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A student from King’s College London (KCL) has sparked off a sexism row after claims he verbally abused a female member of Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA).

Vitus van Rij, 18, allegedly told Isabella Burton, a second year Oxford theology student who was giving a speech during an OUCA education debate, to “shush”, adding “you’re a woman”.

Van Rij, a member of KCL Conservative Society, seems to have arrived in Oxford from London with a delegation from UCL Conservative Society, invited guests of OUCA. He is said to have then started chanting “kitchen, kitchen, kitchen, get back to the kitchen”.

The Daily Telegraph reported that he went on to tell her to “go back to washing the dishes” instead of debating political topics.

Many students reportedly felt that the event organisers were slow to react to the sexist comments, but he was eventually ejected by Oxford Union president Laura Winwood who also publicly condemned the incident on stage. She and OUCA President Natalie Shina said that “misogyny is not tolerated” on Union premises.

Mr van Rij, understood to be from Belgium and studying in the War Studies department at King’s, is now banned from UCL Conservative events and OUCA events.

According to the Daily Telepgraph, Kieran Weisberg, the president of UCL Conservatives, said he was not sure how van Rij came to be at the event, but may have heard of it through Facebook.

OUCA founded in 1924, is one of the oldest student political organisations in the country. It has only recently been re-affiliated as a society – and is once again able to use the university’s name – after a racist joke was told at a hustings event last year.

Past presidents of the association include former Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and Edward Heath, as well as current Foreign Secretary William Hague.

Van Rij is said to have refused to apologise for his comments.

The President of KCL Conservative Society, Simon Moorcroft, told London Student: “Obviously I want to stress that he was attending as an individual and not representing our society. Clearly the comments are unacceptable and certainly we will not tolerate this sort of behaviour. He has caused distress to the individual who these comments were directed at, and again, it’s not acceptable, it goes against everything that the Conservative Party and King’s College Conservatives stand for.”

He said that van Rij would be banned from attending future events and that the society’s committee “intend to terminate his membership as soon as we can”, following the Students Union’s procedures.

“We don’t want him as a member”, he said.

The University of London Union (ULU) has agreed to let Birkbeck College top up the wages of staff employed in Birkbeck Students’ Union bar so the latter can live up to its commitment to the London Living Wage (LLW).

The contract to run the Birkbeck SU bar is held by ULU which currently pays staff there the same basic wage as on the ULU site, £6.10 an hour. Since Birkbeck SU and UCU passed policy on becoming a Living Wage employer, and Birkbeck governors recognised this, the issue has been a point of contention with ULU.

Sean Rillo Raczka, Birkbeck SU Chair, said that Birkbeck had threatened to break off the contract and bring its employees in house.

He said: “We first raised this with management about six months ago because we weren’t implementing in practice our policy commitment to the Living Wage. The ULU Trustees felt it wasn’t fair to pay different rates but technically and legally the Birkbeck bar is separate to the ULU bar. Although the contract is run by ULU, it’s a different site and so different wages can be paid.”

The Trustees say that ULU can’t afford to pay the full London Living Wage, £7.60 an hour, to all its staff, but ULU will not be financially affected by the new deal. Birkbeck will cover the cost of making up the difference from August 1st, when the higher rate will be paid to staff working at Birkbeck bar.

Rillo Raczka said the details of where the money would come from were yet to be decided, but he believes the college and not the SU should foot the bill.

ULU is also likely to increase staff pay on August 1^st, but it maintains that it cannot afford to pay all bar staff the full LLW. In April ULU announced that it would be able to pay cleaners the LLW after signing a contract with LPM Ltd; the new deal also saved the union £30,000.

The university lecturers’ trade union could vote on national strike action unless agreements are reached over redundancies, according to general secretary Sally Hunt.

Hunt, head of the University and College Union (UCU), speaking ahead the union’s recent national conference, said members could soon be calling for a ballot on national action, after a series of local strikes at universities and further education colleges in recent weeks.

“We are getting almost daily reports of redundancies from our officials and there’s a point in time when you can’t actually carry on without a backlash.”

“We are in talks with the higher education employers and have been for the last two years requesting and negotiating for a job security agreement. We have got to get some parameters between the universities and unions negotiating these cuts.”

There had been more than 15 strikes across the higher education sector since March. These have included the universities of Leeds and Sussex, as well as King’s College London. Most have been sparked by job cuts – reported at institutions like University College London, King’s, Westminster and Glasgow, and numerous others.

Hunt said: “It’s getting to the point where there’s a question mark in my mind – how long does this remain a local action? Soon our members will want us to take this to a national level and make a national response too.”

British universities were last week told by Chancellor George Osborne of further funding cuts or £200 million, bringing the total to around £1.2bn between now and 2013. The coalition government also said only 10,000 extra places would be created for admission this autumn, as opposed to 20,000.

On Monday, in her speech to congress, Hunt said: “”What kind of government would want to cut colleges and universities by £1.5bn while proposing to give £8bn of tax giveaways to big business? Let me state for the record, I don’t agree with Nick. Or his new best friend, George. Or any other member of this government which has decided to prioritise the rich at the expense of the poor.”

She added: “We will not accept the attack on education being implemented by the current government. Nor will we stand back while students with the ability to benefit from education are stopped from doing so and told to accept their lot in life.”

A number of institutions are currently waiting for strike ballots to come back, including England’s biggest college, Manchester College. King’s called a halt on compulsory redundancies following sustained union pressure, and predicted high numbers of redundancies at UCL were averted following management concessions a day before staff were due to go on strike on May 5^th.

Jocelyn Prudence, chief executive of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) said: “With over £1billion of cuts to the sector in England alone this year, universities and colleges are faced with difficult decisions.

“It is disappointing to see UCU only two months after the release of the jointly agreed Acas digest on job security, raising the possibility of national industrial action. These matters are being fully discussed at the particular independent universities or colleges facing these challenges.”

She also said that universities were independent employers and added: “A one-size-fits-all approach would be like the CBI creating an agreement for the private sector.”