Students at City University of London, home to one of the country’s most respected journalism schools, have voted to ban the Sun, Daily Mail and Express from its campus.

The university’s student union voted to ban the newspapers at its annual general meeting on Thursday night in a motion titled “opposing fascism and social divisiveness in the UK media”.



The motion said the titles have published stories that demonise refugees and minorities, have posted Islamophobic stories and “all actively scapegoat the working classes they so proudly claim to represent”.



It added that “freedom of speech should not be used as an excuse to attack the weakest and poorest members of society” and that the titles publish stories that are “inherently sexist”.



The motion, while largely symbolic, is embarrassing for the university, which runs one of the UK’s top journalism programmes.

Less than 200 of the university’s 19,500 student population attended the meeting where the motion was passed to ban the newspapers “in their current form”. The motion added that the ban could be extended to other media organisations with the Sun, Daily Mail and Express titles “merely used as high-profile examples”.



The students’ union said there was “no place” for the papers on campus or university properties although it was unclear how the ban would be enforced.

A number of journalism students are looking to pull out of the union in protest against the decision, which they believe harms the university’s reputation. Many graduates go on to work at the Sun, Mail and Express titles in some capacity.



“Are they going to try and stop students carrying newspapers and will lecturers no longer be able to use or refer to them?” said one student, speaking to the Guardian.

The union has resolved to promote among the student body the “active pressuring” of the newspapers to “cease to fuel fascism, racial tension and hatred in society”.

Professor Suzanne Franks, head of the department of journalism at City University, said that students would continue to be allowed access to the three newspapers.

“Students on our journalism courses value being able to access the views of publications and broadcasters across the industry and the department will continue to enable all these opportunities,” she said. “We combine professional skills training with a concern for professional standards and the importance of fair, impartial and ethical reporting is at the heart of our courses.”

Yusuf Ahmad, president of the City University Student Union, said that the 182 attendees at the meeting had debated and passed 15 motions.

“A number of motions passed are committing resources of the union and will need the further consideration of the board of trustees,” he said, before commenting directly on the motion to ban the three newspapers. “The union is currently unaware of any outlets on campus selling the mentioned media publications. As with all motions, the union will be considering how it implements this.”

Index on Censorship chief executive, Jodie Ginsberg, said the union should not be trying to dictate what students could read. “People should be free to choose what they read. Rather than banning things, we should be encouraging people to voice their objections to views and opinions they don’t like.”

George Brock, former head of City’s journalism department and current lecturer, said the move was in his personal view “foolish, illiberal and meaningless”.

“The students in the class I was teaching today were furious and understandably so at gesture politics from a fraction of the student body,” he said. “They understand that the answer to journalism that you may not like is to do the journalism better.”

During the meeting, another motion titled “why is my curriculum white?” was passed attacking the university as the “primary motor in reproducing this ideology of whiteness”. The union has resolved to take an active role in “decolonising” the curriculum and “start asking where are our black lecturers”.

The student union’s move follows the high profile campaigning group Stop Funding Hate pressuring businesses to drop their commercial relationships with the same three newspapers because they run “divisive hate campaigns”.

Last week, Lego announced it would not run any more promotional giveaways with the Daily Mail.



The Danish toymaker, which had been giving away free toys with the newspaper, took the decision after the campaigning group took up the cause of British parent Bob Jones, who had written to it raising concerns over its tie-in with the newspaper, which ran articles attacking the three high court judges who made a legal ruling on Brexit earlier this month.



Stop Funding Hate has also targeted companies including Waitrose, John Lewis and Marks & Spencer, who have refused to withdraw their ads, and The Co-operative Group, which has said it was reviewing its policy.



The Match of the Day presenter, Gary Lineker, has given his backing to the Stop Funding Hate campaign and recently asked Walkers Crisps to reconsider advertising in the Sun over its anti-refugee stance.



Lineker had tweeted his anger at newspaper coverage of the handful of child refugees who were brought into Britain from Calais last month.



The Sun responded by labelling Lineker a “jug-eared leftie luvvie” and calling for the BBC to sack him. He tweeted: “brick by brick …” with a link to the campaign.



The Sun has previously been boycotted by numerous student unions over its now dropped topless page three images. However, debates over free speech on campus have extended well beyond newspapers.

In January, online publication Spiked released its latest free speech rankings for universities, finding that 90% of institutions were carrying out some form of censorship, up from 80% a year earlier.

Concerns have been raised over attempts to “no platform” speakers with views deemed unacceptable to segments of the student body, as well as attempts to create safe spaces within universities where criticism is discouraged.

However, students groups have argued that those studying have a right to do so in an environment where they are protected from persecution and abuse. A survey in April found that almost two-thirds of UK students back the National Union of Students’ no platforming policy, which covers speakers from six groups including the BNP and Al-Muhajiroun, but allows individual unions to choose which speakers to bar.