White student accused of invading college 'Safe Space' by raising their hand.

A student was almost kicked out of a university meeting for invading 'safe space' rules - by raising her hand. Imogen Wilson, vice president for academic affairs at Edinburgh University 's student association, was accused of failing disabled students by not responding to an open letter.

She immediately raised her hand in disagreement with the comments, maintaining that she had contacted the writers of the letter and attempted to organise a meeting. Officials said she had violated the safe space policy, which under Section 6c of the Student's Association's rules says that council members should be respectful and considerate.

This includes refraining from hand gestures which denote disagreement and any disputes should only be made through the normal course of debate.Imogen was also threatened with another safe space complaint after she is said to have shaken her head while someone was speaking.

When someone violates the policy, a vote takes place to decide whether they should be removed from the room. Eighteen people voted for Imogen to leave while 33 people thought she should stay.

She told the HuffPost UK: "I completely understand the importance of our safe space policy, and will defend it to the ground, but I did not think that was fair, and had it gone further I would have either left or argued against it.

A fourth-year student at the meeting, who wished to remain anonymous, told the paper that it had been an emotionally tense meeting due to a vote on The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), with speakers from both Palestine and Israel.

They said: "There was ample risk of there being an actual safe space issue taking place - an anti-semitic or islamophobic comment for instance - but the whole debate was actually remarkably civil despite how emotional it was.

"So for someone to have abused the very legitimate purpose of safe space rules to get at someone they politically disagreed with was pretty low."

A petition has since been set up by first year student, Charlie Peters, after he was left appalled with the safe space policy in place at his university.

He writes in the open letter: "What sort of an education do you promote if you would make it harder for us to debate and have us avoid the views some do not agree with? We are adults, we do not need condescension or safeguarding."

Full Article: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/student-kicked-out-university-meeting-7681540

http://i4.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article7680335.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Imogen-Wilson.jpg

When will people learn to be more respectful to the plight of men and women who were victimized by the cruel and malicious hand raising epidemic of 1983...