Brighton students end art gallery sit-in (From The Argus)

Brighton students end art gallery sit-in

11:10am Tuesday 6th December 2011 in News By Bill Gardner

Students who occupied an art gallery at Brighton University decided to end their sit-in yesterday.

The 30 students were protesting about higher tuition fees and education cuts.

The activists, from Brighton Students Against Cuts, said they did not want to disrupt an art exhibition by fellow students.

If the protesters had stayed, the show would have been cancelled by the university.

The group accused university bosses of turning students against them.

A statement said: “It became clear that the university’s response to the occupation was not to enter into dialogue, but to divide and rule.

“We were told today by a member of staff that the exhibiting students had decided to cancel the show.

“However, when we spoke to the students themselves we were told that they had made no such decision, rather that they were informed by staff that the show would have to be cancelled.

“Disruption to students was something we wished to avoid, and it became clear that due to the nature of the exhibition our presence would unavoidably have caused disruption.”

They said the five-day occupation had successfully drawn attention to their opposition to the government’s White Paper on education.