1930: The trouble with Mahatmas

One of the highlights of 1930 on campus was a university-hosted lecture by Cornelia Sorabji simply entitled “India.”

Once a prominent advocate of women’s rights, Sorabji had by then devoted herself to speaking against Indian selfrule. The Oxford grad praised British colonial rule of India for turning the country around.

She reserved special abuse for the man she said brought more suffering to India than any other single person: Mahatma Gandhi.

She allowed that Gandhi did “wonderful work” in Africa, but said he didn’t understand the economic complexities of British India, and accused him of using spiritual means to seek personal gain.

Sorabji concluded by sharing with the crowd an ecstatic vision she said she often saw: luminous white people ascending gleaming marble steps, walking towards overwhelming light. See what you can get from that.

1955: Students slashed, burned and blinded in football riots

Once upon a time, students cared about football at U of T. In fact, U of T almost lost its football privileges after a bloody riot broke out following an 11-10 loss to Queens’ Golden Gaels in Kingston.

U of T president Sidney Smith threatened to cancel Blues football after the melee, where two Queen’s students were blinded (temporarily) by bags of caustic lime thrown in their faces. One nursing student at Queen’s, was knocked unconscious and had her head slashed open by a broken bottle. Two students had their fingers broken, and two from U of T were hospitalized for “nose damage doled out in a fistfight.”

1965: A student centre, at long last?

Twenty years after it was first suggested, the Students Administrative Council hired an architect to design a student centre for the corner of St. George and Russell. They secured grants from U of T and the Ministry of Education, as well as loans from two banks to fund the centre. Five years later, $211,000 had been spent in site-clearing and architects’ fees for the student centre, which will never be built.

1919-1973: No girls allowed at Hart House

“It seems incredible that this university, which poses as a progressive institution, should welcome the presence of a young lady at dances and other social functions, but turn her away from an instructive lecture given by the Head of the Department in which she is registered.”

So began Dormer Ellis’s appeal for gender equality on campus and in Hart House, in an open letter she penned in February of 1956.

“Woman undergraduates” were first admitted to U of T in 1880, but faced intense barriers to participation in campus and academic life. Hart House opened its doors to male students in November 1919, but its founders, insisted on a “no women” rule that wasn’t rescinded until 1973.

November 19, 1997: George Bush’s honorary degree

Governing Council stirred up massive controversy by announcing it would confer an honorary doctorate of laws on former U.S. president George Bush.

Over 1000 protestors picketed behind steel barriers, while RCMP, Toronto police, and U.S. secret service surrounded Hart House in one of the largest security forces campus has ever seen.

At the ceremony was Barrick Gold Corporation’s CEO Peter Munk, who donated $6.4 million to fi nance Trinity College’s international relations centre. Bush was scheduled to appear at the Munk Centre’s sod-turning, but cancelled.

Bush was a senior adviser to Barrick’s board of directors, among them several major donors to U of T, including Munk and Joseph Rotman. Earlier in the year, Rotman made one of the largest donation ever to fund U of T’s management school—subject to a secret list of conditions.