This weekend the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secularist Student Societies (AHS), held its National Convention at Conway Hall in London. It has been a tumultuous year for student atheism, Humanism and secularism. From censorship of ‘blasphemous’ students to enforced segregation by sex in some lectures, the need for, and importance, of non-religious student societies has never been clearer. This was an important chance for students to get together and learn from each other’s experiences throughout the past academic year, and hear talks from AHS supporters including AC Grayling, Mary Honeyball MEP, Simon Singh, Kenan Malik, Christina Patterson, and many others.
Censorship has been a particularly big problem for many of the AHS’s 51 member student societies and the importance of free speech featured strongly in the convention program. The AHS has this year been successful in protecting the free expression of our members. In October, our members at the London School of Economics (LSE) had their freshers’ fair stall surrounded by 10 security guards who threatened to throw them out for wearing ‘blasphemous’ t-shirts. When they agreed to cover them up they had a security guard assigned to each student to follow them for the rest of the day to ensure them kept them covered. We were able to provide pro bono legal support from a leading QC, whose formal complaint eventually resulted in an apology from the university and their students’ union. Just last month, our members at South Bank University had their posters of the Flying Spaghetti Monster banned for being ‘religiously offensive’. Working with the BHA, the AHS got press coverage for the students in the Guardian, Times and Indepe
The convention was also a chance to recognise the hard work of our societies in building non-religious community and fighting religious privilege on campus. The AHS awarded three £250 prizes for the best atheist, Humanist and secularist activities. The winner of the best atheist activity was the South Bank group for their ‘Ask An Atheist’ event, in recognition not only of a successful event but the challenges they have faced down in simply existing as open atheists on their campus. Best Humanist activity went to Liverpool University Humanists, who organised a 24-hour non-stop Wikipedia marathon, editing pages on Humanism and raising over £150 for charity as part of the AHS’s annual Non Prophet Week. Best Secularist Activity went to Edinburgh University Humanists for submitting motions to their students union to end gender segregation at religious society events and to have the union become officially ‘secularist’. The awards came as part of a Sunday filled with workshops for society leaders on finance, cooperation with local groups, dialogue with religious people, combating apathy, and a debating workshop with our Chief Executive, Andrew Copson.
President of the AHS, Rory Fenton, said: ‘Students represent the future of UK Humanism and we are proud to be supporting them. While this year has seen more attempts at censorship, it has also seen victories against those efforts. As a student myself, I hope we can continue to unite non-religious students under the AHS banner. As we gain more and more members, the tide is in our favour!’