Last updated: 10/04/08
Student suspended for criticising course on Youtube

A masters student has been suspended indefinitely from her university for criticising her course in a video posted on Youtube.

Naomi Sugai, posted a minute and a half video complaining about shortcomings on her £4,750-a-year business course at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge.

At the time of going to press the video has been viewed 2,660 times and has prompted comments from a number of fellow students raising similar concerns.

The university called other comments, which have now been removed, posted on the site ‘unfounded’, stating that they were ‘defamatory’. In a heavy handed response to the video, in a letter advising Sugai of her suspension, Steven Bennett, the university’s secretary warned, “Should you attend the campus during your suspension, security staff have been instructed to remove you and, if necessary, to seek assistance from the police. This matter has also been referred to our solicitors.”

Sugai's Youtube video message

Sugai, who has a degree in Japanese and performing arts from Oxford Brookes University, accused the university of trying to silence students’ criticisms.

“This is heavy-handed and ridiculous,” she said.

“At the heart of it is an attempt to limit freedom of speech. I’ve paid good money for this course and I’m not getting what was promised in the prospectus. This suspension is an attempt to scare me, and other students, into keeping quiet.”

In her video called ‘ARU sucks’ Sugai describes late and inaccurate timetables, lecturers not turning up and modules promised in the prospectus which were not available.

Sugai, who is the student representative on the course, also said that after a lecturer failed to turn up for the very first lecture the session was moved permanently to a different day.

After the switch one student was unable to attend each lecture because of work commitments.

The university claim that the suspension was not given because of Sugai’s complaints but because of ‘defamatory’ comments posted on Youtube.

Mr Bennett said: “I wrote to the student and asked her to remove unfounded allegations about a senior member of staff, and the university in general, within 48 hours, otherwise she would be suspended. As the remarks were not removed, the student was suspended pending disciplinary action.”

by Mary Stott