The University of Cambridge has applied for a High Court injunction prohibiting pro-Palestine protesters from entering, occupying, or interfering with access to University head offices. 

If the University is successful, protesters will no longer be able to enter, occupy, or interfere with access to Senate House and its lawn, the Old Schools, and Greenwich House “for a purpose connected with the Palestine-Israel conflict.” A hearing has been scheduled for next Thursday (27/2).

Protesters “may be held to be in contempt of court and may be imprisoned or fined or have [their] assets seized” if they breach the injunction, according to court documents. But, internal University discussions noted that the order does not “criminalise” further protests.

According to the minutes of a meeting of senior University officials earlier this month, if the order is breached “it will then be a matter for the University to consider whether to institute proceedings for contempt of court against”.

The University has consistently rejected suggestions that their response to the protests infringes on the activists’ freedom of protest.

A spokesperson for the University previously told Varsity: “Any claim that the University is trying to restrict protest is ridiculous. There are many ways protests can take place and voices can be heard, but the actions we are taking will protect the right of other members of our community to graduate and for staff to carry out their work.”

The University told the court that if occupations continued, the “irreparable harm” done to Cambridge and its stakeholders “cannot be adequately compensated in money”. According to a sworn statement by Emma Rampton, the University’s registrary, the occupations of Greenwich House and Senate House lawn last year cost the University “at least £230 000”.

This went towards additional security and the cleaning of Greenwich House after the occupation ended, including an electronic security sweep. It also included “substantial” legal costs related to the University’s application for an interim non-disclosure order against protesters who accessed confidential documents.

The University also cited disruption to graduations caused by the Senate House occupation as justification for the order. In May 2024, the graduations of over 1,000 graduands, with over 2,700 guests, were disrupted when C4P occupied Senate House Yard, with ceremonies being moved into colleges.

Last November, more than 500 graduands also had their degree ceremonies disrupted when the occupation restarted, forcing ceremonies into Great St Mary’s church.

The University said that this disruption caused “significant stress” for University and college staff, and had a “significant adverse impact” on graduands and their guests. It warned that in the future it might not be able to source alternative buildings at short notice.

Rampton also outlined the broader harm caused by last term’s occupation of Greenwich House. In particular, Rampton identified concerns about activists accessing confidential or commercially sensitive information while occupying the buildings, after activists were observed accessing restricted areas of Greenwich House, and opening and searching through locked cabinets.

She noted that Cambridge generates a turnover of over £500 million each year from research grants, which could be jeopardised if the University cannot maintain its obligations to safeguard confidential information.

These concerns led the University to seek and obtain High Court orders prohibiting protesters from sharing information they obtained while occupying Greenwich House last year.

On 6 December, the day the Greenwich House occupation ended, Mr Justice Trower ordered protesters to hand documents which they took during the occupation over to the University’s solicitors, and to destroy any copies they made.

The judge also ordered the activists to confirm to the University that they had handed over all information in their possession, and destroyed all copies. The protesters were also ordered to identify anyone with whom they had shared the information.

In a subsequent hearing, also at the High Court, held on 13 December last year, Mr Justice Mann reiterated that: “The Defendants must not use, publish or communicate or disclose to any other person” any information “accessed or obtained during the course of the occupation of Greenwich House”.

If the defendants breach the order, they “may be held to be in contempt of court and may be imprisoned or fined or have [their] assets seized,” according to court documents.

It is not known whether the protesters complied with the orders. Last Friday (14/2), the University applied for a further hearing to take place in April. It also asked for permission to make a witness statement explaining the findings of an ongoing audit assessing which documents in Greenwich House were accessed by the activists.

In addition to this, the University authorities have been trying to ascertain the identities of those who occupied Greenwich House and Senate House lawn last year.

According to Rampton’s witness statement, Cambridge has been processing CCTV footage, C4P’s Instagram posts, and photographs taken by University staff and security to try to identify students. This process has included passing images to Senior Tutors and Head Porters who were willing to assist with this process.

The University also considered identifying protesters occupying the building using WiFi access data from Greenwich House, but decided against it, as passersby could be unwittingly captured on those logs.

Rampton added that the University was concerned that sharing images of occupiers more widely, such as via a website, carried “a high risk of misidentification and possibly victimisation”.

She also said that the University had only identified one protester so far, who they are not naming because “it would be unfair to single him out and to subject him to the media attention that he might get”. It is not known if this individual is subject to other disciplinary proceedings.

Greenwich House contains several of the University’s main administrative departments. The pro-Palestine activists occupied the site last term to protest Cambridge’s response to the conflict in Israel and Gaza. They called on Cambridge to condemn “genocide” in Palestine, and to divest its holdings in companies which support the Israeli war effort.

Specifically, the occupation came in response to C4P’s belief that the University was reneging on an agreement made with the group, in which C4P dismantled its encampment on King’s Parade in exchange for the University agreeing to review its investments in arms companies.

That review is ongoing, but on 14 November last year, the University published a statement on the status of the working group, which acknowledged a delay to the group's work, claiming that its initial “timescales” for reviewing its weapons ties were “optimistic”. 

This statement was criticised by students and academics, who accused the University of “back-pedalling” and “watering down” its commitments.

In response to the subsequent occupation of Greenwich House, and the renewed occupation of the Senate House Yard on 27 November, the University removed two C4P representatives from the working group conducting the review into arms investments. They were reinstated following the end of the occupation.

At the time, Emma Rampton said: “Dialogue cannot proceed while significant parts of the University are subjected to disruption and occupation.”

Tensions rose further when C4P claimed that on 2 December students occupying the building had been threatened with “permanent or temporary exclusion from the University”. It is not known whether such action was taken. The occupation ended shortly afterwards, on 6 December.

This was not the first time that Greenwich House has been occupied by activists. In 2018, Cambridge’s Zero Carbon Society occupied the building in order to push the University to commit to divesting from fossil fuels by 2022.

After seven days, the University obtained a court order enabling them to evict the occupiers, who were then physically removed from the building by bailiffs.