Jonty Leibowitz, Josh Jackson, Roberta Huldisch and Eireann Attridge have been elected CUSU’s NUS delegates.

The four delegates will attend NUS’ annual conference in April alongside CUSU President Amatey Doku, where they will be able to vote on NUS policy and leadership.  

Attridge, who is currently CUSU’s Access and Funding Officer, has stated that she wants to focus on protecting higher education from what she sees as “damaging changes,” including the Teaching Excellence Framework that is proposed within the Higher Education Bill.

Huldisch, as Education Officer, is also a member of the CUSU sabbatical team. She was also a delegate at last year’s NUS conference, where current President Malia Bouattia was elected.

Bouattia, and the NUS more generally, have faced allegations of anti-Semitism in recent months. Bouattia has in the past described her alma mater, the University of Birmingham, as “something of a Zionist outpost.”

Huldisch has stated that she did not vote for Bouattia, saying: “I did not feel comfortable supporting her when a large portion of the students I was representing expressed concern at the anti-Semitic language she had used, felt unsafe because of it and were unsatisfied with her response.”

She does however support some of Bouattia’s policies, including “her practical support for students who are illegally deported or at risk of deportation.”

Jackson is a second-year HSPS student at Queens’, who, despite being known for his frequent electioneering in Cambridge, is new to NUS.

He has stated: “we can’t change NUS until we change the type of people we send to NUS,” and has pledged to prioritise “protecting the rights and freedoms of EU students and internationals to study in this country without infringement in the wake of Brexit.”

Leibowitz, a third-year Historian at Sidney Sussex, is also new to NUS. He has said that he ran for the position as  he fears that “this is the last chance for the NUS to rid itself of the scourge of anti-Semitism.”

Although he believes that Bouattia is a “great campaigner”, he describes “her language and tone on anti-Semitism” as “worrying.”

The group of six representatives that Cambridge sends to the conference has to be gender balanced, with at least two members who self-identify as women. Because Doku attends by default, the three male candidates – Josh Jackson, Joe Toovey and Jonty Leibowitz – had to compete for two places, while the self-defining women – Roberta Huldisch and Eireann Attridge – only had to beat the re-open nominations (RON) option.

It is likely a bye-election will take place next term to decide the final self-defining woman candidate.

The election of the delegates had previously taken place in Lent term, but this year, CUSU voted to move the election of the delegates forward to Michaelmas.

Doku, who proposed the motion at CUSU Council earlier this term, argued that moving the elections forward would allow the delegates more time to ensure they represent the views of Cambridge students accurately, as well as becoming involved in producing CUSU policy.

He claimed that “given the recent referendum on our affiliation with the NUS, NUS delegates must be accountable and must seek out and represent the views of Cambridge students.”

CUSU held a referendum on Cambridge’s NUS membership last term, with students voting for Cambridge to remain a member of the organisation by a margin of 303 votes