Just Stop Oil targets universities across the UK

Last week, Just Stop Oil carried out a number of protests within universities up and down the country.

Just Stop Oil are an environmental civil resistance group within the UK fighting to end the use of fossil fuels. Last year, the group were in the news for attacks on the artwork of Van Gough, famously throwing soup at his painting ‘Sunflowers’.

In the past year, Just Stop Oil has been protesting by spraying or throwing paint onto important buildings. This has included government buildings, the offices of fossil fuel companies and now, university buildings.

These protests were not entirely unexpected, with the Just Stop Oil website having a form for students to ‘sign up to take action’.

Many of the protesters are or have been, students themselves and often state they have been inspired by their degrees.

Sam Holland, who sprayed orange paint on the Great Hall, said: “I studied Human Geography & Economics and was not told that hundreds of millions will be killed over the coming decades from famine, fire and war over resources because of the climate crisis”.

The protesters have mostly used buckets, spray cans, and fire extinguishers filled with orange paint, painting university buildings whilst chanting ‘Just Stop Oil’.

So what happened last week?

On the 9th of October, the University of Bristol was hit first. Bristol was targeted as the university works regularly with Barclays Bank, the 7th biggest funder of fossil fuels globally.

Ben Meehan was the protester and he is a student from the University of the West of England. Ben was quoted saying “I’m taking action because I can’t stand by while universities are complicit with the very systems that are destroying everything we care about”.

The university responded by claiming “We were the first university in the UK to declare a climate emergency in 2019, reaffirming our strong and positive commitment to take action on climate change”

Interestingly, University of Bristol student Alana Crane believes the protest has made a different statement. She stated “The students at UWE vandalised our Queens Engineering Building. Although it did cause disruption on the day, the protest act did not achieve much for the cause and may have even caused a further divide between the two universities”.

On the 10th, the University of Exeter and University of Oxford were hit. Paint was sprayed on The Forum building in Exeter and the Radcliffe Camera building in Oxford.

Both universities have been receiving funding from fossil fuel companies with Oxford having received £1,209,221 in fossil fuel financial commitments since 2022 and Exeter being the biggest culprit after they signed a £14.7m, five-year deal with Shell.

Then, the universities targeted on the 11th were University College London and the Universities of Birmingham, Sussex, and Falmouth.

The buildings painted included the famous UCL building’s pillars, the University of Sussex library and even the Vice Chancellor of Falmouth University’s office. Holly Astle, the Falmouth protester, stated UK universities are “setting students up for futures that don’t exist’.

The 12th was the final day and the Universities of Cambridge, Manchester and Leeds were all targeted. Manchester’s Allen Gilbert building was painted by 19-year-old Ruby Hamill and it has been reported that police were ‘heavy-handed’ with her.

Sam Holland was the protester in Leeds, he is a recent graduate and he sprayed the Great Hall. The university expressed that they are “hugely disappointed” by the attack.

University of Leeds student Chrissie James told me she thought “It got people talking but the bigger picture is that the university is unlikely to make immediate changes. But, I think the university starting the clean up straightaway has made them look like they have something to hide even though the act was relatively harmless”

Sammy Myres, a student in Manchester, said “I get why they’re doing it and even though Manchester universities have made climate promises, Just Stop Oil just wants to speed the process up. But, they got rid of the paint in about an hour, so what was the point really?’

Although the university attacks have quietened down, that does not mean the end of protesting. Just Stop Oil has stated on its website that “In November we will be disrupting London in numbers we haven’t seen before”. There are major plans to march every day in London from the 30th of October.