Statement of Opposition to the Prevent Strategy at University of Brighton

The Critical Studies Research Group is unanimously and firmly committed to the view that the UK government's Prevent Strategy is illegitimate and immoral. The CSRG believes that Prevent actively promotes xenophobic - or, more specifically, Islamophobic - university policies; that Prevent actively and deliberately constructs a culture of student and staff surveillance and policing; and that Prevent strongly contributes to ongoing processes in Higher Education of exclusion and stigmatisation. By normalising suspicion, distrust, and racial and/or religious discrimination, Prevent poses an immense threat to the values and principles the CSRG thinks Higher Education is premised and dependent upon: equality, freedom, trust, respect, and, ultimately, the promotion and nurture of critical thought.

Accordingly, the CSRG fully supports Molly Maher’s appeal to Brighton Students’ Union to boycott the Prevent agenda and urges all students committed to the values enumerated above to vote in favour of BSU’s opposition to Prevent. The CSRG will actively boycott and oppose applications of Prevent.