Cambridge Union

The Union is legally a self-funded charity that owns and has full control over its private property and buildings in the Cambridge city centre. It enjoys strong relations with the university, and allows other student societies to hire rooms for a nominal cost. Guests are sometimes admitted to Union events for a charge.[3][4]

After more than 200 years, the Cambridge Union is best known for its debates, which receive national and international media attention. The top members of its debating team compete internationally against other top debating societies. The program also includes special events, such as a comedy debate in collaboration with the Cambridge Footlights.[5] The Union also organises talks by visiting speakers and a wide array of events throughout the academic year.[3][4]

The Cambridge Union is sometimes confused with the Cambridge University Students' Union, the student representative body set up in 1971; consequently, the term 'President of the Union' may cause confusion. Although the Cambridge Union has never functioned as a students' union in the modern sense, it did briefly affiliate to the UK's National Union of Students in 1924.[4]

In 2015 the Union celebrated its bicentenary; a committee composed of former and current Officers was put together to organise a range of events to mark the occasion. This included special debates, dinners and parties in Cambridge and, for the first time in its history, in London.[6]

In January 2015 the Union announced a £9.5m refurbishment project to begin in late 2016 to address major structural problems and to expand existing facilities, subject to approval by planners, to include a new Wine Bar on the ground floor and a Jazz & Comedy Club in the basement (in the old home of the Cambridge Footlights). It also announced a plan to use the revenue generated from the new building to reduce membership fees to make the Union more accessible to students from lower income backgrounds, and to increase the size of its competitive debating activities for disadvantaged children and students.[7]

The development was to be partially financed through the leasing of disused parts of its site to Trinity College in a deal worth £4.5 million.[7] Planning permission was received in 2016, and a fundraising campaign to cover the remaining cost was to be launched on 11 March 2017 with a special debate between Jon Snow and Nick Robinson.[8] Construction on the major redevelopment project was scheduled to begin in Michaelmas 2018.[9]

• 
  The Cambridge Union
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  The Main Chamber
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  The 1815 Bar and Cafe

The union awards honorary memberships to particularly distinguished individuals. Honorary members include:

Arguably the most notable debate to have been held at the Union was the 1965 Baldwin/Buckley Debate. The debate, which was televised by the BBC, featured writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin and leading American conservative intellectual William F. Buckley. The motion under consideration was that ‘This House Believes The American Dream is at the Expense of the American Negro’ and the proposition won by a landslide. At the time the debate received extensive coverage on both sides of the Atlantic, and in subsequent years has come to be seen as a significant moment in the US Civil Rights Movement.[19]

The Union has a long history of receiving addresses from prominent figures. Past high profile speakers include:

• British prime ministers Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Theresa May and Boris Johnson
• US Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan
• The First Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru
• Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia [20]
• The First democratically elected President of Iraq Jalal Talabani,[21]
• The Last President of apartheid-era South Africa, F. W. de Klerk
• German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
• Australian Prime Minister John Howard
• Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi
• The Spiritual leader of Tibet, The Dalai Lama
• Prominent Conservative politicians Michael Portillo, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Andrea Leadsom
• Former Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn
• Former Leader of UKIP Nigel Farage
• American Presidential candidate and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders
• Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi
• French Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen
• Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates
• Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking
• African-American writer and activist James Baldwin
• Academic Germaine Greer
• Artificial Intelligence Engineer Tshilidzi Marwala
• Economists Ha Joon Chang and Jeffrey Sachs
• Wikileaks founder Julian Assange
• Actors Brian Blessed, Bradley Whitford, Judi Dench, Clint Eastwood, Roger Moore,[22] Bill Nighy[23] and Robert De Niro
• Former head of the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn[24]
• Chat show host Jerry Springer[25]
• Actress and model Pamela Anderson
• Magician David Blaine[26]
• Comedian and political activist Russell Brand
• American civil rights activists Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton
• Second person to walk on the Moon Buzz Aldrin.[2]
• Actress and activist Rose McGowan
• Professor and author Jordan Peterson
• American EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler

The Standing Committee (or 'Voting Members') is the Union's primary managerial body of 14 members, which consists of the current President, Vice-President and Officers, the President-Elect and Officers-Elect, and the Debating Officers and Treasurer. All Officers of the Union are elected by its membership on a termly basis, with the exception of the Vice-President, Treasurer and two Debating Officers, who are appointed on an annual basis.

Officers of the Union are elected a term in advance, allowing them to serve one term as an officer-elect to prepare for their following term in office.[27] Termly elected officers serve a term (and its preceding vacation) as "officer-elect", during which time they are members of Standing Committee.[28]

During every term, the Standing Committee appoints a variety of positions within the Union. These range from the Secretary to positions in the Events Management, Publicity, Audio-Visual and Press departments, among others. Collectively, these positions are referred to as 'Full Committee'.[29]

The Board of Trustees, currently chaired by Mohamed A. El-Erian, is responsible for overseeing the long-term development of the Union's finances and property. Whilst the Trustees are not intimately involved with the day-to-day running of the Union, they maintain ultimate legal responsibility for the organization, its assets and status as a registered charity. To maintain the link between the Student management and the Trustees, the President, the Vice President, and a Debating Officer of the Union are traditionally appointed as Trustees for the duration of their term in office.[27]

The Review Committee of the Cambridge Union is a committee of former Officers appointed by Standing Committee under the guidance of the Vice President. It is responsible for handling all disciplinary matters of the Union and may also be called upon to adjudicate on electoral malpractice. No member of Review Committee may serve as an elected officer for the duration of their term.[27]

In addition to these posts the Union also maintains an employed staff consisting of a Bursar, responsible for overseeing the long-term health of the charity, Office Managers and a Bar Manager, amongst others. The Union also holds contracts for catering, cleaning, building maintenance, property management, IT services and legal advice.

Members of staff are employed by the Union's subsidiary events company. The President, Vice-President, Bursar and other Trustees appointed on an ad-hoc basis serve as Directors of the company.

Many of the Union's former Officers have gone on to considerable personal success after their time involved in the society. Notable past Presidents and officers include:

In addition to the long list of real life distinguished individuals that served as officers of the Cambridge Union during their time in Cambridge, Will Bailey, a fictional character on The West Wing, a US television drama series, claimed to have been a "former president of the Cambridge Union on a Marshall Scholarship", as well as MacKenzie McHale, a fictional character in the hit US series, The Newsroom.

The Cambridge Union was famous within the University for having a very long and complicated constitution; it is a common rumour that the constitution is longer than the entire Constitution of Canada. This was in fact untrue, but only just: a quick count puts the old Union constitution in question at 31,309 words[32] while the complete Constitution of Canada is 31,575 words long.[33] If the University's rules on Single Transferable Voting are included, then this Constitution was indeed longer than that of Canada. These rules are referenced within this old constitution, but are not contained.

On 9 May 2011, the Union launched its online public video service CUS-Connect, whereby recordings of past events and interviews were uploaded for free viewing. These have since been transferred the Union's YouTube channel titled 'The Cambridge Union'.[34] Before 2014, the Union only occasionally live-streamed popular events, with the first ever live stream held on 12 May 2011, in which Stephen Fry debated Radio 1 DJ Kissy Sell Out on the motion: "This House believes that classical music is irrelevant to today's youth".

As part of its bicentennial celebrations in 2015, the Union launched a permanent live streaming service, to be integrated with a new automatic multi-camera rig in the Main Chamber. The new service includes the ability for "virtual" attendees to contribute to debates via questions and comments to be read out on the floor of the Union. The streaming service is hosted on the Union's website and is available only to members.[35]

The Cambridge Union, like its Oxford counterpart, has faced controversy over its choice of speakers. Protests have been arranged by students against the appearance of Universities Minister David Willetts, Government Minister Eric Pickles,[36] during which the building was broken into, former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, French politician Marine Le Pen[37] and Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange.[38] In January 2015, the hosting of Germaine Greer caused a public row between the Union and the Cambridge Students' Union's LGBT+ group, due to Greer's alleged transmisogyny towards Rachael Padman. [39] In June 2019, the hosting of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad attracted criticism from the Union of Jewish Students, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and several former Cambridge Union members including former President Adam Cannon due to the former's anti-Semitic remarks.[40][41][42][43] In February 2022, the Union hosted the Israel ambassador Tzipi Hotovely in a high-security, balloted event, resulting in protests and minor vandalism of the premises.[44]

Responding to these criticisms, the Union is often quoted as upholding the universal right to free speech, against the principles of No Platform passed by the National Union of Students and upheld by a few groups within Cambridge.[45][46][47]

Lobbying by former Union Presidents Lord Deben and Lord Lamont resulted in the specific exclusion of the Cambridge and Oxford Unions from the Government's counter-terrorism bill, amid fears it could restrict free debate. Deben argued that the provisions within the bill would have prevented the hosting of British Union of Fascists' leader Oswald Mosley in the 1950s, concluding that the bill threatened "an essential British value".[48] The National Union of Students used the exclusion to argue that the passage of the Bill was too rapid and ill-thought out, whilst both the Oxford and Cambridge Union reaffirmed that they were not legally part of their respective Universities and thus were never subject to the bill in the first place.[49]

Strong opposition to the bill from Liberal Democrats and senior Conservative peers eventually resulted in the shelving of provisions regarding Universities' until after the 2015 General Election.[50] The Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015 eventually clarified that Higher Education institutions must retain particular regard to the duty to ensure freedom of speech and the importance of academic freedom within University societies,[51] although it is unclear whether this applies to the Union.

The union called a referendum on the hosting of Julian Assange on 22 October 2015, arguing that his residency in the Ecuadorian Embassy meant he was outside the jurisdiction of UK law, and thus required the consultation of its members considering a lack of past precedent. The referendum was more widely viewed as an opinion poll on the union's refusal to "no platform" speakers.[52] It passed with 76.9% of the vote. Turnout was 1463.[52]