(Part two) Birkbeck university banning fossil fuel companies from recruiting students

"Your complaint was not upheld"

Birkbeck’s response (and my rebuttal to it)

On the 3rd January 2023, the university finally responded to my complaint, originally issued on 7th October 2022. So just under three months, contrary to the university’s policy of responding within ten days.

It may be argued that the delay was intentional in order to give themselves time to ram through their “ethical careers policy” and make it official, rather than have to defend something unofficial (which is the weaker position). Also, now that it’s official Birkbeck policy, the Earth Sciences department has dropped their opposition, thus depriving me of any potential allies within the university itself. None of my lecturers are willing to discuss the matter with me anymore.

You have to admire these activists’ skill at plotting, scheming, intriguing and politically manoeuvring, in order to advance their agenda.

Putting that aside, here is their response:

In short, their arguments are:

1. The university is not contractually obligated to provide students with a careers service.

2. No oil, gas or mining companies have ever attended careers fairs, nor advertised roles.

3. The university is not contractually obligated to provide or promise students with access to these specific companies.

Firstly, I’d like to highlight the obvious and hilarious fact that this is a university which went virtue signalling to The Guardian newspaper (as cited in my previous article), about how they “will not hold relationships of any kind with oil, gas or mining companies”, despite now admitting that they never even held any such relationships in the first place!

This shows the moral vacuum of these virtue signallers, where they claim the mantle of virtue for choosing to no longer do something supposedly bad, despite the fact that they weren’t even doing it to begin with, nor had ever done it, and probably never had any intention of ever doing it. But hey! Still shower us in accolades, because who gives a damn about being authentically virtuous, right?

It was news to me that Birkbeck had never held any relationships with such companies. I had assumed that there would be something from those industries, even if it’s just the occasional recruitment ad – but nothing at all? I don’t know about other universities, but it sounds incredibly fishy to me. Birkbeck university was founded in 1823. In all that time, are we to believe that not a single “oil, gas or mining” company has ever attempted to recruit students, or post even a single advertisement through the university?

It raises questions as to how far back the university has been hostile to such companies, and whether the reason for those companies’ lack of recruitment, advertisement, etc through the university, was a direct result of the very same kind of political activism as exists today.

Unfortunately, I can only speculate.

Mining companies are simply not going to waste their time & money trying to recruit, advertise and sponsor students from a university that is openly hostile towards them (particularly in this case, by literally banning them outright, in line with climate alarmist dogma).

No matter whether I ultimately win or lose against the university, irreparable harm has been done to students’ career prospects; the well has truly been poisoned. Birkbeck is now a leprous pariah to any company that isn’t strictly motivated by “sustainability” and the “climate crisis”. It would take a monumental amount of effort to restore the university’s image as anything other than a bastion of climate alarmist dogma, at this point.

Secondly, the university’s response boils down to: “We can do whatever we want with the Careers Service, because we’re not contractually obligated to provide it to you, so you can either like it or lump it.”

Assuming that the university is telling the truth about there being no contractual obligation to provide students with a careers service, or access to said companies, that would only prevent me from filing a legal challenge against the university, for breach of contract. What it wouldn’t do is prevent me from challenging the university on the grounds of it being politically partisan, clearly taking one side of a political issue, in violation of their legal obligations, as a registered charity under royal charter, requiring them to be politically neutral.

The fact remains that the university is providing this service, has always provided it, presumably will always continue to provide it, and students have come to expect it to be provided (as they do in all other universities).

The university cannot simply shirk its legal obligations to be politically neutral, just because it’s offering a service that it isn’t contractually obligated (to students) to provide.

The university should be politically neutral in ALL situations, because otherwise what you will get is the university using government, student & donor funds, to promote politically partisan causes, rather than deliver an objective, impartial and unbiased educational experience to students.

Thirdly, I have since submitted an appeal to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA), which is the next stage of escalation. However, even if the OIA rule in my favour, the OIA have no regulatory enforcement powers to compel, punish or fine the university. Birkbeck could just ignore the OIA and not give a damn about its “recommendations”. We’re dealing with political ideologues here – They’re not going to simply bend the knee to some toothless organisation.

As a registered charity under royal charter, the Office for Students (OfS) is Birkbeck’s charity regulator (and this has been confirmed to me by a government agency, the Charity Commission), and so (as far as I know) only the OfS have the regulatory enforcement powers to hold Birkbeck accountable for being in breach of their legal obligations (wrt political neutrality).

However, when I look at the OfS website on what to do if a student needs to complain about a university, I just get redirected to the (toothless) OIA:

What to do next

The OIA seems to be a pointless exercise (even though I did it anyway), because there is effectively zero chance that the university’s political ideologues are going to back down. If anything, they’ll just double down even harder than they’ve already doubled down when they changed the policy to impose climate alarmist restrictions on “all” companies, rather than just merely “coal, oil and gas” companies. These political ideologues never back down – They just double, triple, quadruple down, until you throw in the towel and let them get away with it.

There may still be the potential for a lawsuit against the university, because as a registered charity under royal charter, which is legally obligated to be politically neutral, there is therefore a student expectation of political neutrality, even for services that the university is not necessarily contractually obligated to provide. I’m not a lawyer, nor a legal expert, and so I don’t know for sure, until I speak with someone who is.

The best course of action seems to be directly contacting the OfS about the whole affair, and then demanding that they investigate the matter and exercise their regulatory powers to compel, punish and/or fine the university (perhaps even strip it of its charity status).

As ever, the fight goes on. I will not rest until I’ve exhausted all options.