All Posts Tagged With: "united nations"

Professor Pettigrew proposes a commonsense alternative

Having served on many university hiring committees, I have always been mildly troubled by the term “visible minorities,” a term often seen in job ads.

So I was not entirely outraged when I learned that folks down at the UN are upset with how Canadians throw that term around.

Admittedly, it’s frustrating to see an anti-racist policy critiqued for supposedly racist language. Indeed, so many terms are politically charged that it’s hard to know what constitutes appropriate care and what constitutes politically-correct nitpicking. Is “cotton-pickin’” a racist term? Is “pork barrell“? Is “boy“?

Frustrating as it is, we shouldn’t dismiss such concerns. After all, many terms that seemed unobjectionable or even progressive in the past now seem awkward if not offensive. I remember wincing when my grandmother said “coloured” and wondering why she couldn’t say “black” like civilized people. Except that, now, civilized people are increasingly uncomfortable with “black.” I wouldn’t be surprised if my grandchildren find it hard to believe that anyone could ever have used a term so insensitive as “African Canadian.”

The knock against “visible minority” is that it arguably identifies white as the standard, normal way to be, and places non-white people in some lesser, “other” category. But isn’t the whole point of equitable hiring practices to acknowledge that white men really have been seen as the standard and that women and minorities have, for this reason, been unfairly disadvantaged? You can’t make the problem go away by getting rid of terms that identify the problem.

Some prefer a term like “racialized communities” but I’m not convinced it’s any better than what we have now. To my ear, it seems to imply that certain groups have had their ethnic or racial origins imposed upon them and that their identities are merely a mark of their oppression — rather than a heritage of which they can be proud. You’d be fine, if you hadn’t been racialized. It sounds wrong.

Still, “visible minority” leaves a lot to be desired. For one thing, what about invisible minorities? Jewish people have suffered through long periods of oppression, and anti-Semitism is not a thing of the past — but while there may be cultural cues that might indicate that a candidate is Jewish, I doubt most Jewish candidates would self-identify as a visible minority. What about gay applicants? They are part of a disadvantaged minority, but, again, not a visible one.

Still further, exactly how visible does one’s minority status have to be to be a member of a visible minority? I have met many Canadians who identify as Aboriginals, but whose physical characteristics are not stereotypically “native.” Are they still members of visible minorities? Is a blond aboriginal person less entitled to affirmative action than a dark-haired aboriginal person?

Perhaps it’s time to simply invite candidates to indicate, if they choose, whether they believe that elements of their identity have disadvantaged them in some way. Then, hiring committees could take those disadvantages into account during the vetting process.  It’s not a perfect solution, but at least we could stop trying to come up with a term that includes certain people but not others while implying only positive things.

After all, even if we came up with such a term, it’s going to sound wrong twenty years from now.

AMS exec powers neutered over unauthorized UN tuition complaint

After 12 days of campus controversy and student politics machinations, the UBC Alma Mater Society President (AMS) executives who issued an unauthorized human rights complaint to the United Nations will keep their jobs. A recall motion, to have President Blake Frederick and Vice President Eexternal Tim Chu impeached, was pulled back only after it was discovered at the 11th hour that doing so through a vote of student council would have been illegal.

The complaint to the UN alleged the B.C. and federal governments were responsible for “gross human rights violations” due to the cost of tuition.

Following a unanimous motion by student council a week ago to ask Frederick and Chu to resign following the complaint they filed on behalf of the AMS—without approval or knowledge from AMS Council—the stage was set for a special meeting to recall the two. However, following veiled threats by Frederick and Chu that they would be considering legal action if they were removed by council, a legal opinion was sought on how the two of them could be removed as Directors of the AMS.

Most councilors were fairly certain the legal opinion would allow them to proceed. The meeting was set for 4pm on Monday. At 3:30, the opinion came in—and it clearly stated that to recall/impeach the two of them would be a contravention of BC’s Society Act, which the AMS is legally bound by. The Act requires a petition signed by at least two per cent of UBC students and a meeting with the same number of students, with 75 per cent voting for recall.

Oops.

So, though the complaint to the UN had been retracted and Frederick had apologized for his actions, council decided to gut, strip, and neuter Frederick and Chu of their powers, with a variety of measures designed to completely paralyze the largest student union in Canada for the next two months. These include:

a) No press releases can be sent without the permission of student council.

b) Frederick and Chu cannot have meetings or communications that could adversely affect the reputation of the AMS with important stakeholders (UBC Administration, provincial/federal government) without approval of student council.

c) An official censure of Frederick of Chu.

d) Frederick, Chu, and the rest of the AMS executive (whom, hilariously, all signed off on cheques that allowed the AMS to go forward with the legal complaint without knowing what they were signing) are forced to write weekly reports detailing their hour-by-hour activities.

e) Frederick will no longer chair the Executive Committee.

f) Next year’s executive will take power on February 12th, two weeks earlier than usual, in order to prevent Frederick and Chu from saying, doing, or thinking anything that might cause controversy during the Winter Olympics (this wasn’t stated in the actual motion, but it’s widely acknowledged as the subtext for the decision).

Yes, you heard that correctly.

UBC’s Alma Mater Society, the largest student union in Canada, has filed a complaint to the UN in an attempt to address high tuition rates. I really don’t want to preface this any more than need be, so here’s the press release…

The UBC Alma Mater Society (AMS), represented by Pivot Legal LLP, has filed a complaint to the United Nations regarding the federal and provincial government’s failure to meet their international obligations to provide accessible post-secondary education.

By failing to adequately control tuition fees and not providing sufficient financial support to students, the complaint states that the government is violating its commitment under Article 13 ( c ) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights which states “Higher education shall be made accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education.”

“Since the tuition fee freeze was lifted in 2002, student fees in British Columbia have more than doubled,” says AMS President Blake Frederick. “The high cost of tuition means that many capable students, particularly those from lower-income families, are unable to get a university education.”

Lack of financial resources has been cited as the leading reason why BC students are unable to pursue post-secondary education. In 1996, the provincial government enacted legislation that froze tuition rates throughout the province. This was an important step towards reducing financial barriers to post-secondary education. The provincial government ended the tuition fee freeze in 2002, and since that time, the AMS has actively lobbied the provincial and federal government to regulate tuition fees in the province.

“When Canada signed on to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, they made a commitment to work towards free post-secondary education,” says Katrina Pacey, counsel for the AMS. “Instead, the government has increased tuition rates on an annual basis. We are asking the UN to hold the government accountable for their complete failure to live up to their commitment to accessible higher education.”

The AMS, which represents 45,000 students at UBC’s Vancouver Campus, is named as a complainant alongside UBC graduate Tristan Markle. The complainants have asked that the UN appoint an independent expert of Special Rapporteur to investigate the situation.

The official complaint is here.

For the record, Tristan Markle was the AMS VP Administration in 2008/2009, and was a former leader of the UBC Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a self-professed “radical” group associated with protests and controversy on campus.

If you’re wondering why no current student is named as a complainant in this, it’s because the release has caught the entire campus off-guard—this wasn’t something that had been talked about in student council, or in any public meetings for that matter. Unsurprisingly, public reaction (“public reaction” being “facebook statuses and tweets) have thus far has ranged from “embarrassing and pointless” to “does the AMS have any understanding of international law?” to “I’m ready to quit everything I do on campus. It is so useless when you see the stupid bull shit that comes out of the AMS,” and finally, comparing it to “the finest lobbying / advocacy method used by nutjobs everywhere.”

In a related (and incredibly ironic note), just last month the AMS sent out a press release that criticized UBC, and due to the fact that it was a) incredibly inflammatory, and b) not passed by student council first, President Frederick narrowly avoided being censured.

I’ll be researching on whether this has any sort of precedence, whether there is even a smidgen of chance that the UN could/would do something about this, and if the only thing this will lead to is the perception that UBC students have more faith in the power of the United Nations than anyone outside of Ban Ki-Moon’s immediate family.

Also, if you want to see student politicians get really, really angry at their president via tweets, check out the messages being sent to AMS President Frederick.

Click here to read: Update on UBC Student Union complaint to the UN