The president of the Oxford Union has resigned after a blind student was forcibly removed from an event last month.
Postgraduate student Ebenezer Azamati – who is originally from Ghana – was “dragged” from a debate at the prestigious society after he tried to return to an accessible seat he had reserved.
Witnesses at the event told the Oxford Student newspaper that staff were “unnecessarily violent”, calling the incident “humiliating and traumatising”.
Meanwhile, Azamati said the treatment he faced left him feeling “unwelcome in the Union, Oxford and even the country”.
In the wake of the incident, Union president Brendan McGrath lodged a complaint against Azamtai for violent behaviour. The 25-year-old student was found guilty during a hearing held by the society, but this was overturned following an appeal on Saturday.
Resigning from his role, McGrath said he had “manifestly failed” to make sure all members felt welcome at the Oxford Union.
“For all of my shortcomings, and all of my mistakes, I apologise profusely and unqualifiedly,” he said in a letter to the society’s standing committee.
McGrath said he was asked to bring a complaint against Azamati on behalf of a staff member – but that he should have recognised his “wider obligation”.
“The right response would not have begun with prosecution and apportioning blame; it would have addressed immediately the extreme distress of all involved, and pursued constructive solutions to the institutional problems highlighted,” he wrote.
He has now called on the union to launch an independent public review into its disability policies, as well as a review into the training of staff.
Nwamaka Ogbonna, president of the Oxford University Africa Society, told HuffPost UK McGrath’s resignation was “an important first step in what is obviously a much longer process”.
“It sends a strong message that leaders are expected to conduct themselves in a certain way and leaders should in fact be held accountable for their actions,” she said, calling it “symbolic”.
“But obviously Brendan’s resignation doesn’t solve all the problems in the Oxford Union. That is why we are working with our allies within the union to see if they can pass policies that makes it a safe and welcoming place for every student that chooses to go there.”
The society is also calling for compensation for Azamati and for the security staff involved in the incident to be punished.
The Oxford Union – which is not tied to Oxford University – is a prestigious debating society which has been addressed by the likes of Theresa May, former US president Bill Clinton and actor Morgan Freeman.
