McGill University has ordered a pro-Palestine student association to remove the institution’s name from its title, after negotiations between the two parties broke down in recent weeks and heightened tension on campus.
For a month, the Student Association of McGill University (AÉUM) held several meetings with officials of the post-secondary institution “to try to reach an agreement” aimed at allowing the association Solidarité pour les Droits Humaines of Palestinians (SPHR) to be able to continue to publicly associate with the university, using its name. However, these discussions proved unsuccessful, indicated the AÉUM in a statement published on its website Monday.
“We regret to announce that SPHR will no longer be able to use the McGill name,” the short statement read. “We continue to take seriously our role as liaison between student groups and the administration and will continue to study possible corrective measures,” continues the AÉUM.
For several months, the dispute has been burning between the English-speaking university and the student association Solidarity for the Human Rights of Palestinians (SPHR). The latter regularly holds demonstrations on the McGill campus to denounce the Israeli bombings which have intensified on the territory of Gaza since the deadly attack by the militant group Hamas on October 7, killing thousands of Palestinian civilians.
“We see this as an attempt to silence us regarding the genocide happening in Palestine,” reacted Monday a representative of SPHR McGill, who did not want to be named due to the tense climate on campus.
A contested policy
Last month, the student association received the support of 78.7% of participants in a referendum on a policy “against the genocide in Palestine”. In particular, it asked McGill University to end its ties with “companies, institutions and donors complicit in genocide, settler colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians.” The document also called on the establishment to openly condemn Israeli bombings in Gaza, where a siege simultaneously limits supplies of water, food and fuel, among other things.
However, the case was brought to Superior Court by an anonymous Jewish McGill student who described the document as “hate literature.” The student, who says she fears for her safety due to a climate that has deteriorated on campus since October 7, is demanding that this policy be canceled in addition to receiving $125,000 in damages.
In response, the Superior Court granted a request for an injunction which prohibited the adoption of this policy within McGill University while the court considers this case on the merits, next March. The university establishment, for its part, has not hidden its opposition to this declaration.
“The senior management of McGill University remains of the opinion that the adoption of the proposal, in its current form, will accentuate the divide that is emerging within the McGill community, while many of our students are already experiencing great distress,” indicated the establishment in an email to Duty last November 21. The establishment also argued that this policy “would contravene” the constitution of the Student Association of McGill University (AÉUM), according to which the latter must “work to facilitate the holding of exchanges and “interactions between students in the McGill community as a whole” and act in the interest of all its members.
SPHR McGill, for its part, does not intend to stop using the name of the university in its description, online and on social networks, where the student association has thousands of subscribers. One of its representatives also indicates that the association does not receive funds from the university. So, McGill’s decision, “I don’t think it will change our activities or our objectives,” she says.
McGill University did not respond to questions from Duty at the time these lines were written.