Concern over Gazan deaths prompt expulsions and sanctions by university administrators

Around the world those critical of Israel’s attacks into the Gaza refugee enclaves have been facing intimidation and even arrest. For students at Carleton u, this recently hit home. The Ottawa Sun reported that some Carleton university students may face expulsion and other sanctions from Carleton's administration for "hurtful and discriminatory" actions.

These actions? The Sun reports that "Students Against Israeli Apartheid made waves last week when posters depicting an Israeli warplane firing a rocket at a Palestinian child were circulated around campus, and promptly ripped down."

But hold on here, artistic licence aside, just how far from reality is such a depiction?

Palestine has been called an “open air prison” in the mainstream media. In Israel’s latest offensive into Gaza, it has been widely reported that over 1,300 Palestinians were killed. Among those were more than 400 hundred children. Despite the Israeli Defense Forces’ attempt to reduce the impact of these numbers by claiming that most (including children) were “terrorists,” demands are being made for an investigation into the apparent deliberate attacks against civilians. Such attacks and its alleged use of banned weapons have resulted in the real possibility that Israel will face charges of war crimes at the UN.

Whether or not Israeli Defense Forces specifically targeted children in Gaza is an open question right now. But depictions on Carleton campus of children being affected by the Israeli military can not be so far off that debate should be stifled and students expelled. Unfortunately, this is not the first time university administrators have used university resources to demonstrate their support for Israel.

While university administrators are working behind the scenes to derail free speech on issues they or their donors disagree with, they act outraged when the right-wing media concoct stories of censorship by students. Confusing? It is. But don't be surprised, the common denominator here is the attack on progressive campus organizing by any means available.

The attempt by Carleton University to silence debate on Israel’s militarism amounts to more than siding with the aggressor. It also chokes off public discourse on an issue that desperately needs debate now more than ever. No matter what one thinks of Israel or Palestine, the politics, the religious debates or the history, it is wrong to not speak out against the indiscriminate killing of civilians and children in Gaza. Students by-in-large recognise this.

At Ryerson, students have also been victim of this type of repression. In years past, a more political Arab Student Association was threatened over space use and status by the administration. Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights almost didn't exist because of similar friction, not the least has been rumoured to come from inside the Ryerson Students' Union itself.

Progressive people everywhere need to do a better job at unifying in the face of regressive push-back from university administrators and media. Only public pressure and a united progressive campus movement will stop the unchecked right-wing onslaught on our campuses.

Sheldon Levy Visits Israel

The Ryerson Free Press blog recently took a bit of a vacation, and returned to find out that Sheldon Levy, that loveable poster-child of a perfect university president, has also been on vacation. He took a road trip, of sorts, with five other university presidents: David Johnston of the University of Waterloo, Luc Vinet of l’Université de Montréal, Peter MacKinnon of the University of Saskatchewan, Allan Rock of the University of Ottawa and William Barker of University of King’s College in Halifax.

Rather than facing Chinese security during the Olympic lead-up, from where the majority of Ryerson’s international student population hails, Levy and his peers vacationed in the occupying state of Israel.

The tour was co-hosted by University of Toronto law professor Ed Morgan and York University historian Irving Abella, both of whom have led previous missions, according to the Canadian Jewish News.

The purpose of the trip was “to introduce the Canadians to their Israeli counterparts, to allow them to see first hand the quality of education and research at Israeli universities, and to encourage the creation of joint research and exchange programs” Abella said. He is also the former national president of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

This quite the claim, considering it is normally academics themselves who create ties with universities. New international academic partners are not decided though presidential decree.

And somehow, the ryerson.ca website has missed this story. The Free Press couldn’t find a link anywhere to a report about Levy’s trip. This is despite that the news feed has steadily published on other, somewhat less important issues than a president’s trip to a controversial state.

Perhaps that’s because Levy’s trip happened almost a year exactly to the day that he released this letter. Levy, and a number of other university presidents, were quick to condemn the British University and College Union’s (UCU) motion to boycott Israeli academic institutions. Many students disagreed with this approach and Levy was coerced into a panel on academic boycotts months after. He received a lot of flack on both sides for how the situation was handled.

Maybe the Ryerson publicity machine has learned from last year’s mistakes: from announcing support for the state of Israel without consulting students, staff or faculty, to siding with a professor over expelling a student in the infamous Facebook debacle. Maybe their approach this time was to not say anything at all.

There seems to only be one account of this trip, and it’s from the Jerusalem Post and the Canadian Jewish News.

Of course, Levy, and his jet setting colleagues, are free to travel where they please. But when Levy travels with Ryerson’s banner overhead, he has the responsibility to, at the very least, notify the community. When Levy joined others from Ontario on a trade mission to India, students were informed and the details were more public. Ryerson should at least announce that this trip occurred, and to justify it. If the University is afraid that they can’t justify the trip, then hiding the fact that Levy went isn’t the way forward; he simply should not have gone.

Maybe Levy’s quick condemnation last summer of the UCU boycott wasn’t triggered by a support for academic freedom as was previously stated. Maybe he was just looking for a free trip, to materialize a year later.

For his next trip, perhaps he should look towards Cuba, Scandinavia, Ireland or Sri Lanka. Levy and his buddies could at least get a snapshot of what free university education looks like. That’s the kind of diplomacy that all Ryerson students could get behind.

Nursing school sold, Ryerson continues to commodify

This week, Ryerson University announced that it has sold the naming rights of its School of Nursing. The School is Canada’s largest in the field of nursing and is now, officially, the Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing.

Three years ago, Ryerson’s Senate (then Academic Council) and Board of Governors wrestled over how to re-write the University’s Academic Naming Policy. In the end, the policy stipulated that there had to be a vote within the academic unit to approve or deny the proposed name change. Ryerson’s article makes no reference to the percentage of faculty who voted in favour of the name change.

The school will be named after the mother of long-time Board of Governors representative Jack Cockwell, at a cost of $5 million.

Cockwell is a director of the right-wing C.D. Howe Institute, a think-tank and policy research group. It has produced research that promotes marketizing the public school system to allow families “greater choice” for elementary and secondary education through providing tax credits for private schools. It has also used personnel from the American Educational Policy Institute, an organisation that argues for higher tuition fees, to research strategies to properly fund graduate education, that include (unsurprisingly) higher tuition fees.

If market theory were to truly be applied to the post-secondary education system, it would not be the donors who decide on naming of Academic units. Nor would it be a faculty vote, as per Ryerson’s policy. It would be a decision of the 1405.7 students in the School of Nursing who pay well-over $9,931,000 a year in tuition fees. In fact, assuming it takes four years to graduate, these students’ contribution is seven times that of Cockwell’s one-time payout. Nevertheless, students graduating Fall 2008 will have the name of a South African nurse on their degree, only because her son makes a lot of money, and donated a small (likely tax deductible) portion of it.

The absurdity of market forces dictating how our public institutions run is most apparent when colleges and universities sell pieces of their public image, such as their programs’ names. Thanks to people like Cockwell, high tuition fees and ancillary fees are privatizing higher education. If, however, people like Cockwell really wanted to apply free market principles, then they would allow students to decide on the program name that will appear on their degree. They would also consent to more student representation on the Board of Governors and Senate and less criminalizing of student dissent as they pay such a large portion of the university's operating costs. Strangely, the more students are forced to pay, the more rights they loose. This goes to show that those calling for a market-based approach to higher education, like Cockwell, really don’t know Jack about the system.

The Year of the Student Code of Conduct

If college and university presidents had an annual dinner where they honoured the past year by naming it, 2007-08 would most certainly be the year of the Student Code of Conduct.

Of the dozens of stories written about codes of conduct, most have focused on key issues: the rights of students to engage in political discussion; surveillance of students while off school property; and the changing relationship between students and administration to one of policing by conduct officers .

Historically, disciplinary action by the college or university was limited to academic offences. Criminal matters were left to the police. The policing of students by Canadian post-secondary institutions has resulted in attacks on free speech and the criminalization of protest. The preference for discipline over dialog on campuses can be traced back to a 1998 meeting of the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services (CACUSS). The meeting themed “the First National Conference on Student Discipline” was kicked off by a keynote speech by Peggy Patterson, who believed “…student discipline provides us one of the best teaching tools there are.” At the time it may have seemed unlikely that such a conservative model of learning could make a comeback from the days of corporal punishment. Patterson’s legacy lives on, however, through the less conspicuously titled conference “Canadian Conference on Student Judicial Affairs.” It has been held annually ever since.

This past year, Brock , Trent, Ryerson, the University of Ottawa and others have all dealt with issues regarding student codes of conduct. At Ryerson, students employed drawn out negotiations in order to delay the implementation. At the University of Ottawa, this fight is ongoing.

The most recent case of a code being applied to students is at the University of Toronto, where 14 students there were arrested for protesting increasing tuition fees and a 20 percent increase in their housing fees.

At a rally against these actions at the University of Toronto today, one speaker listed off incidents from the past where student occupations won significant gains: childcare on campus and no-sweat university apparel, for example. At these occupations, far more students participated but none faced mass arrests as has recently occurred with the case of the so-called Toronto-14.

It seems that colleges and universities are following in close step with the general trend towards a Canadian surveillance state. More and more, risk-averse administrators prefer to quash debate on campus than allow an empowered student body to grapple with important issues. Nevertheless, when organized and working in solidarity with each other and other campus stakeholders, students will do more than withstand the push to police the student body. They will more likely be the catalyst for important societal changes.

However, it may get worse before it gets better. More institutions are toughening codes of conduct while already high tuition fees continue to outpace inflation by 200 percent. Perhaps we’ll soon see a “First National Conference on Crushing Student Dissent” or, a “Council of Student Conduct Officers”. And we’ll likely see some students point fingers at each other while the reals culprits sit comfortably in their leather chairs far atop the ivory tower. But it seems inevitable that as this relatively sleepy generation of students begins to wake up, realise their collective power and join together, that these student codes of conduct will become as antiquated as the corporal punishment of yesteryear. One thing you can be sure of, either way, we at the Ryerson Free Press promise to continue the important political dialog that our campuses are so keen to quash.