The Durham students fighting for universities to have more legal accountability 

By Stella Fenwick 

In 2023, a petition with over 128,000 signatures went to parliament with Durham MP Mary Foy, among others, calling for the nation’s universities to implement a legal duty of care. This duty would hold universities accountable against a national standard to enforce sufficient training and support students in cases of suicide, sexual violence and other well-being issues experienced on campus  

Universities currently owe students a general duty that is not always legally enforceable. It requires a ‘reasonable’ standard of teaching and pastoral support. This general language allows universities to interpret this ‘duty’ in whichever manner they choose. As a result, universities have no significant legal responsibility for any psychiatric harm arising from its actions or omissions in cases of violence or suffering amongst their students. When students feel an absence of protection and equality in the university’s mishandling of serious cases, this perpetuates poor mental health in students, including what Dr. Freyd has called ‘institutional betrayal’.  

When students feel an absence of protection and equality in the university’s mishandling of serious cases, this perpetuates poor mental health in students, including what Dr. Freyd has called ‘institutional betrayal’

Earlier this year the University of Bristol responded in court to student Natasha Abrahart’s suicide on campus by stating that they had fulfilled ‘reasonable’ adjustments to her disability at a ‘competency standard’, despite overwhelming support from the public concern about ever increasing suicide and sexual violence cases in the student population. This has shown the public that an absence of legal accountability, a duty that is currently enforced successfully in both schools and workplaces, can swiftly save a university from blame when a student’s suffering is mishandled or if the institution is brought to court for its failure to protect its students on campus.  

For example, a study found that Durham’s ‘compulsory’ consent course has not been completed by over 7,000 students. This startling oversight is yet to be addressed by the university as they have no legal reference that enforces this training. Instead, there is the possibility of harmful consequences among students when institutions allow training like this to go ignored by their students.  

The legal enforcement of this kind of education will ensure that every student is receiving training on sexual violence before stepping foot on campus. If courses like this were added to a legal duty of care, it means that when a student ignores the course and commits an act of violence, the university has failed in their statutory obligation to protect students from harm, including sexual violence.  

In response, Durham and Edinburgh students have begun a multi-university campaign recruiting volunteers, MPs, fellow charities, and testimonies from students, all sharing feelings of anger and betrayal at the prevalence of mishandled cases. The Durham group Safe Education is working with Sex on Campus and Right to Equality in refusing to let the 2023 conversation disappear into silence.  

The Durham group Safe Education is working with Sex on Campus and Right to Equality in refusing to let the 2023 conversation disappear into silence

Durham University has released a statement on duty of care, along with statements of trend monitoring for such issues as sexual misconduct and violence (SMV) reports. In their statement on SMV reports in the academic year 2022/23 (the most recent report available), it is show that 274 disclosures were made, and 361 incidents occurred (of the people feeling safe to speak out about their case), affirming a continued trend of increase since the first statement of in 2015. 

This rising trend of sexual violence is shared amongst UK campuses, and is left to be addressed by a general duty of care which has led to many failures, such as deaths similar to Natasha Abrahart’s. UK universities are currently protected from the outrage of their students because parliament has not given higher education a legally enforceable responsibility to protect its students to a more than ‘general’ standard.  

Safe Education is a small but rapidly growing collective working with politicians, lecturers, and activist groups to strengthen and standardise a duty of care that is legally required across the nation’s higher education institutions. They are drawing attention to experiences of sexual violence among Durham University students, and the persistent testimonies of inadequate support from universities nationwide. The students are up against a trend of systematic protection of institutions from the threat of responsibility for certain cases where the university’s actions can be tied to an instance of student suffering.  

Though equality law can support a student struggling with mental illness or sexual violence to a certain extent, the absence of a thoroughly enforced accountability in higher education gifts universities a loophole to supersede equality law with the informal defence of ‘we did enough’ to a ‘reasonable standard’. Students that experience a crisis on campus, and suffer as a result of feeling that the university did not do enough, will feel powerless when taking the institution to court because of the absence of an objective, statutory standard of responsibility.  

The male-dominated institutions of law and education will continue to have the upper hand to protect their finances when a young person brings their story of campus rape to court, and the students of Safe Education are working from within our university to put an end to this dangerous loophole.  

Image credit: Trevor Littlewood