Riot police on campus

On November 10th, some students peacefully occupied an administration building at McGill, in a protest against potential tuition hikes.

By the end of the day, police in full riot gear had pepper-sprayed and forcibly dispersed students, faculty, and others outside the building.  Some were there to protest peacefully.  Some were on their way to class.

This has sent shock waves through my new academic community, McGill.  I have heard people saying "I have to figure out how to continue to be a faculty member at this university."  And "This is not my McGill or my values.  I'm not proud to be here anymore."

Some others, who were not there, are actually questioning if it really happened, or if it was really as bad as people say.  This is understandable - on a human level - because no-one wants to feel unsafe going about their daily life.  However, those police were called in by administration, not for the security of students, but to remove students who were not doing anything wrong.

Teach-In

A few weeks ago, I attended a Teach-In regarding this event and its aftermath as people try to process what happened.  Connections were made between this violent quelling of a demonstration at McGill in connection with other events on and off campus:

1) At McGill, a striking non-academic staff of 1700 people in its third month of trying to bargain with an administration that is putting more effort into spin-doctoring their communiques than engaging with the very real, meaningful and REASONABLE issues raised by these workers (the lowest paid university staff in Quebec);*

2) the use of riot police to remove peaceful protesters at TWO other university campuses in the same short time period ( Nov 9, UC Berkeley, with batons; Nov 18, UC Davis, with pepper spray).  Please note that the Principal of McGill, Heather Monroe-Blum, is an advisor to the Chancellor of UC Davis; 

3) the ongoing privatization, corporatization and commodification of Education nationally and globally, which has been quietly reshaping governance structures at university campuses across Canada and the U.S. for some time, making it more and more likely - structurally - that tenured professors, Chairs and Deans in universities  will feel fearful that any criticism or perceived criticism of their university or administration will result in personal, departmental, and faculty level repercussions of some kind.

Seminar discussion

Following the teach-in, my seminar class met and we spent the rest of our class time talking about all of these events.  One of the students had been sitting on the steps of the administration building as part of the human chain, and she described being pepper-sprayed by police.  That description has lingered in my mind ever since, along with some related discussion about police actions in general - and some disagreement about how to see this kind of police action.

There were a range of positions, including the point of view that police officers are basically well-meaning, good people with a difficult job, and they don't get out of bed in the morning gleefully anticipating beating people up; and the view that in fact SOME police officers, on the contrary, do enjoy violence; and the view that the police as an organization are instruments of the state with a license to use violence on citizens; also the view that there is a difference between distrust of policing/police organizations and personal distrust of/antipathy to police officers; and the view that the members of our society who get funnelled into these difficult and dangerous jobs tend to be those who are less advantaged economically - by being working class, by belonging to a visible minority, for example. 

The woman who had been peppersprayed expressed a certain feeling of solidarity with police officers as human beings, while expressing outrage about the actions that were taken on that day and being on the receiving end of those actions. 

Questions...

In an email to the McGill staff and students on November 21, Heather Munroe-Blum said: "As Principal of McGill, I am responsible for what happens on our campuses. The events of November 10 have served as a wake-up call for me about problems we have with respect to how we communicate, plan and interact as a community, and I commit to work with the McGill community to explore and find solutions to these problems, and to implement them."

The cynic in me wonders - To what extent have solutions been pre-determined? How much listening is she actually prepared to do? How much change are she and her administration actually willing to embrace? How much of this statement is dictated by P.R. sensibility and a desire to safeguard a career path and how much is it a sincere statement of caring?

In practical terms, I question - Can the person responsible for ordering riot police to come in also be the person to inspire enough trust to broker a meaningful and healing resolution? She retains all her power - how safe will students and faculty feel to speak frankly? If they speak frankly, will their eloquence have any results?


*update about strike: the workers and McGill have reached an agreement (through conciliation) that has been ratified - today (Dec 6) is the first day back at work for MUNACA members.