Students’ Union apologises for wrongful expulsions 25 years ago

Twenty-five years ago, The University of Salford’s LGBT+ Society was disbanded and the committee members expelled from the Students’ Union.

JEFF Evans and Simon McGurk were accused of distributing offensive materials on campus, in the form of a graphic image within their annual Pink Guide.

The Students’ Union has recently issued a formal apology to all the banned students and awarded them lifetime membership to the Student Union.

The Pink Guide was a project created by a group of students known as the Pink Collective, encompassing students from University of Salford, University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University. The aim of the guide was to educate new students about LGBT life in Greater Manchester.

In the early 90s, the AIDS epidemic was a prominent focus for the LGBT+ communities, as a result, the Pink Guide emphasised sexual health and safety. In one of these sexual health articles there was a graphic image illustrating safer sex practices, this image was obtained from Government issued health information.

Despite the insistence from the Pink Collective that the image was vital to the dissemination of safer sex practices, the University of Salford Students’ Union upheld a distribution ban of the Pink Guide and expelled the students involved.

By pure coincidence, a recent University of Salford Students’ Union Student Officer met a member of the Pink Collective at an external event. This former student, Jeff Evans, told the Student Officer his story and showed him the Pink Guide that led to the ban.

The Students’ Union felt their actions in 1993 were discriminatory and not in line with the current values of the organisation. They invited Jeff and another Pink Collective member, Simon McGurk to campus to tell their story. This visit was documented alongside a visit to the Manchester Central Library Archives, to create a short film about the Pink Guide.

The premiere of this film takes place tomorrow, Tuesday, August 20, between 5-6pm at the North Side, University House at the University of Salford, and will feature a Q&A with Jeff and Simon. Everyone is welcome to the screening of this film.

Jeff and Simon have been working with the Students’ Union to create a new Pink Guide which will be available to Salford students during Welcome Week 2019.

Former Pink Collective and lifetime Students’ Union member, Jeff Evans said: “It is a shameful period in the past of the Students’ Union, and I am so pleased that the organisation has had the maturity to put their hand up and say, ‘this was wrong, and we want to try and make it right’.”

To fine out more information, click here: