200 years of McGill University | “There is nothing to celebrate”

As McGill University celebrates its bicentennial, students demand that the statue of its slave founder James McGill be dismantled. They also want more space for blacks and their history in this establishment.

Florence Morin-Martel
Press

“For me, there is nothing to celebrate,” says law student Fanta Ly of McGill University’s 200th anniversary. Knowing the colonial past of the establishment – whose founder James McGill owned at least five black slaves and two native slaves – contextualizes “the experience of the black community at McGill.” “This allows us to understand for whom the University is made,” maintains the latter.

On March 31, the celebrations for the bicentennial of the university took place, founded in 1821 thanks to a bequest from the rich Scottish merchant James McGill, who arrived in Montreal at the end of the 18th century.^e century. After the unbolting of the statues of the Southern General Robert Lee in the United States and of the slaver Edward Colston in the United Kingdom, will the founder of McGill be next? This is what students are calling for, as well as greater black representation on campus and in the university curriculum.

The statue must be unbolted, launches law student Anne-Clara Sanon, categorically. As a person of color, seeing the James McGill monument on campus makes her feel even more “isolated”.

Similarly, Adenrele Orimalade, president of Black Students’ Network, points out that a statue “is a symbol of power erected to celebrate a person”. According to him, the sculpture is a “constant reminder” of anti-Black racism and colonialism, in addition to honoring a man who made his fortune through slavery, in particular by importing goods from the West Indies.

Being a slave in the 18th century^e century is not exceptional, nuance Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec, full professor in the history department at the University of Sherbrooke. The fact remains that the main Quebec university today bears the name of a slave owner, he continues. “What do we do with this?” Asks the professor. If it is not necessary to unbolt the statue, it is possible to make the public space a “restorative” place by adding black and indigenous voices who speak about slavery, says the professor.

“A decision concerning the permanent site of the sculpture will be taken by the end of McGill’s bicentennial”, specifies Frédérique Mazerolle, public relations officer at the University. For now, the statue of James McGill has been removed, after being vandalized last July.

Crying lack of representation

If it is important to talk about James McGill’s past, it is above all to recognize the discrimination that still exists in the institution, say the students. According to Anne-Clara Sanon, McGill University is doing “the bare minimum” to tackle racism and must improve mental health services for racialized students.

In 2020, the establishment implemented a plan against anti-black racism. If it is a “step in the right direction”, it must be completely executed, argues Adenrele Orimalade.

The main issue at the university is the lack of black representation on both faculty and management, argues Orimalade. Things must change: “McGill is such an important name in Canada and around the world that making such changes will no doubt influence other institutions,” he said.

Hiring more black professors is one of the recommendations in the McGill bicentennial report by researcher Charmaine Nelson. These represented 0.8% of the faculty in September 2020, according to figures from the institution.

Since 2020, 15 new black professors have been hired, said Frédérique Mazerolle, public relations officer at McGill University.

One symptom of “structural racism” in Canadian universities is homogeneous faculty, says Karine Coen-Sanchez, doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ottawa. It also manifests itself in “governance, research and the curriculum,” she continues. The learning materials for most programs, for example, do not include the work of black and native academics. “It silences and invisibilizes racialized students in universities and is used to maintain the biased status quo on campuses,” she concludes.

A survey of 76 racialized students – during a webinar on systemic racism at Canadian universities – found that 47% of them said they had experienced racism during their studies, reports M^me Coen-Sanchez. The majority of respondents, 94%, said they never reported racism because they felt it was “unnecessary” or “caused more repercussions / problems”. The same exercise repeated with racialized teachers showed similar results.

The construction of the breed that circulated in the Americas is what remains of slavery in Quebec today, argues Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec. “The idea of ​​race is circulating so well that we are unable to accept that there is something legitimate in the expression of systemic racism,” he said.