By Rachel Wareing
Brighton and Hove Argus
12th January 2007
Students suspected of being part of a sit-in protest have been threatened with legal and disciplinary action.
Letters have been sent to 50 students at the University of Sussex asking whether they were part of a group who occupied the campus library.
The protesters defied an injunction to stage the overnight sit-in last November.
Students, some of whom posed for a picture in The Argus, wanted to highlight a number of issues, including top-up fees and lack of contact time with tutors.
The letters, signed by deputy vice-chancellor Paul Layzell, warned that the university would consider disciplining students and recovering legal and staffing costs from them.
One 20-year-old computer sciences undergraduate, who asked to remain anonymous, said students were shocked to receive the letters during the Christmas break.
He said: "It's completely heavy-handed and disproportionate. It shows they are not interested in engaging with the students.
"People are very worried about it, especially the threat of internal disciplinary action. A lot of us have exams coming up and it's an added stress."
He said students held the protest because they had exhausted all other options.
"The main effect of these threats will be to curtail freedom of speech," he said. "Students will think twice about joining protests in the future."
A spokeswoman for the university said the occupation was not supported by the staff or student unions and had been "costly and disruptive".
She said: "We are disappointed that a small number of students have chosen to attack Sussex in this way rather than to work with their student colleagues and the university.
The issues the students raised are either already being addressed in positive discussion with the students' union here or are nothing to do with the university itself.
"As a responsible institution the university is taking steps to identify individuals who were part of the unlawful occupation.
"We reserve the right to consider whether disciplinary action or legal action would then be an appropriate step."
She said the university would discuss what action to take with the students' union, adding: "It is a sad and unnecessary distraction from what we actually are focusing on with the students' union - developing our teaching and learning and improving the wider student experience."
http://www.theargus.co.uk/
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