Students have shown time and time again that they are displeased with how arms companies are intertwined within our university. There have been several open letters with hundreds of signatures calling for this to end already.
Currently the University of Leicester's school of engineering holds a 7 and a half million pound research deal with rolls Royce who produce the F-35's that have massacred hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and more. This research deal is tied in with other arms companies such as Qinetiq and AWE. Additionally Rolls Royce holds an office in a university building, Space Park Leicester.
Other weapons companies that are named partners at Space Park Leicester include Thales, Leonardo, Airbus and AWE. 3 of which have been supplying the IDF, a military currently under investigation for a plausible genocide, and has already been found to be enacting apartheid, by the highest courts in the world.
Other arms companies are routinely invited for career events at uni of leicester promoting and normalising the idea of killing people on a mass scale. This included a stall by MBDA at a recent careers fair which pictured a missile on clear display as well as a stall by BAE systems one of the largest defense contractors in the world.
The Studens' Union should be lobbying the University of Leicester to make clear actionable goals and a timeline from which companies producing armaments are banned from campus.
This would involve:
Committing to ending contracts with all companies listed in this message upon these contracts coming to an end.
Enforcing the rule already laid out in section 8 of the careers and employability service advertising policy which states:
"In the best interests of the University of Leicester and community of stakeholders, we wish to work with employers and organisations to offer suitable and appropriate experiences and employment activities to students. We do not work with organisations and/or support students to undertake experience or employment which might adversely affect our reputation or compromise our academic freedom or integrity. Employers may be contacted for further information should the organisation undertake any activity in the following areas: a. Environmental damage; b. Manufacture and sale of armaments; c. Manufacture and sale of tobacco products; d. Activities abroad which would be considered illegal in the UK; e. The causing of harm or injury to third parties; f. Gambling/gaming involving money at risk."
Arms companies invited onto campus are complicit in sections a, b, d, and e and there is clear evidence that this is effecting the university's reputation, with many articles now written on the subject. Therefore they should not be promoted by the university in any capacity.
Students are sick and tired of our tuition money continuously being used in this way and it needs to change.