University vice-chancellors need to “show leadership” in response to student protests over Israel’s military action in Gaza, the education secretary has said.
Gillian Keegan told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that she wanted “our campuses to be a safe place where students feel welcomed, where students can express different views”.
Pro-Palestine encampments have been set up by students at more than a dozen universities across the UK against the war in Gaza, including in Cambridge and Oxford.
Referring to the encampments, Keegan said: “We have seen how this can escalate very quickly in other countries.” Pro-Palestinian student protesters in the US have clashed with police.
Keegan’s comments came as Rishi Sunak was hosting a meeting at Downing Street with vice-chancellors from leading UK universities on tackling antisemitism. Vice-chancellors from Leeds, Bristol, Middlesex and Sussex were among the first to arrive for the meeting, followed by about 12 more university leaders who all remained silent as they entered Downing Street.
The Union of Jewish Students (UJS) has criticised encampment protests for creating a “hostile and toxic atmosphere” on campus for Jewish students.
In an article for the Times, the prime minister condemned “extremists at the National Union of Students” who, he said, had tried to remove the UJS over its support for the existence of Israel as a state.
The UJS and the Community Security Trust (CST) are among the groups who will attend the summit in Downing Street on Thursday.
Sunak wrote that there were “students and academic staff being targeted, threatened and assaulted simply for being Jewish” and that discussions with vice-chancellors would focus on keeping Jewish students safe.
Keegan told the BBC: “Some university vice-chancellors have taken firm steps and some of the others I think probably need to share what others have done so they can figure out how to deal with this.”
She cited a Community Safety Trust study that suggested there had been 203% increase in university-related antisemitic incidents in the UK between 2022 and 2023 and said there had been instances of violence on campus.
Keegan told LBC that she had heard directly from Jewish students who felt nervous and intimidated at university. “What we need to do is show real leadership and we need to de-escalate the situation,” she said.
In his article, Sunak wrote: “I understand the strength of feeling over recent events in Israel and Gaza. No one is saying that students should not be able to express the very human angst that many of us feel about the terrible suffering of war.
“We will always protect freedom of speech and the right to protest – and our universities are a natural place for that expression, precisely because they are institutions of learning and exploration where challenging ideas are debated rigorously.
“But just as importantly, universities have a profound duty to remain bastions of tolerance, where such debate takes place with respect for others – and where every student feels safe and at home, whatever their faith or background.”
Ministers will call on university leaders to take immediate disciplinary action if any student is found to be inciting racial hatred or violence and to contact the police if a criminal act has been committed.
Mark Gardner, the chief executive of the CST, said: “The growth of antisemitism on British campuses is appalling and an affront to the fundamental principles and values of university life.
“Everyone has the right to protest, but they do not have the right to disrupt other students’ learning, harass and threaten Jewish students, or spread hatred of Israel with calls for ‘resistance’ and other extremist language.”