Vote of No Confidence HSO June 2013

7/28/2019 Vote of No Confidence HSO June 2013

1/6

Vote of No Confidence.

The Chair of Guild Council received a petition from at least 20 Guild Councillors requesting a

Vote of No Confidence in the Home Students Officer. The relevant Officer was informed of

the petition and Scrutiny Committee met to consider the petition. The Scrutiny Committee

decided that it was appropriate to refer the request for Guild Council to debate and to hold

a vote on whether to remove this officer from his position. The Home Students Officer has

provided a statement in defence of the allegations.

The documentation relevant to this matter is attached:

The petition signed by Guild Councillors

The response from the Home Students Officer

Evidence in relation to the allegations

Guild Councillors are required to debate and make a determination on this matter. A two

thirds majority of a quorate Guild Council is required for an Officer to be removed from their

position.

A majority vote, of a quorate guild council, in favour of removing an officer would lead to

their immediate removal from office.

Author / contact: Scrutiny Committee

Executive Summary: A Vote of No Confidence has been received in relation to

the Home Students Officer and a quorate Guild Council isrequired to make a decision on this matter.


2/6


Below is a letter requesting for a Vote of No Confidence to be held in Joe Sewell, Home

Students Officer, signed by 27 Guild Councillors.

We are requesting this Vote on the grounds that Joe Sewell has been accused of repeatedlymaking derogatory racial statements towards individuals and holding belligerent racial views,

and also for expressing his opposition to equality movements and failing to challenge

outwardly racist, sexist, anti-semitic views of his friends.

We gather this from a post on his Facebook wall, which is attached separately (HSO VONC

screenshot) and is referenced in the letter below.

That the accusations made against Joe are not in isolation are what concern us; they

appear recurrently from a number of different individuals, and we attach a further

screenshot (HSO VONC screenshot 2) made following his Censure in March Guild Council,

where Joe confirms that he earlier made the comment Dont understand why we let these

people into our country. Send the c*nt the f*ck back to Somalia

which I believe resolves any of the ambiguity around some of his other responses.

We strongly believe that no individual with such views or attitudes can stand fit as a

representative of students in the Guild.

We are requesting that, in accordance with the Guild Bye-Laws, a meeting of the Scrutiny

Committee is convened as soon as possible with Joe Sewell in attendance to allow him to

present anything in his defence.

We look forward to your response.

In the March Guild Council a censure of the current Home Students Officer Joe Sewell was

passed, on the grounds that his involvement in a message thread constituted racism and

indicated grave failings as an elected representative, for accepting the exclusionary

attitude of the Home Students Association towards its non-drinking membership.

However there seemed to be some dissatisfaction with either the nature of the complaint

made at the time, or the democratic decision made consequently12% of Guild Council

decided against censuring him then; the Sabbatical Officers of the Guild have failed to

comment on racism and its hold within the University and the Guild since.

We simply cannot understand the reasoning behind such inaction.

What has recently come to light, however, is the thread includedwhich begins with Joe

Sewell writing an initial post on Guild politics and which goes on not only to slander Guild

officers, but descends into outright racism, Islamophobia5, anti-Semitism6 and sexism8.

Joe Sewell makes no attempt to rebut nor put an end to the hate speech arising in his

conversation, instead allowing his friends to continue making heinous and intimidating

statements.

In the thread he is accused of making racist statements towards two of his acquaintances1,2,3

and is asked to address them. He never properly addresses those comments, and instead

answers with a sarcasm that seems to indicate no real concern for the - serious - issues raised.

Furthermore there appears suggestion that he is involved in Islamophobic activity, and heclaims outright that movements for equality are a waste of time4.


3/6


This stands not only as conduct unbecoming of an elected representative, but also in direct

conflict with the beliefs and aims of the Guild, as a thoroughly dangerous and disturbing

attitude - and most simply, as an affront to any vague sense of decency or morality.

We are writing this letter to call a motion of no confidence in Joe Sewell at the next GuildCouncil; when 25 councillors have signed the petition we will send it to the Chief Executive,

as outlined in the Guild Bye-Laws.

We believe that this attitude is unacceptable from a Guild Officer, and that given the gravity

of the situation, he either resign or be held accountable through the democratic channels.

Signed

Azfar Shafi (Ethnic Minorities Association)

Malia Bouattia (Postgraduate Open Place)

Antonia Morris (Home Students Association)

Vicky Taylor (Womens Association)

Lucy Perkins (Womens Open Place)

Hattie Craig (Womens Open Place)

Sandhya Trott (Womens Open Place)

Ioana Chis (International Students Association)

Khaleel Chaudry (Chemistry)

Adam Elmi (First Year Place)

Muneeb Akhtar (Open Place)

Qaiser Khan (Physics & Astronomy)

Humayun Saleem (Postgraduate Open Place)

Jake Pembroke (Political Miniforum)

Maisie Meredith (Indoor Miniforum)Sebastian Egerton-Read (Postgraduate Open Place)

Edward Sainsbury (Open Place)

James Bowker (Open Place)

Kelly Rogers (Open Place)

Thomas Wragg (Civil Engineering)

George Derbyshire (IAA)

Ben Puusta (Social Policy)

Charlotte Rowling (Government & Society)

Joey Price (Outdoor Miniforum)

Michael Slevin (Mathematics)

Sam Weaver (Biosciences)

Nataliya Manskova (Law)


4/6

Vote of No Confidence.Statement to Guild Council:

Guild Council,

I would like to start off by saying that the allegations made against me by friends on

Facebook post attached to my VONC request are 100% untrue. They were made up by

friends of mine who were trying to troll me and get me i nto more trouble than I already was,

which has apparently worked. I also did not challenge anything that was said on said post as,

knowing my friends as well as I do, this would only encourage them and make things even

worse than they already were. I did, however, message them all individually the next

morning telling them they shouldnt post things like that on Facebook and if that they truly

held them views then they should keep them to themselves or seriously think about changing

them. I would also like to state that nowhere in that posts do I slander guild officers or make

any kind of offensive remark against any minority as I have been accused of.

As for the apparently earlier racist comment, this post in no way states that said individual

should be deported due to his race. This post was made in sheer anger of the fact that aSomalian national had murdered someone for absolutely no reason and was being paid to

still live in the country. This would have been exactly the same whatever the nationality of the

murderer.

I believe that the allegations made against me are based completely on hearsay from trolls

and misinterpretation. I strongly urge you to reread the evidence submitted with this VONC

and read exactly what I have said as I believe that nothing posted by me on either of those

threads warrant this type of action.


5/6

Vote of No Confidence.Screenshot 1


6/6

Vote of No Confidence.Screenshot 2

Documents

Vote of No Confidence HSO June 2013