University policies and Faculty communications fail to protect and support students
On September 20, the One Million March 4 Children movement (1MM) held a protest at Queen’s Park. The march was part of a series of protests held across Canada, spouting bigotry towards LGBTQ2S+ communities under the guise of “protecting children” and “parental rights.” This movement has clear ties to far-right, fascist groups.
Dean Maxwell-Alleyne, Assistant Dean of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) sent an email to law students on September 19, forwarding the University’s Sexual & Gender Diversity statement identifying the protest as anti-2SLGBTQ2S+ and promoting “Queer Orientation 2023.” Dean Maxwell-Alleyne sent a second email to law students at 11:43am on September 20, after hundreds, if not thousands, of people were already in Queen’s Park and the surrounding areas. This email identified the law school’s counsellor and a peer-based support group for peer-accompanied walks on campus, and it forwarded a statement from the University of Toronto. This action only came after the Students’ Law Society (SLS) emailed a statement to all law students—the delay in response from the Faculty was clearly not due to a lack of awareness of the situation.
On September 25, the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) organized a large protest against the Ford government’s privatization of healthcare. The OHC has no history of violent action and uses peaceful advocacy as its main driver for change. On September 22, the Friday preceding their protest, law students were notified the school would be fob-access only due to the OHC demonstration.
On September 26, law students were notified at 9:23am that the building would be fob-access only for the day. Administration provided no reason for heightening security. This response coincided with a rumoured “Save the Children Convoy,” which planned to arrive on the same day at Queen’s Park. The Convoy allegedly planned to shut down the streets with vehicle blockades as an anti-LGBTQ2S+ demonstration. These rumours prompted Toronto Police Services to preemptively block road access around Queen’s Park.
The above events clearly deserved different reactions—yet the University’s and Faculty of Law’s chosen responses were wholly inadequate. To summarize, the University and Faculty chose to allow an overtly bigoted protest access to the building and the students inside. The very next week, they decided to lock the school’s doors to a march supporting public healthcare. Throughout, the decision-making processes remained opaque. The Faculty declined to inform students until the day before each protest and did not deem it necessary to undertake any further response.
The Faculty decided not to notify students of the 1MM and Convoy protests before they happened. While Dean Maxwell-Alleyne did forward an email that mentioned the 1MM protest, any relevant information was buried in the body text.
This email was also from the wider University of Toronto—it was not tailored to law students. With respect to the protests, there are two critical differences between law students and the broader University student body: the law building’s proximity to the protests and the protests’ target of gender and equity within our legal systems. We are a distinct entity within the University of Toronto and, considering Dean Maxwell-Alleyne’s portfolio on EDI, should have received a tailored response. While Dean Maxwell-Alleyne did note on the morning of the 1MM protest that there is a law school-specific counsellor, the message from the Faculty heavily relied on a community walk-safe response. It is disappointing that the law school relied on external communities to respond to the protest instead of investing in protecting its students— particularly so when the Faculty preaches the importance of equity in its recruitment and first-year curriculum and in light of the fact that a gender studies class at the University of Waterloo was recently attacked. It was a gross oversight by the Faculty to allow a Gender Equality in Transnational Legal Perspective class to see these hateful protesters directly outside and know that protesters could access their classrooms. Students in that class reported feeling unsafe, clearly demonstrating the failure of the Faculty’s response.
Dean Maxwell-Alleyne is not the only member of the Faculty or the administration. Addressing protests that threaten law students’ wellbeing and existence is not only an EDI issue, it is a faculty-wide issue. The Faculty and University leaving the EDI offices isolated in developing a response demonstrates an overall lack of commitment to the principles of EDI and dooms their responses to failure. Ultimately, the Faculty made virtually no response to the 1MM protest and simply relied on the University’s actions. It is disappointing to see a lack of support tailored to law students and our unique circumstances and school community.
Furthermore, it is entirely incoherent for the University of Toronto to have deemed the OHC protest an event warranting locking the building and not the 1MM protest. This discrepancy is further confounded by the decision to lock the building for the rumoured Convoy. Perhaps this decision was informed by the fact that at least one participant of the 1MM protest carried a weapon, but the University’s reasons are ultimately unknown. Any guiding procedures are also a mystery because the University has not made any policies governing when to lock buildings public.
Students deserve to understand how the University will respond to events that threaten their identities and pose a real threat to their safety. In particular, when a response is made, students should know why so they are fully informed of any risks of being present on campus. However, the University and Faculty declined to provide any further information on the locking of the building on September 26, the day of the rumoured Convoy. The Faculty and University need to explain why a building is locked and must make guidelines on the decision-making process available to students. To do otherwise is to deprioritize student safety in exchange for the political convenience of avoiding engaging in a meaningful, important issue.
The 1MM protest was publicly known and its content was clearly hateful. While the OHC protest was larger, the content of a protest cannot be separated from a risk analysis, regardless of any possible desire to be politically “neutral.” It is important to acknowledge the reality of the 1MM and Save the Children movements. They are anti-LGBTQ2S+, hateful, brew violence, and are deeply tied to fascist alt-right movements that have sprung into focus on the Canadian stage since the convoy protests in February 2022.
University criteria for locking the building or Faculty decision-making on notifications and accommodations must take protest content into consideration. A protest is inherently political, and therefore any response is as well. To be clear, no response is a response. To fail to respond is to either deem the protest as not dangerous—which is demonstrably incorrect—or to prioritize political convenience at the cost of student wellbeing. While the University made a statement denouncing the anti-LGBTQ2S+ nature of the September 20 protest and the statement was forwarded by Dean Maxwell-Alleyne, words are worth little when they are not backed by real action.
Editor’s note: Carson Cook is a 2L Representative on the SLS’s Student Life and Academic Committee.
