An F Grade on Protests for University Presidents

[Oscar]

An F Grade on Protests for University Presidents

[ https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2024/05/15/F ... dium=email ]

Freedom of assembly is a right. Stop cracking down on peaceful encampments and do this instead.

Emmett Macfarlane May 15, 2024 - The Tyee

Emmett Macfarlane is a professor of political science at the University of Waterloo. This piece is drawn from his blog Declarations of Invalidity.

EXCERPT: "After weeks of watching the news as universities and police across North America repress and violate free expression amid largely peaceful protest, it was with a “grave” institutional voice that the University of Waterloo issued a release notifying the campus community that an encampment was established Monday.

The encampment at Waterloo is like many of the others erected to register opposition to the mounting death toll in Gaza. The protesters have built a small community of tents, moved a bunch of lounger chairs from a main quad to the hill and put up fencing.

And so the campus where I am a faculty member has become one more site for testing whether Canadian universities are truly committed to preserving and protecting freedom of expression.

Canadian university administrators are so far failing that test. Two weeks ago, McGill followed the unfortunate pattern of many American universities by calling on the police to deal with the inconvenience of protesters camped out on its grounds. The University of Toronto erected barricades and “No Tents” signs to prevent similar protests on its campus. At the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary, police violently cleared peaceful student encampments. . . . ."

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