Students have called for Imperial College and King’s College to be renamed as part of an attempt to “decolonise and demisogynise” higher education.

Members of the University of London student union said the names of the universities were “symptomatic of the historical and structural racism and sexism that cause daily microaggressions to students of colour and those who self-identify as female” and they should instead be called Gaia College and Citizen’s College.

Frederick Chetwynd-Talbot, president of the King’s College Indigenous Peoples’ Society, argued the current names were “inimical to a place of learning that claims to offer a safe space for all”.

He added: “This is about the intersectional oppression suffered each and every day by people from the Global South, and members of the