I hope Michael Roy is as good at reading signs as he is at making them. Because a lot of his group’s credibility hinges on his next move.
On Feb. 1, the student-run group Israel on Campus hosted a cultural celebration in the University Community Centre (UCC) Atrium. Early that afternoon, protesters – including members of the student-run Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights as well as Occupy London – crashed the event.
A months-long soap opera followed, all centred on free speech, campus safety and properly filed paperwork.
London activists Anthony Verberckmoes and Roy, who unlike Verberckmoes has a tangential connection to Western through CHRW, were banned from campus for one year as a result of their participation in the protest.
Now, let me say this: If a solution to thousands of years of religious and territorial unrest half a world away can be found in the UCC, then go for it. Let’s have it out once and for all right outside The Spoke.
But these types of protests aren’t about solutions or conversations. They are about confrontations and good video.
Nothing was to be gained that could not have been gained on another day or location. It was about ruining someone else’s event because they could.
That’s not to say the protesters don’t have a right to be heard; I question their methods, not message. Just too bad nobody bothered to file any paperwork. That oversight – intentional or otherwise – would be the group’s undoing.
In the aftermath, Bryce Traister, University of Western Ontario Faculty Association (UWOFA) president, and Nathalie Des Rosiers, Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) general counsel, offered conditional support to Roy. In letters to the university president, each noted their understanding of Western’s responsibility to preserve campus safety, but questioned the ban.
Traister called a reduction of the ban’s duration “an opportunity to diffuse an escalating controversy”; Des Rosiers called the ban “incompatible with the function of a university” (even though her letter showed a shallow understanding of the issue, as if a couple newspaper articles comprised the breadth of her knowledge).
Both made good points. In fact, a year is an excessive length of time given what happened (or more precisely, what didn’t happen) that day. Heck, the student group got off with the equivalent of a sternly worded letter thanks to a loophole in University Students’ Council policies which didn’t directly address counter-protests.
But since the university’s review upheld the bans, essentially ending the conversation on its end, both UWOFA and CCLA have been silent.
And that speaks volumes.
I have covered a number of guys like Roy in my career – passionate, smart fellows with something to say about the world. People like Roy keep alive uncomfortable conversations nobody likes to discuss. That’s an important role, perhaps more so today as societal shifts have forced communities and universities to the corporate side of the spectrum.
Roy has vowed to bring the issue back up in the fall. But I don’t know if his issue has legs that long.
It’s easy to get caught up when a small-but-passionate amen chorus is cheering you on. I hope he steps back and views the larger issue.
As an alt-journalist, he knows this is a classic ‘Bubble Issue,’ an incident which gets a rise out of the campus community for a bit, but fails to resonate much outside The Gates. Why not kick back, Mike, enjoy the martyrdom and street cred that comes with being ‘that guy who is banned.’
This incident is not a classic encroachment on free speech. University policy is in place to, among other things, protect everyone’s right to free speech. Not just the loudest or best organized.
Also, when viewed through the lens of Quebec, Greece and Great Britain, safety is going to be paramount on people’s minds, especially to parents and students, who would be a fall protest’s main targets.
Maybe I am wrong. Roy’s situation might be tapping into a groundswell of support on the issue. Perhaps he will decide this won’t be the last we hear about it. But, given short memories and low tolerance, it may be the last time anyone cares.