The Becky Pinnington scandal is an insult to us all

UCL’s wall of bullshit is rapidly crumbling and we’ve all got hammers.

In what can only be described as an absolute shocker for the UCL press team, this academic year has brought with it horrendous coverage for the university in almost every red-top in the country.

What began with the standard recycling of rent-strike rhetoric, meaningless messages of solidarity and quasi-Marxists screaming in the quad, quickly deteriorated in to a not-so-standard £500,000 compensation package for residents of Campbell and Hawkridge House.

This ground-breaking success for UCL, Cut the Rent changed the face of student politics the country-over, and has since perforated the minds of angry students who have the right to challenge the institution they pay a minimum of £9,000 to each year.

On a personal level, I’d always considered the rent-strikes quite inconsequential. I supported the rent-strikers who were subject to horrendous conditions last year, especially around exam season, but as they weren’t directly affecting me it was easy for them to become background noise amidst the excitement of first year.

I’d always considered Pi in the same fashion: A classic student newspaper, a symbol of a dying student media incompatible with the modern world, epitomised by miserable students desperately flogging their latest edition – for free – on Malet place to no avail, Pi held an equally frivolous position in the back of my mind.

But all of this changed this year and UCL took it one step too far.

If reports of the incredible profits UCL make from halls at the expense of our wallets, or the concession from Head of Estates, Andrew Grainger, that it was “a fact of life” that some couldn’t afford to study in London wasn’t enough to boil our blood, then the phenomenal case of Becky Pinnington surely was.

Game changer

In case you missed it, here’s a quick run down:

On February 28th, Becky published an article on Pi Online with the headline “Head of UCL Estates leaves confidential documents publicly available” – an inoffensive whistle blowing piece which simply and concisely announced that Pi had possession of what could, or could not be, documents troublesome for UCL.

Media law in the UK states that confidential and sensitive information like this cannot be published unless, crucially, it is in the public interest. But public interest information this certainly was since, as accommodation and halls representative Angus O’Brien put it in the aftermath: “This has been quite an aggressive censorship of internal document which directly contradict what they have been saying in public.”

However, presumably aware of basic media law, UCL – headed up by Vice-Provost Rex Knight – decided to threaten Becky with potential consequences should she choose to publish anything. Coerced in to signing a document which, according to Becky’s blog, included the threat of “dismissal without notice”, Becky agreed not to publish anything more for fear of her last four years of education being consigned to pointlessness.

Presumably Rex regrets it now

But soon, as knowledge of UCL’s desperate and abhorrent bid to retain their crumbling pastoral reputation became common, their opposition became much more than a single French and German student, and now they have a problem.

Not only have UCL – UCU jumped to Becky’s defence, so have the National Union of Students, countless student newspapers across the UK and just about everyone else on the planet.

And so they should.

To quote Angus O’Brien once more, “it shows that management probably have something to hide that they don’t want getting in to public.” It begs the question ‘what?’ but even if there’s nothing, this isn’t something we should accept lying down.

According to their prospectus, UCL prides itself on being a home for “intellectually curious” students who are “encouraged to take an active role in the decision-making that affects your learning experience.”

Becky Pinnington was “intellectually curious” but, when she decided to challenge the “learning experience” dictated by management she was chastised, bullied and threatened. When UCL decided to to do this, they hypocritically attacked me as a student journalist, as a student, and as a member of the public: They attacked us all and we shouldn’t stand for it.

There is a demonstration in the quad at six o’clock this evening and I’d encourage everyone to go along – this horrendous treatment from management can’t go on any longer.