Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) has announced that referendums will be held in March on whether the union should support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and whether the union’s constitution should allow for students to opt out of union membership.
The referendum campaigns will take place between March 19th and 22nd while polling will take place between March 21st and 22nd. The results will be counted on the evening of March 22nd.
In late February, the Students for Justice in Palestine group handed in a petition with 722 valid signatures.
This was nearly three times the amount of signatures needed to trigger a referendum. As per the union’s constitution, 250 signatures are required for a referendum. The group wants to mandate the union to support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
In April of last year at TCDSU council, students voted against a motion that called for an academic and economic boycott of Israel.
In an email statement to The University Times previously, Conchúir Ó Raidaigh, a member of the group, said that the “remarkably positive response we’ve received from classmates and students at large is testament to the relevance of BDS as a student issue”.
Ó Raidaigh cited the success of other campaigns that had the backing of the union, such as Fossil Free TCD and the Boycott Aramark campaign. He said that these successes “show that Trinity students care about ‘big issues’ and are not afraid to act to effect change in line with our passionately held beliefs, both within College and beyond”.
On the same day, the Student Union Opt Out Project also handed in a petition of over 500 signatures. With the petition launched last November, the group are challenging the fact that, currently, membership of the union is mandatory.
As it stands, students are automatically a member of the union once they register for the academic year. Funding for the union comes from the College’s general fund, which comes from student fees through the Capitations Committee. The group were required to collect 500 valid signatures to have a referendum on the issue.
The petition asked students to affirm a new amendment to the TCDSU Constitution, to provide that “membership of the union shall consist of All capitated students who have not opted out of the union by notifying Trinity College Dublin or the union of his/her wish not to be a member of the union and All sabbatical officers”, as well as that “membership shall exclude students who choose to leave the union before or during the year. Such students will not be counted among union membership for union lobbying purposes without their express and direct consent”.
