For the last few weeks, a large part of my life has consisted of gingerly fishing out of my inbox e-mails reminding me that I promised to make myself the subject of some psychiatric tests or to teach some unfortunate children Maths, a subject that I myself have not been taught since GCSE. Still, this is evidence of the wide range of activities available at university, and many of these have comprehensively and energetically provided opportunities for freshers to get involved.

The Labour Club, asking for a fee of just four pounds (which will buy you a somewhat spuriously-titled ‘life membership’ – perhaps the Corbyn victory has not completely eradicated spin), has advertised its events well and encouraged participation by all its members. The mood of those on the other side of the partisan divide seems equally satisfied, though one might not consider this a positive. The Cambridge Society for Economic Pluralism has, I am told, organised some fascinating lectures, and a friend of mine recently (and somewhat ironically) was given the opportunity to share some of Madsen Pirie’s wine. Many societies have excelled at actively including new members.
The rosy picture is not, however, universal. One among a horde of freshers, this year I joined the Cambridge Union. We did so in the hope that we would be able to participate in a debating society whose history is illustrious and whose atmosphere would be stimulating. But I am not the only one of that fresh-faced multitude who has found the real experience of the Union, consisting of passive absorption of others’ rhetoric, a disappointing consummation. There are almost no ways in which those wishing to engage in debate may do so.

Of course the principal debates are the reserve of speakers of distinction, and to be fair the Union does use students as reserve speakers, though it does not seem outlandish to suggest time could be made for some less formal debates outside the late hours within which the society chooses to operate. Within the confines of the established system, there exist two fora in which Union members can debate: so-called emergency debates, and competitions. The problem is that these are far from universally accessible, especially for a fresher without a history in debating.

Why is this? Although the Union’s website declares itself to be “democratically run among its members”, it does not elaborate on which members it means outside of its constitution. Members are largely excluded from the processes through which reserve speakers, speakers in the emergency debates and indeed the debates themselves are selected. Nonetheless, it is possible to observe certain patterns in these selections. The reserve debaters usually have a history in the schools’ debating circuits, which coincidentally means that they hail persistently from private schools or the more venerable grammars. The shadowy selection process excludes those who do not have a history in debating: the reserve speaker in the recent debate on pornography informed the audience that the Union’s request that he make a speech had come by phone an hour before. There was no open contest, no accountability in the selection process, no opportunity for anyone unknown to get involved and make a name for themselves.

The emergency debates also favour those who are established within its structures through defective procedures. For a start, the debates themselves are usually meant to be comical, instantly excluding those whose style or temperament do not conform. It is not easy to sign up for them. It would be disingenuous of me to claim that these debates are entirely barred to anyone new to the Union, because in fact I did recently find out how one applies to speak in them: there is a closed Facebook group, about which nobody was told anything directly at any point aside from a small mention in the bi-weekly emails, of a few hundred members in which someone posts the forthcoming motion at relatively short notice and people ask to speak on it in the comments. This is the Union’s most inclusive form of public speaking, and it is organised clandestinely by a cabal of unidentified officials. Unsurprisingly, the friend who added me is someone who has competed consistently in the schools’ debating circuit. Is it any wonder, given this total lack of transparency, that prominent among the speakers in emergency debates this term have been a number of Union officials, including its Treasurer, its Treasurer-Elect, and its usual interviewer for visiting speakers? The debates are dominated by those who already have a foothold in the society; the system serves them well. For others, it has been demoralising. There is scant opportunity for new debaters to hone their skills because they are consistently shut out of Union events.

None of this is unique to the Union. The experience of those trying to enter the world of drama for the first time at university has been like something out of The Trial. They want to join one of the drama societies in order to develop their acting skills, but find themselves excluded from these societies by the requirement of auditions which ensure that all places fall to those already trained in drama. Thus in order to join the societies and learn some acting skills, they must first learn the acting skills necessary to qualify to join the societies and learn some acting skills. Apparently no one has questioned this state of affairs.

Clearly, these are issues affecting only a minority of clubs. But if we value the notion that an individual should not suffer for lack of prior opportunity, we need to address the issues lurking within the procedures of some of the university’s most distinguished organisations that prevent people from freely pursuing the activities in which they want to take part.