Order has returned to the McGill campus. Gone are the tents and their fenced perimeter covered in anti-genocide posters. Gone are the wooden pallets that formed pathways on the now-muddy ground.
Gone too were the store where everything was free, the tent of teachers supporting Palestine and the screen showing documentaries. Gone, finally, was the group of young people who dared to say that an educational institution should not finance genocidal practices.
On July 10, the McGill administration finally succeeded in dismantling the pro-Palestinian encampment and expelling its members. After 10 weeks of fearmongering, whining and legal wrangling, it hired a security firm and a demolition company. Having restored order, it is now concerned about its continued existence. While there is no longer an encampment at McGill, things are not back to normal. The campus is unrecognizable.
Now every entrance is blocked by rickety fences like those that surrounded the camp. The hand-painted revolutionary posters have been replaced by signs that read “Private Property. No Trespassing.”
Security guards patrol the grounds and control access. To enter, you need a McGill ID card or a form signed by a member of the senior administration. Everything has been put in place to chase away so-called dangerous foreigners from this public university.
Fortress
McGill University has thus transformed itself into a fortress, on alert. And for anyone who sees universities as open-door places where free speech, debate and rigorous learning are the order of the day, the situation is indeed alarming, even shameful.
These recent developments are not surprising. It has been an eventful year for McGill. Two strikes have taken place: one by teaching assistants and one by law professors. Professors in two other faculties have begun to unionize. Even before the encampment, a siege mentality was already permeating the senior administration.
The last time the University saw such unrest was perhaps in 1968-1969, the time of Operation McGill French, the occupation of the Department of Political Science and the holding at McGill of the Congress of Black Writers, a hotbed of activism.
The administration has responded to the situation in an authoritarian manner, not hesitating to curb freedom of speech and assembly. It has been particularly harsh toward its students. When, in November, members of a student union voted overwhelmingly for a resolution calling on it to sever its ties to the genocide of the Palestinian people, it threatened to defund all student organizations. Before the vote took place and without regard for their professional autonomy, it pressured professors, ordering them to prohibit the presentation of the resolution in class.
In March, when striking adjuncts (mostly graduate students) used the usual pressure tactics, the administration sent a series of messages describing their actions as unacceptable and called the police. Despite the anti-scab provisions of the Labor Code, it threatened to withhold the pay of faculty who refused to cross picket lines or do the strikers’ work.
Seat
With the establishment of the encampment on April 27, the siege mentality intensified. The encampment was quickly described as the work of extremist and anti-Semitic outlaws who were threatening campus activities. Then the University turned—unsuccessfully!—to the police and the courts.
Meanwhile, on the ground, and whatever one thinks of the student revolutionary fervor, the atmosphere was good-natured. The journalists and professors who took the trouble to visit the camp (we were there) observed it.
Violence? It was mostly about everyday details, like how best to use the mismatched donations that were pouring in. Anti-Semitism? It was about sharing Shabbat meals. In fact, Jewishness was well represented among those participating in the encampment.
Even the Montreal Police Department tempered McGill’s outbursts. It refused to intervene during the peaceful demonstrations, despite the administration’s efforts. As for the courts, they rejected the requests for injunctions.
The administration never proved that there was violence or anti-Semitism emanating from the camp. It cared little for the facts. Instead, it tried to discredit the camp, cobbling together a narrative that would justify its dismantling and using the most classic othering tactics to do so: the camp was made up of people from outside McGill and then the homeless, an overdose had occurred there, and rats had invaded it.
Narrative
After the camp was dismantled, the siege narrative continued unabated. With the “enemy” defeated, the campus was transformed into an occupation zone. The entire community seemed to be under suspicion.
McGill remains not only a prestigious university, but a wonderful one. It is an oasis of reason and knowledge in a world that is losing interest in these values. As professors, we are committed to it wholeheartedly. The McGill student body is second to none. Teaching them is a joy, a privilege. Our colleagues are brilliant and helpful. We love our university deeply, but at this moment, we are worried about it.
A university that seeks to stifle forms of protest it deems inappropriate, that threatens, humiliates and criminalizes its student body, that distorts facts to support its positions and that denies the public access to its campus is not a place where debate and learning can take place in freedom. It is failing in its mission. Soon, a new academic year will begin. Let us hope that McGill rises to the occasion this time.