People Before Profit MEP candidate Bríd Smith TD has condemned the Trinity College fine of €214,000 on the TCD students’ union.
Deputy Smith said “Trinity College is setting a dangerous precedent by fining a student union because of a protest it staged outside the Book of Kells. Is this tactic now to apply to all protests, including those of strikes and workers’ occupation?
Privileged people have always wanted to stop protests with the threat of huge fines. Are we now to expect that if workers at the college go on strike, Trinity will claim a right to sue them for ‘loss of services’?
It is even more extraordinary that Trinity College claims the right to unilaterally impose a fine that will consume up to 30% of their students’ union income. Do they not know that the day of absolute monarchy are over?
It is ironic that the Trinity College Provost Linda Doyle cited the financial pressures on the college as the reason for the fine. Yet the fine imposed on the student union equates with her own salary for a year. Here we have an over-paid university leader unilaterally imposing a fine on a student union whose officials earn only a fraction of her salary.
Students made a very legitimate argument during their Book of Kells protest when they claimed that instead of increasing Master’s fees, the college should increase the price of the ticket to the Book of Kells. The sad reality is that Trinity College has been relying on the cheap labour of postgraduate workers for far too long.
The actions of the Trinity College Provost are part of a wider trend where repression is being used to curb the voice of protest among the young. In the US we have seen over 2,000 students arrested for protesting solidarity with Palestine. In UCD, the Student Union President was manhandled by plainclothes police for daring to interrupt a ceremony for the arch-Israeli supporter, Nancy Pelosi. And now this action in Trinity College. In recent times, ideologists for the establishment have sought to distinguish Western democracy from other authoritarian countries such as China. The sad reality is that we are witnessing the growth of authoritarianism in all parts of the world. The crackdown on student protests show that this ideological distinction is falling apart.”