This Is Not Political.

STUDENT AFFAIRS

Depoliticisation is Political.

Over the last forty-odd years, New Zealand universities have transformed from public institutions into corporate entities of the market economy. While it is naive to pin this entirely on neoliberal economic reforms of the 1980s, it marked a clear inflection point that determined the perceived value of tertiary education, the role of the welfare state in students’ lives, and the future of youth organising. 

Universities followed the same path as other sectors at the time, a shift towards short-term or casual staff contracts, a bolstering of managerialism and hierarchical governance structures, and, of course, institutions being pitted against each other in a laissez-faire market. 

The early 1990s were also marked by major reforms to the healthcare system. Hospitals were turned into state-owned companies and forced to compete with one another—and with the private sector—for money. Less than a decade later this market model was scrapped and (albeit dysfunctional) DHBs were established. Yet, universities never returned to a non-competitive model. They were fundamentally no longer seen as a public good, like a hospital. 

In order to preserve their commercialised interests with visions of investment, growth, and advancement (which they need to survive, as less than half of universities’ funding comes from the state), tertiary institutions now favour the sort of neutrality and sterility you find in any corporate office. They seek to be efficient.

Yet, despite increases in “efficiency”, graduates are faced with poorer job prospects, student debt, and comparatively less social mobility than previous generations of students, not strictly to blame on the university system, however. Term-time unemployment compounded with little state support means there is constant competition and uncertainty for the future. Universities’ value is no longer measured by the outcomes of their graduates but on their business performance. Their purpose has shifted to providing the skills needed for economic growth, responding to the market, and not strictly societal betterment. This “academic capitalism” comes with the commodification of information and education through expensive institutional libraries, paywalls, and near endless fees. As political economist Brian Easton puts it, “the notion that a university’s performance can be characterised by a financial bottom line, or the state of its balance sheet, is flawed.”

This university system asserts Western, capitalist liberalism as the single point around which society organises. It posits itself as a pillar of stability, the status quo, and assumes it is “post-political”. In doing so, it rejects any alternative paradigms, and is, therefore, inherently political. This so-called neutrality, which explicitly imposes a neoliberal socio-economic doctrine on the university system, effectively depoliticises its teaching programmes and students. It strips us of the tools, the resources, and the information which enable political engagement and diverse thinking. A broad shift in funding away from the arts and humanities, and towards more easily commercialised disciplines, has contributed to this, changing what and how students learn. 

There is, as such, a misconception, and almost a societal resentment, that university students of today are dismissive of politics and are apathetic. Modern student mobilisation and political action lack the radical nostalgia of yesteryear which society pictures. But this type of explicit and often romanticised dissent was made possible only by a far wider scope of freedom of expression in institutions which encouraged it, not strictly because students cared more.

In her book Student Political Action in New Zealand, Sylvia Nissen explains that even students who identify as politically disengaged—that is, not being directly involved in political causes, parties, or clubs—expressed political desires, identified societal shortfalls, and broadly cared.

Part of this disengagement is not only the corporatisation of the universities but also of the associations which represent students. The student unions, largely independent of the universities themselves, have a responsibility to be what they are, unions. In fact, branding themselves as “associations” strips them of the political onus they once carried. Student unions in New Zealand were once greatly involved in political causes, rallying students during the Springbok Tour, for example. Now, campaigns of such scale involving the mass-mobilisation of young people (protests for Palestine, Hīkoi mō te Tiriti, climate justice etc.) happen from extra-collegiate organising, with wider community groups playing far more substantial roles. Student associations now not only aren’t amplifying these voices like they once were, but are actively attenuating them. 

Dissent, which was once almost expected of university students, is growingly incompatible with the modern system. It’s not that young people care less, it’s that we aren’t being seen because the institutions supposed to education and represent us attenuate our voices. 

The final stage of this corporatisation is the enforcement and protection of its interests. The progression of the business-first approach creates an environment which needs security. There is a place for a campus security team. One which fosters safety, equity, inclusion. However, campus security at UC does not exist to keep students and staff safe, even if that is one of their roles. They, at their base, serve the purpose of protecting the university’s property and its interests. Dissidents, and students more generally, are seen as a threat to the class the security team serves. Equally, spaces for expression are seen as threats. Undermined either directly by security measures or as consequences of corporatisation and commodification. 

This exposé comprises only some cases over the last 12 months which evidence how the campus’ depoliticisation and subsequent enforcement affects the freedom of expression of students. 

An increasingly brazen UC Security, and the corporatisation of student spaces.

A lack of genuine avenues for freedom of expression without heavy oversight from the university or the UCSA, a symptom of the corporate university, is a concern of student activist groups. Such organisations have told the Memo they feel surveilled and unsafe on campus, and any signs of political action are attenuated by security teams almost immediately. Actions as unobtrusive and inoffensive as chalking warrant an immediate call-out of the campus SWAT team.

For example, UC Security’s fear of chalk crescendoed when footage in May last year captured a young trigger-happy officer pressure washing coloured letters off the asphalt before spraying a student in the face with the high-powered device. In the several minutes of footage, the security guard was also heard harassing the person recording, calling them “really fucking irritating”. Far more disturbing than this child-like behaviour from the body responsible for our safety is the fact that the chalk protest was calling out the security team’s brutal treatment of students at a divestment sit-in earlier that same month, where a security guard broke a student’s arm and concussed two others.

The student protest in question sought to occupy the university’s administrative block, challenging the institution’s $300,000+ of investments in armaments. What was a peaceful protest turned aggressive when members of the security team began forcibly removing students from the space. Footage shows officials grabbing students by their collars and pushing them to the ground. 

The team responsible for student safety should be prepared to confront those who have accused them of severe misconduct. 

The list of intimidating acts goes on, some as petty as chalk-censorship, some more disturbing such as internal surveillance of approved events. It serves to chip away at, and erode a sense of student collectivism. The depoliticising effects of corporatisation, and the university’s protection of vested interests, means student spaces can’t be democratic.

One such key space for student expression that could be fully democratised are the many poster bollards across the campus. Unfortunately it appears the university may be taking steps backwards.

Walking across Ilam campus between lectures, you’ll see these bollards dotted amongst the quads and older lecturer theatres, set in a sea of concrete and—at the moment—autumnal foliage.

It has been revealed that, in closed-door discussions between the university’s administration and the Students’ Association in January, plans were raised to remove the campus’ concrete poster bollards in favour of digital advertising screens. A plan (with no transparency with academic staff or students) inline with the ever digitised and technologically “advanced” image of the university, one which brands the campus and its students as agents of modernity.

The bollards were never freely available to all. Posters required UCSA sign-off, subject to regulation and censorship. Dissenting voices using these spaces to tell their own stories would be promptly met with resistance from campus security, but the underlying motivation to remove them entirely is a step further. 

Work to remove them was planned to take place across the mid-semester break but has since been paused. After further consultation it has been suggested that the bollards may well remain, but still with the addition of digital screens. 

If the physical bollards do remain, is an opportunity to democratise these spaces. The humble poster carries a sense of urgency, whereas layers of them tell stories of changing times and shifting perspectives. A digital screen transforms that communication into scheduled content, one with inherent institutional control. To be run as a corporation is one thing, but are we being run as a brand? The UCSA has done a stellar job at commodifying (and enshittifying) the students’ already limited third spaces.

The association has become preoccupied with their business interests, big business at that, owning $14m in property and equipment—including the spaces that are supposed to be for students. It is hard to say, however, that the benefits of the their ventures are equitably felt among students and that the association is fulfilling their responsibility to its constituents. Were it not for its powerful role as a propaganda machine for the UCSA, CANTA’s funding would have been cut long ago; we’ll keep the mass-printed student tabloid but scrap physical poster bollards? As long as the flow of information can be entirely controlled, it has value. In the case of something publicly accessible, the easiest way to control guerrilla editing is to remove it entirely. 

The replacement, or even supplementation, of these spaces with centralised digital screens risks to only further alienate students from physical forms of dissent. 

On the notion of ripping down posters, even a faculty dedicated to creative freedom and expression felt the boundaries of acceptable discourse being policed.

Gaining so much attention among students that even CANTA picked it up (as did the Press albeit behind a paywall), an incident in March of this year involved a fourth-year Fine Arts student whose assessed body of work was repeatedly censored, removed, and destroyed by campus security.

As part of a term assignment, the student produced a series of politically themed posters—works that “hyperbolised contemporary political news for viewers to engage with.” They were approved by supervising lecturers, and installed within Fine Arts buildings as part of an official class critique. However, the works began systematically disappearing, eventually revealed to be not vandalism, but official censorship by UC Security. When challenged by teaching staff, security teams offered a carousel of justifications, that this is “a place of fine arts, not politics”, or that posters can only go on notice boards with the approval of the UCSA.

Protest posters appeared, a direct rebuke to security’s actions and a warning against further interference. It ultimately took intervention from senior university leadership to halt the removals, where justification suddenly retrospectively shifted to a misinterpretation of event management policy. While it highlights how quickly collective action can question structures of power and hold them to account, it equally illustrates contradictions in the university’s willingness to respond to student dissent. A tame counter-protest in the Fine Arts department with the backing of academic staff is far easier of a public relations issue to address than rallies, occupations, and encampments calling for Israeli divestment or responding to cultural censorship. The university seems to pick and choose its battles, and its latest one shows UC Security saying the quiet parts out loud.

At the UC Autumn Graduation in April, the celebration of our peers’ academic achievements was undermined by a blatant act of cultural censorship and racism. 

As students of UC, as an independent press, we have a responsibility to call it exactly what it is.  

Ken McEwan is a name well known to allied activist groups at the university. He is the head of UC’s security team and has a well-recorded reputation of aggression and intimidation. At the graduation ceremony last month, he told a student—before they made their way on stage to receive their degree—to remove their Palestinian keffiyeh, calling it “inappropriate” and claiming it “did not count as cultural wear.” The university demanded the student remove their keffiyeh or risk being banned from their own graduation ceremony. 

There are several concerning implications of this: firstly that the university has delegated its security team the power to police freedom of cultural expression, and second, that the interpretation of what is and isn’t “appropriate” cultural wear has been left to the discretion of security guards. The Canterbury chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) asserted that “it’s UC students’ right to wear cultural items with respect to remember friends, comrades, or family lost in an ongoing genocide.” 

The notion that keffiyeh was “promoting protest”, as argued by UC, is intentionally divisive. It seeks to distance our tertiary institution from the genocide in Gaza. As a university, celebrating the academic achievements of our peers, we ought to stand in solidarity with the students of Palestine who are unable to graduate. Had this graduation ceremony happened over the recent ANZAC weekend, would UC restrict the wearing of red poppies as symbols of remembrance and solidarity? 

SJP Canterbury, in a press release, aptly deemed the act “overtly racist - an indefensible, conscious promotion of Islamaphobic ideology.” The incident received substantial backlash online, including from Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick and Christchurch-based MP Kahurangi Carter, who requested a meeting with UC Vice Chancellor Cheryl de la Rey. It is understood that several academic staff members are putting forward a statement to the university. 

SJP also reported that this contributes to an ongoing pattern of accusations against UC Security for racial profiling. Students have allegedly sought support from the students’ association and the university itself, both of which to no avail. The group demand that the university undertake an external review of its security procedures and policy. 

The Upshot: Dissent is a Threat to University Interests.

Where does that leave us? In an tertiary education system working exactly as intended. A corporatised university cannot tolerate unpredictability nor accommodate dissent. The depoliticisation of our campuses is not just the absence of politics, rather the imposition of one. With that comes the enforcement of “security”, replicating all the systemic prejudices and biases we see in wider society. 

For many directly impacted by this, it feels like the line between acceptable expression and punishable dissent is arbitrary. That line is deliberately arbitrary so it can be re-drawn wherever it needs to protect the institution. 

If universities are no longer willing to be places of contestation, then students will need to find ways to make them so. But that will require recognising the system for what it is. The erosion of student power, the hollowing out of unions, the surveillance of organising, the policing of culture.

This tension will eventually boil over. It’s fair to say that the university has gotten off pretty easy with student dissent. It may get to a point that protesters are less… polite. Your move, UC.