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Kent Union AGM: Men’s Officer Position Kept as Aaron Porter Speaks Out

Students attending Kent Union’s Annual General Meeting on Tuesday voted to keep the position of Men’s Officer. On a night when the three most divisive motions failed, a motion to oppose any strike action by other Unions and a motion to display the EU flag on campus also both fell.

In the seventh and most controversial motion of the night, Zoe Scandrett had proposed that the position of Men’s Officer be abolished because it was outdated and pointless. She highlighted how men are not a politically or socially oppressed minority. Opponents pointed out that men are in fact in a minority within the university. One opposer described the proposal as “pure and flagrant misandry”. The vote had to be counted before it was announced that the opposition had won and that the motion had fallen.

National Union of Students President Aaron Porter was in attendance and gave a speech at the start of proceedings. Dame Julia Goodfellow, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Kent, also spoke, describing the “eye-watering” debt which was set to hit students. Porter described it as “utterly unacceptable” for a party to make promises and then go back on them without being held accountable. He issued a rallying call to “carry on the fight” against government plans for higher education, recognising and encouraging Canterbury students’ efforts to pressure Canterbury MP Julian Brazier ahead of Parliament’s forthcoming vote.

Motion Twelve, entitled “An EU-KC” proposed that an EU flag be put up on campus to show support for the EU, particularly because the University of Kent calls itself “the European University”. An amendment was agreed so that an EU flag would have to be accompanied by the British flag. However, the motion still failed when it came to a vote.

Talking to the AGM about events at the recent student demonstrations in London, Porter said that students should “take heart” from and “take pride” in the 50,000 people who came to the Demo and demonstrated “within the parameters of the law”. However, he stood by his condemnation of the actions of a violent minority, saying that they had “lost us public support”. His strong condemnation of the violence triggered brief, muted heckling from a very small pocket of the audience, but there was rousing applause at the end of his speech.

Other motions tackled issues such as volunteering, bar crawl club sponsorship, recycling, sustainable food, composting, timetables, accessibility and flyers. Unfortunately a count of the attendance found that there were not enough people to make the meeting quorate. Therefore, the passed motions cannot become official until they are confirmed by the Kent Union Council on December 2nd.

Comments

• It amazed me that there were so many people supporting the abolition of the mens officer. The proposer said that she felt the position was detrimental to the work of the womens officer. I do not see how that is the case, and if that is the case then the current mens officer should lose the position. It should not be a fight between the mens and womens officer but an effort to ensure that both genders are treated equally. I love the idea of a gender equality officer. Maybe you could have two, one male one female and they work together.

  By Anonymous on 27.11.2023

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• One of the arguments against it on the night was definitely that it was “outdated”. Someone supporting the motion put forward that argument, but if it wasn’t Zoe then that’s my mistake.
  
  Indeed he may have been the Men’s Officer but he was also an “opposer”.
  
  Yes, I like the sound of a ‘Gender Equality Officer’ – but would they be male or female?

  By Edward Payne on 25.11.2023

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• “One opposer described the proposal as “pure and flagrant misandry””

  That was the mens officer!

  Surely it is divisive to have a mens officer and a womens officer, pitting men and women against each other from the off.

  Both positions should be abolished and replaced by a gender equality officer.

  By Anonymous on 25.11.2023

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• Zoe never made any claim to men’s officer being ‘outdated’ – she simply appealed to the lack of need for the position, arguing that all possible campaigns or fronts men’s officer could do was already covered by other positions.

  By Anonymous on 25.11.2023

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