Most of the defendants didn’t show up for court on July 3. Their lawyers having filled out the necessary paperwork, the presence of the 14 students facing criminal charges for the March 20 sit-in at Simcoe Hall wasn’t required. After all, this wasn’t a trial date in which they’d be giving testimony. The defendants have yet to receive full disclosure—something Mike Leitold, counsel for several of the accused, says they hope to receive by the next court date, July 17.
The proceedings were quiet, considering the drama unfolding at two prominent U of T events the week prior that supporters of the 14 attempted to co-opt.
On June 25, ralliers were handing out flyers to party-goers, as well as cyclists, joggers, landscapers, neighbours, kindergarteners, taxi-drivers—pretty much anyone stopping to gawk outside U of T’s Rosedale mansion, home to the university president.
“Welcome to the only tea party that students can afford,” Canadian Federation of Students staffer Joel Duff greeted a group of elaborately hatted ladies through a megaphone. “Sadly, it’s beside a jail cell,” he added, pointing at the PVC-pipe cage that protestors had planted beside their sidewalk tea table.
Most of the honoured guests passed up the arrowroot cookies for the more lavish tea party inside the gates, this one in honour of “President’s Circle” donors to the university: individuals who have given over $1,827, and corporations, over $10,000. According to the university advancement website, approximates 4,000 members have joined the elite club since it was founded in 1977. In an new twist, the protestors asked that donors use their influence with university.
“Please help us by sending a message to this administration by refusing to make a donation to an institution that has turned its back on academic freedom, on freedom of speech, and on an important equity position of affordable post-secondary education,” Duff implored the guests.
“I don’t believe in sit-ins. I believe in due process,” a donor said as she refused a flyer.
Invitations to the president’s house have long been used as a measure for relations between the university administration and student politicians. Past student leaders, such as the presidents of UTSU and ASSU, have been invited to the garden party, said ASSU president Ryan Hayes. Not so this year: Hassum, one of the few student leaders who did receive an invite, chalked it up to “some grace of mistake” on the university’s part.
Several U of T notables came past the front gates to spar with the ralliers and defend the embattled president. These included former Ontario premier and current U of T chancellor David Peterson, and former chancellor Hal Jackman. Victoria University president Paul Gooch good-naturedly inspected the jail cell and replied to student claims that David Naylor put them in there, “Oh, I can’t believe that.” Naylor’s teenaged son, Max, even made an appearance.
“What you have at the University of Toronto is students saying one thing, faculty saying one thing, you have organized labour saying one thing, and then you have a very small group, of which you’re part of, saying another thing, and they get to call the shots,” ASSU president Ryan Hayes told Peterson.
“Baloney,” Peterson shot back, adding that while the activists say the March 20 sit-in was peaceful, the police have a different view. “You know, when I was your age, I believed in conspiracy theories too,” he said. “And now you believe in patronizing,” Hayes replied. But when Peterson left, he wished the protestors well: “I think it’s great that you’re here.”
The president did not himself make an appearance at the gate, though Fine Arts Student Union president Sheila Hewlett, who was Hassum’s plus-one for the event, said Naylor discussed the matter with her at the party. “He was like, ‘We didn’t press the charges,’ and I was like, ‘You called the police! Two of the complainants are listed under University of Toronto, and Vivek [Goel, vice-president and provost] is quoted in the paper as calling the police to see if they should lay charges.’”
As he was leaving the party, Naylor’s predecessor, Rob Prichard, took a look a flyer handed him by SCSU VP Students and Equity Reza Hajivandi, and said of Naylor, “He’s a very distinguished leader.” “He put me in here!” yelled someone from the cage. Prichard stalled at first when Hajivandi and Hayes pressed him to explain himself, but then answered, “[Naylor]’s a great teacher, he’s a great scholar, he led the Faculty of Medicine distinguishably for six years, he’s got us in the highest ranks in the international rankings, and he’s done an outstanding job.”
UTSU president Sandy Hudson argued that administration has purposefully misinformed people about the sit-in, such as claiming that protestors bit university staff. “If that actually happened, that would be reflected in the charges,” she said. “What that means—”
“The good thing is that judges don’t read newspapers,” Prichard interrupted.
As the party ended, Hassum and Hewlett reported back to those who had been shut out. Hassum said that many inside the gates, including some Governing Council members, voiced their support for the 14. Outside, it was a mixed bag. Some did wish the students good luck.
One elderly man, who on his way into the party said that the university should crush student dissent, had more to say on his way out. “I think you guys are a bunch of ingrates. You just don’t realize how good you’ve got it.”
A woman with him pulled on his elbow. “Come on, dear. What do you think this is, 1969?” As his party led him away, the man shouted back one last comment:“I think all you children should be ground into the dirt!”
The day before, at the June 24 annual general meeting of the University of Toronto Alumni Association, Jen Hassum (0T6) put forward a motion that the UTAA, among other things, call for the dropping of charges against the 14, and that the association write a public letter petitioning U of T president David Naylor to end the related Code of Conduct investigations also being leveled against 13 students. New College alum Allan Davis (8T7) said after the meeting that in the 20 years he has attended the association’s AGMs there has never been a motion for the UTAA to take a stance on a student issue. UTAA President and chair of the meeting Paul Cadario confirmed that he cannot remember a similar instance either.
Before the meeting, students handed out a recent Globe and Mail article profiling Oriel Varga, who is one of the accused. At her graduation where she was awarded a Master’s in education earlier this month, Varga wore a cape with the words “I spent a night in jail for U of T’s crackdown on student dissent” sewn on in white felt. While the article portrays the March 20 sit-in as a case of he-said, she-said, it also paints Varga as David to Naylor’s Goliath.
The meeting ended up being controversial on several counts. Cadario (7T3) initially declared Hassum’s proposed agenda item failed after seeing a show of hands. To many in the room, though, it was not clear that the amendment had failed.
Hassum then asked for a second vote, this time with a numerical tally. Announcement of the results were, 110 for the agenda amendment and 112 opposed, including the chair’s own vote against the amendment, was accompanied by vigorous applause. Hassum then challenged the chair on his count. Shaila Kibria (0T5) seconded the motion. The motion failed.
The meeting then continued until it was brought to Cadario’s attention that there were uncounted votes from a spillover room, prompting him to call for a third vote.Before that vote took place, several members questioned Cadario on how the UTAA counts proxy votes. Hassum says that she collected 71 proxy votes. The association, however, considered only 53 of them valid, an assessment based on comparing the names on the proxies to the university’s records. Cadario could not say whose proxies had been rejected.
The agenda was further stalled when a woman, who would not identify herself, made a comment to Kibria about the meeting being hijacked. “Where you come from, it might be okay to break the rules, but here it’s not okay,” the woman said. Kibria, who is a woman of colour and from Canada, found the woman’s language offensive and made the comment public, asking that the chair address the woman directly. Rob Steiner, who is not a U of T alumnus but was at the meeting as the university’s chief media spokesperson, took the mic and apologized to Kibria on behalf of the university. Cadario also apologized on behalf of the UTAA. “We will not tolerate racist behaviour at our meetings,” he said, but added it was not in his power to ask the offending member to leave, nor did he address that member directly.It was not until 45 minutes into the meeting that the third and final vote—138 for, 150 against—was taken. Hassum and other students at the meeting still contest those results. Said UTSU president Sandy Hudson: “The chair was voting even though that’s not allowed in Robert’s Rules.He stated that it was allowed, but it’s not, I just looked it up,” she said, as she held up her copy of the rulebook popularly adopted for running deliberative assemblies.
In a later phone interview, Cadario responded to the charge that by voting, he influenced the general atmosphere of the meeting towards the amendment. “From a procedural perspective, the Robert’s Rules of Order can go either way in terms of does the chair have a vote. The chair as a member of an organization has the right to express her or his opinion on a matter before the meeting. The by-laws of course say, and we did indeed make that by-law amendment last night as was confirmed by the membership last night, that the chair has a vote.”
Cadario said that he had no information about the allegation that in the final vote on Hassum’s amendment, members in the spillover room were asked once for all those in favour, but four times for all those opposed.
B. Paul (7T8), who declined to give her first name, said it was never made clear to members in the overflow room what they were voting on. “I think the agenda wasn’t explained properly. We had to kind of glean it out.” She said it seemed like people wanted to hurry through the agenda so they could get to the barbecue, and was unimpressed with how the racist comment was handled. “Yeah, you have an agenda, but something gross has happened—gross human interactions,” she said. “We’re human beings in a public space: the first priority is to address that.”
During the meeting, numerous members called on Cadario to move past Hassum’s amendment. Sydney Marcus (7T4), a U of T alum present at the meeting, said that the behaviour of her peers made her ashamed to be a senior citizen. “I was here in ’69, graduated in ’74—we had all kinds of protests! We were never arrested, and we certainly didn’t do anything different from what they [the 14] did. I don’t know what’s taken over the university. […] It was funny in a way—hilarious—seeing all these elderly people clapping madly. They didn’t stop clapping, they were just so glad that this was defeated, that these students would not even get a hearing. They were just so childish.”
Cadario says he sees no generational conflict in the UTAA, and notes the success of the parties the association holds for younger alum. “The alumni are a multi-generational group. I had a number of young alumni come up after the meeting last night and asked me how they could get involved and I gave them advice and welcomed their involvement.”
“We have alumni who graduated in the 21st century on the board, so I see no conflict at all.”
