FOI_25-089 Disciplinary action for protest activity

Date of response: 15 April 2025

We have now considered your request of 25 March 2025 for the following information:

Please can you provide the following information pertaining to the response to any and all protest activity - including but not limited to verbal or written statements, flyering, picketing, waving of banners, and encampments - by staff and students at your university.

Please take a broad interpretation of activism/protest, including where an individual could be said to fall under the scope of this request because of what the university considers to be wider misconduct related to their activism, such as criminal damage, rather than specifically their involvement in activism.

Question 1. The number of students facing or who have been subject to disciplinary investigations in connection with protest activity from 1 October 2023 to date (25 March 2025). Please break these figures down by:

• The protest cause in as much detail as possible (for example Pro-Palestinian, Environmental, Animal Rights)

• The date disciplinary investigation was launched

• Reason for disciplinary investigation

• The outcome/disciplinary action taken, including no further action

Question 2. The number of staff facing or who have been subject to disciplinary investigations in connection with their protest activity from 1 October 2023 to date (25 March 2025). Please break these figures down by:

• The protest cause in as much detail as possible (for example Pro-Palestinian, Environmental, Animal Rights)

• The date disciplinary investigation was launched

• Reason for disciplinary investigation

• The outcome/disciplinary action taken, including no further action

Our response:

<5.

When an individual is suspected of breaching the University's General Regulations for Students or Staff Disciplinary Procedures then these procedures maybe invoked. ‘Protest activity’ regardless of its focus is not a breach of the General Regulations or Staff Disciplinary Procedures. Therefore, the University holds no data where a student or staff member faced disciplinary action for breaching these procedures specifically for protest activity.

The University does hold data where staff or student disciplinaries (pending or completed) contain(s) information in ‘connection with’ protest activity. The numbers of staff and students facing or have faced disciplinary action ‘in connection’ with protest activity is fewer than five and therefore on this occasion, it is not possible to provide all the requested information.

The Act contains a number of exemptions that allow public authorities to withhold certain information from release.  For further information please see the below exemption text.

Question 3. The number of students who have been reported to your University’s Prevent Lead, or equivalent post, as Prevent concerns since 1 October 2023. Please break this down by:

• Whether the concern prompting the referral was related to protest activity and, if so, the type of cause (for example Pro-Palestinian, Environmental, Animal Rights)

• The outcome of this report (eg Prevent referral made)

Our response:

For the period 01 October 2023 to 10 May 2024, please see our response to previous related request, our ref: FOI_24-128.

On this occasion it is not possible to provide all of the requested information. In line with your rights under section 1(1)(a) of the Act to be informed whether information is held, we confirm that the University does not hold any recorded information for any number of students who have been reported to our Prevent lead for Prevent concerns for the period 11 May 2024 to 25 March 2025. There were no students reported to our University’s Prevent lead for prevent concerns during this time.

Question 4. The number of staff who have been reported to your University’s Prevent Lead, or equivalent post, as Prevent concerns since 1 October 2023. Please break this down by:

• Whether the concern prompting the referral was related to protest activity and, if so, the type of cause (for example Pro-Palestinian, Environmental, Animal Rights)

• The outcome of this report (eg Prevent referral made)

Our response:

On this occasion it is not possible to provide any of the requested information. In line with your rights under section 1(1)(a) of the Act to be informed whether information is held, we confirm that the University does not hold any recorded information for any number of staff who have been reported to the University’s Prevent lead as Prevent concerns since 01 October 2023. No members of university staff have been reported during the requested period.

Question 5. The number of students involved in protest activity whose personal data has since 1 October 2023 been:

• Requested by the police in connection with their protest activity, broken down by the type of cause (eg Pro-Palestinian, Environmental, Animal Rights)

• Shared with the police in connection with their protest activity, broken down by the type of cause (eg Pro-Palestinian, Environmental, Animal Rights)

Our response:

For the period 01 October 2023 to 10 May 2025, please see our response to previous related request, our ref: FOI_24-128.

For the period 11 May 2024 to 25 March 20025, Norfolk Constabulary have requested CCTV image data from the University on one occasion in relation to protest activity on campus. The University does not hold a breakdown of whose personal data was captured on the CCTV images and whether any of those individuals were or are students at the University.

Values marked fewer than five <5: Section 40 (2) exemption explanation:

On this occasion, it is not possible to provide all the requested information. The Act contains several exemptions that allow public authorities to withhold certain information from release. We have applied the following exemption to part of your request.

We can confirm that the University does hold this data, and we believe that the requested information, constitutes the personal data of individuals, as defined by Article 4(1) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, due to the small numbers involved, we consider these details are exempt from disclosure under Section 40(2) of the FOI Act.

We believe that disclosure this data would be contrary to the requirements of Article 5(1)(a) of the GDPR; namely that information must be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner. These individuals would have no expectation that this information would be made publicly available, and we have not identified a lawful basis that would allow or require us to disclose this information. To ensure that we do not inadvertently release personal data in this response or in combination with other publicly available data, we have replaced all values between 0 and 4 in relation to the number of individuals with the value ‘<5’.