newspaper: Why my fellow City students are wrong to ban the Daily Mail from campus City University students vote for campus ban on Sun, Mail and Express Is free speech in British universities under threat?

On a practical level alone, the ban is almost impossible to implement.

University: the home of free thought and discussion. That’s the fantasy I had in mind as I sprung through its doors on a late-summer day in September, eager to get cracking with some good, intellectual debate.

But it hasn’t quite panned out like that. On Friday morning I received an email explaining that my students’ union had voted to ban the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express from campus.

Their reasoning was that these outlets “have a tendency to fuel fascism, racial tension and hatred in society”. And as a journalism student here at City University London, I can understand at least some of their concerns. Whether it’s the Sun’s objectification of women, the Express’ migrant bashing or the Mail’s campaign against “benefit scroungers”, it can often feel as if these papers do __more damage than their presence is worth.

But these aren’t alternative, fringe publications read by a radical minority. Together these tabloids represent nearly half of the UK’s daily newspaper readership. To ban them – and, in effect, ignore the voice of swathes of the population – is to ignore the realities of modern Britain.

The motion, entitled “Opposing Fascism and Social Divisiveness in the UK Media”, is a contradiction of the very values that the students’ union claims it is protecting. There’s nothing remotely liberal about silencing those you may not agree with.

The great irony here is that City is home to one of the world’s top journalism schools. It’s said to hold a “legendary status” within the media, has been described as “the Oxbridge of journalism”, and has sent graduates into the most prestigious jobs in the British media.

So the idea that its students’ union feels it must act as a shield against the wailings of the tabloid press is worrying. It’s worth pointing out that less than 1% of the university’s population – a mere 190 students – turned out to vote on the motion. To me, this is comforting, proof that the result is by no means representative of the student population. But it is frustrating to know that such a small number of misguided idealists have had such an effect on the rest of us – even if the ban itself seems practically impossible to implement.

Many other journalism students I have spoken to are strongly opposed to the vote. James Walker, 21, says: “The student union’s newspaper ban has damaged the reputation of the journalism department and, __more importantly, the chances of students to get jobs in the industry.”

Jonas Henmo, 22, adds: “If we accept this ban, then we allow ourselves to become part of an authoritarian organisation.”

Petitions have been launched and protests took place today in the university’s journalism department. But even if this ban does get overturned, as it now seems it could, the very fact that it was so easily given the go-ahead is worrying.

If 2016 has taught us one thing, it’s that the UK is far more divided than we ever thought. The blame for that lies, in some part, with these tabloids and their rhetoric. I detest the sexism, xenophobia and Islamophobia they have spouted as much as the next left-leaning 21-year-old.

But these are issues that need to be debated, contested, argued. Shooing them away simply doesn’t work. If the 3.6 million daily readers of the Sun, Mail and Express don’t deserve to be part of the conversation, then I’ll never know who does.

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