All Posts Tagged With: "Student Federation of the University of Ottawa"

University of Ottawa student union president wants to ban controversial writer and speaker from campus

“Fickle Students for Selective Free Speech?”

Yes, that’ll do nicely. After all, I think it’s about time we coin some sort of phrase to describe the exasperating irresolution of student leaders on the issue.

Free speech is good, right? Except when it comes certain stances on abortion, Israel/Palestine, and anything else that can otherwise make you uncomfortable or upset.

This week, it’s Ann Coulter, the notoriously controversial writer/speaker/columnist known for her right-wing opinions and provocative comments.  Coulter is scheduled to speak at the University of Western Ontario Today and University of Calgary Thursday, but it’s Tomorrow’s visit to the University of Ottawa that has spawned a “Ban Coulter from Campus” Facebook group and disdain from SFUO president Seamus Wolfe.

“The federation does not support Ann Coulter speaking on our campus,” Wolfe told the Ottawa Citizen. “We’re trying to work with the administration to see if we can ask her to do her speaking event somewhere else.”

That’s not all. According to the Ottawa Citizen article, Wolfe has prohibited posters advertising the event from going up in the University Centre building.

It seems obvious to me that these are counter-productive resistance tactics. Not liking Ann Coulter—that, I get. But trying to keep her off campus? I’ll need a little help with that one.

If anything, U of O students should consider themselves lucky; they have home court advantage, strength in numbers (or so it seems, at least, from Wolfe’s comments) and the opportunity to challenge Coulter directly during a scheduled Q&A after her speech.

Censorship is nothing but a soggy band-aid. Why cover up contentious ideology when you can potentially reason it down to irrelevance?

If you really think Coulter spews ridiculous, insulting dribble, let her hang herself with her own words. It will be a lot more effective than putting tape over her mouth and insisting that she would have been offensive.

In a 2005 editorial, Gilles Marchildon, executive director of Egale Canada, a national LGBT lobby group, summed up this view of censorship very succinctly. Referring to a homophobic letter printed in an Alberta newspaper by Pastor Stephen Boissoin in 2002, Marchildon writes:

While it is difficult to support Boissoin’s right to spew his misguided and vitriolic thoughts, support his right, we must.

If Boissoin was no longer able to share his views, then who might be next in also having their freedom of expression limited. Traditionally, the LGBT community’s freedom has been repressed by society and its laws.

Plus, it is far better that Boissoin expose his views than have them pushed underground. Under the glaring light of public scrutiny, his ideas will most likely wither and die.

Coulter’s views, too, should face the glaring light of public scrutiny. And our universities are just the places to house the debate. That is, unless our student nannies get in the way.

After cursing in front of police SFUO chief charged with causing a disturbance.

The president of the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa and another student were arrested on campus Tuesday afternoon.

According to Ottawa Police services, Marc Kelly, a University of Ottawa physics student, was apprehended under the Trespassing Act. The director of the student appeal centre, Mireille Gervais, says that Kelly had been banned from the university since early December, and at the time of the arrest Gervais was meeting with Kelly to discuss his appeal. Shortly after Kelly’s arrest, student president Seamus Wolfe was also apprehended and has been charged with causing a disturbance.

Please click here to watch the video of the incident.

In an interview with Maclean’s, Gervais said that U of O protection services had been alerted to Kelly’s presence on campus around noon and visited the student appeal centre to remove him from the premises. Gervais, who has a law degree, says she explained to protection services officers that under the Trespass to Property Act, she is the “legal occupier” of the student appeals centre office and therefore has the right to determine who can and cannot enter. The SFUO rents the office from the university. “A legal occupier is described as the person who has control over the premises and control over the condition of the premises, and the activities there carried on,” she said. “The office is completely occupied by the student federation and the student federation only.”

Protection services then called the police. By that time, Wolfe had joined Gervais in front of the appeal centre. When Ottawa police officers arrived, Gervais explained her position regarding the SFUO’s control over the appeal centre, and Wolfe agreed to return to his office in order to produce a copy of the student federation’s lease agreement with the university. But, Gervais said, before Wolfe returned with the lease, the officers called the university’s legal counsel, who apparently told them simply that “the campus is U of O property, which disregards the act and disregards my position.” The police then “barged into my office and arrested Marc Kelly,” she said.

Wolfe says he then followed one of the officers on his way to his car, “asking if he would like to see the lease, and asking if he would like to produce a warrant. They refused to answer saying ‘we don’t need a warrant,’ and ‘you don’t own anything,’ even though I was trying to show him the lease.”

Wolfe’s exchange with the officer precipitated his arrest. “I got frustrated, and was starting to walk back into campus to file an official complaint with protection [services], and was obviously frustrated and swore as I was leaving,” he said. According to student Joseph Hickey, who witnessed and videotaped the entire incident, the F word was uttered before Wolfe’s arrest.

Speaking on behalf of Ottawa police services, Const. Jean-Paul Vincelette declined to comment on the details of the incident, beyond confirming that Kelly was arrested under the Trespass to Property Act, and that Wolfe was apprehended for “causing a disturbance.”

The University of Ottawa declined to comment on the incident.

Students at the University of Ottawa, after an extensive four month evaluation period, will be voting on CFS membership from November 18 – 20th. I have to give credit, it’s brillant timing with a massive day of action on November 5th promoting the CFS just prior to the vote.

Students at the University of Ottawa, after an extensive four month evaluation period, will be voting on CFS membership from November 18 – 20th.

I have to give credit, it’s brillant timing with a massive day of action on November 5th promoting the CFS just prior to the vote.

Say new rules would violate their freedom to expression

Despite being in the middle of writing exams, University of Ottawa students have mobilized against a proposed Student Code of Non-Academic Conduct. Over 500 students marched on campus Friday to oppose the code.

RELATED CONTENT Photo essay from the protest

The code, drafted by the office of the University Secretary, was circulated to senior administrators, the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa (SFUO), and the Graduate Students’ Association earlier this month, seeking feedback. The contents of the code sparked an almost immediate response from students as the SFUO started a petition that now has over 1500 signatures from students. Online petitions have also started and a Facebook group has been set up, all opposing the code.

The two student associations are particularly concerned that the code could be used to stifle dissenting views about the university administration by restricting free expression, peaceful assembly and mobilization. Section 17b of the proposed code names it an offense to “knowingly create a condition” that, among other things, “threatens the damage or destruction of property, or the reputation of the university.”

Philippe Marchand of the GSA says that the section is “very vague,” adding that threatening the reputation of the university is legitimate under certain conditions. “What if the university does something unjust?” he asked.

The code, which applies only to conduct that occurs on campus, also contains provisions against activities that “… disrupt, obstruct or adversely affect any activity organized by the university, or any of its faculties, schools or departments.”

Violation of the code comes with sanctions that range from written warnings, to the revocation of student aid, to expulsion. Recently students protested outside a board of governors meeting, and when they were not let in, they banged on the doors and windows. Danika Brisson, vice-president student affairs for the SFUO, says the university should not have the authority to sanction such activity with academic penalties.

“I don’t think [students] should have their grades affected by their extracurricular activities,” she said, adding that she believes that having a university policy against disruption is unnecessary because of other avenues the university could use. “If there is a disruption, they can call the police, and if there was something to be done, the police would do it, and that is enough to deal with these conflicts,” she said.