Tom Belger’s article calling for Cambridge students not to sign a letter of apology to David Willetts, suffered from a fundamental misconception – “Should we say sorry, and demonstrate that 'we do value our education' or are there bigger fish to fry?” – the misconception that students cannot do more than one thing at once. That they can’t both sign a letter (a minute of their time? Two?) and take other action on issues that concern them.

Apparently, “the most objectionable aspect of the letter lies less in what it contains than what it omits”. Cambridge students should be fighting to prevent both the changes to higher education and the other government cuts, instead of signing a letter of apology for the behaviour of the protesters who prevented Willetts’ speech from going ahead.

But where did this concept originate – that signing a letter and taking other action is mutually exclusive? If you believe the government is wrong, go on the protest march. Sign petitions. Engage in debates; write letters to MPs; write policy papers outlining your own vision for the future of higher education. Taking a minute to sign a letter does not mean that you cannot perform these actions. To Tom – and others – we do need people like you to condemn students for inaction on important issues. We don’t need you to condemn them for spending a minute signing a letter “instead”.

Unless, of course, that letter is actively damaging.

The point of the letter – as Tom states – is to “ensure that a counterbalance to the protestors’ intolerance appears in the public domain…to prevent politicians and the public from putting students into a box marked ‘beyond the pale’”. So actually, it’s very necessary. Students are already tipping into the box marked ‘beyond the pale’. If the government is to care about the future of students, the electorate needs to care about the future of students, and if students keep acting like that handful of protesters did, the electorate may quickly lose interest. Interrupting talks and “striking” from studying convinces no-one that students value education. To anyone to whom that’s not obvious, here’s the rationale:

Interrupting talks convinces no-one that students value education

Preventing Willetts’ talk and Q&A from happening by reading a 25-minute epistle and forcibly occupying the stage stopped interested students and fellows from listening to Willetts and challenging his arguments. The protesters could easily and effectively have made their point after the talk without preventing people from doing this. Stopping people from learning about and debating a topic is stopping the education of those who were there. It looks self-indulgent and immature, and shows a complete disregard for the desire of the audience to learn and to challenge each others’ views.

Tom Belger points out that because the epistle featured sentiment like ‘we do not wish to “rate” our teachers/we wish to learn from them’, it proves that the protesters do value education. I’m sure they do. Unfortunately the full details of a 25-minute epistle were always unlikely to be reported, whereas their more controversial actions were. Actions have spoken louder than words in the press and to the public – even among those sympathetic to CDE’s arguments. Take Nelson Jones in the New Statesman:

“The people who were ignored last night were the majority of the audience who had come to listen to -- and challenge -- the minister. Their views and wishes were swept aside by the actions of an immature and intolerant minority. No doubt they genuinely care about education. But they appear to have no understanding of or interest in the process of democratic debate.”

Or Mary Beard in the Times Literary Supplement:

“It is a terrific own goal. Willetts will go round for months saying that he had tried to talk at Cambridge but he had been forced off the stage… But more important -- as most people I've talked to in Cambridge think -- to prevent someone (because you don’t agree with them) voicing their views is to flout what the university is all about... so what were they doing stopping it.”

“Striking” from studying convinces no-one that students value education

The point of a strike is to give the organisation you’re striking against an incentive to change their behaviour. Workers strike for higher pay so their firm loses money unless they acquiesce. Lecturers are striking on Wednesday to protest against cuts to pay and pensions: their strike forces government to listen to the demands so it can induce the lecturers not to strike again and ensure that university education – which it is obliged to provide – continues. As Tom Belger points out, “Few would argue that women striking for better pay in the late 1970s, ‘convince[d] no-one’ that they valued their growing employment opportunities”. Of course not. The point of these strikes was to force companies to pay them better by damaging the companies’ revenues until they agreed.

Students “striking”, in contrast, forces no-one to do anything. It’s useless at best, and has huge potential to be damaging to the perception of students. The student is receiving an education paid for by herself and the government. Going on “strike” from lectures – refusing to receive that service – gives the government no more incentive to change its policies than before; meanwhile, you lose out on your education. An education, in fact, that the taxpayer is subsidising, at one of the best universities in the world. By “striking” - voluntarily forgoing that education – how on earth can we make the point that we deserve taxpayer subsidy for our education?

The fact is, being at university gives a lot of us here an unrealistic impression of how students are perceived in the big wide world. Anecdotally, many non-student friends at home have very little sympathy with some of the ways students are choosing to protest. They see them as self-indulgent and immature. If funding to universities and to students is to be fought for successfully, a majority of the people needs to believe – broadly – that it’s the right thing to do. To an already sceptical populace, shouting down government ministers and striking from lectures is by no means the right way to do this. It can do no good – who will it convince, who is not already convinced? – and has plenty of potential to do harm.

The government changes are far-reaching and do have the potential to be devastating. By condemning the actions of a few students I do not condemn other forms of protest. An occupation of a lecture hall or a protest on Parker’s Piece are valid ways of making an argument heard without disrupting your own or others’ education. Tom Belger calls for action: “It is perhaps the last opportunity for resistance sufficiently broad and disruptive to be in with a chance of breeding serious misgivings in government”. This is an unfortunate illusion. Yes, resistance must be broad to give government serious misgivings. It does not need to be disruptive. In fact, resistance treads a fine line between being disruptive enough to get attention from government and media, and being so disruptive as to turn people away from the cause. Shouting down a speaker and shutting down his speech overstep this line by alienating people without winning anyone over. Protest marches, debates, petitions do not.

So I conclude with the same argument as Tom Belger, although from an entirely different standpoint. Do apologise to David Willetts and prove that students are not intolerant, immature and rude. But also, if you believe that the government cuts are wrong or dangerous, take action. Write letters, send emails, go on protest marches. Just please, do it in a way that furthers your cause rather than alienating people from it, and from students in general.

Anna Stansbury blogs @ http://annastansbury.wordpress.com