through a “no platform” policy.
Journalist Rod Liddle is a vocal critic of the policy, raising concerns about the state of freedom of speech at UK universities. He told the Guardian: “Everybody should be allowed to speak on our university campuses. In a sense, that’s what we have them for.
The Wikileaks founder has been accused of rape by two women, but evaded extradition by Swedish law enforcement by seeking asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The deadline for charges has since expired, but the Swedish authorities are still seeking an interview with Assange. He and his supporters argue he has been available for interview at the embassy throughout the controversy.
Mosley said that it was Assange’s “unique position” of not having faced a judicial process that made the referendum necessary, and said the union was “a freedom of speech society”.
The author and ex-MP Louise Mensch, who recently spoke at the Cambridge Union, argued it was wrong to call a referendum: “I would simply have invited Assange. Yet I would not have allowed him to speak unchallenged. I would have had questions and answers rather than a speech. Five-minute opening statement, and for the next half-hour, one question then a three-minute response.”
She added: “The president should bear resignations with equanimity. He is right to allow free speech.”
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