Content warning: This article mentions police violence, anti-Palestinian racism, and genocide
In the wake of a two-month-long pro-Palestine encampment at King’s College Circle, U of T released its User Guide on U of T Policies on Protests in August. The guide, based on pre-existing policies, cites the Ontario Superior Court order of July 2 which granted U of T’s request to remove the encampment and stated that “any resistance (physical or verbal)” to Campus Safety could result in the university calling the Toronto Police Services.
These restrictions, ranging from academic sanctions to police violence, could apply to violations as minor as using noise to disrupt university events or sticking signs, posters, and flyers outside designated areas on campus. Additionally, “harassing” individuals at their offices or at governance meetings and protesting at U of T without authorization constitutes a violation.
However, I believe these policies fail to acknowledge the moral responsibility of the university and its employees. If President Meric Gertler is paid $486,192 a year and U of T does not disclose whether their financial investments have potential ties to the genocide in Palestine, I believe students should be allowed to express their anger at his office.
There is no such thing as authorized protests. Resistance against an institution cannot be permitted by that institution. It is abundantly clear to me that U of T’s policies are designed to target student groups and penalize — in some cases even criminalize — individual activists.
I believe these measures and the new user guide signal a larger pattern in which the university prioritizes its public image over students’ needs and demands.
Performative care and the struggle for fossil fuel divestment
I see U of T’s performative response present across activist movements. The university continues to employ sexual predators like Robert Reisz while releasing policy recommendations that advocate groups such as the Pears Project believe do not implement the necessary changes. It continues to defend deploying the police in response to mental health crises and ignores student demands for policy changes.
The university’s performativity is especially clear with the campaign for fossil fuel divestment. U of T proudly claims itself as “1st in the world for sustainability,” while it took nine years of student and community organizing to get it to commit to divesting from fossil fuels in 2021. None of this work is credited to us.
The first student calls for fossil fuel divestment at U of T came in June 2012 with the formation of climate advocacy groups, Toronto350 and UofT350. The official process to request financial divestments requires members of the university community to prepare a brief, get at least 300 signatures, and submit it to the President, who would then establish an ad hoc committee to review the request. Afterwards, the President would make a decision based on the committee’s recommendations.
Therefore, Toronto350 presented a 190 page brief entitled ‘The Fossil Fuel Industry and The Case For Divestment’ to Gertler in 2014. The ad hoc committee he formed eventually recommended targeted divestment from fossil fuel companies.
Yet, on March 30, 2016, Gertler released a report titled ‘Beyond Divestment: Taking Decisive Action on Climate Change,’ where he rejected the recommendations. The report argued that the alternative measures to “promote sustainability” — such as telling the University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation (UTAM) to create more ethical investment policies — would be “ultimately more impactful” than evidence-backed calls to divest.
It was not until after continued protests and rallies that Gertler announced in a letter in 2021 that U of T would divest the four billion in fossil fuel investments remaining with UTAM at that time. However, this did not include investments by the three federated Victoria, Trinity, and St. Michael’s Colleges — who agreed to fully divest only in 2023.
And importantly, three months prior, UTAM transferred the management of many of U of T’s investments in fossil fuels to the University Pension Plan: a joint pension plan for several Ontario universities, which made the funds more distant from U of T.
To me, this nine year community struggle makes one thing very clear: U of T’s response to student protest is dismissive, disingenuous, and greedy. Protests are essential because there are no other mechanisms that can effectively hold those in power accountable. Yet, in my view, the existing university structure could never lead to meaningful change because they leave total power to someone who is not accountable to students — the President.
A policy of violence and oppression
Despite the university’s historical mistreatment of student protests, I believe it is not widely viewed as the oppressive institution that it is because it uses the police to do its dirty work, while the university’s tangible influence is relatively subtle.
For example, throughout the pro-Palestine encampment on campus, the university implied that the protest was illegitimate because it was not “peaceful.” This implication of protestors being violent is what I think ‘excused’ Campus Safety officers shoving student protesters around a moving car when attempting to talk to Governing Council members outside Simcoe Hall in June. I see the same rhetoric repeated to justify police violence against students at UTAM’s office on September 6.
As a student who has been involved in organizing protests on campus, the new user guide and the school’s protest policies seem to me like another way for the university to enact violence on its students. This is especially concerning, given that the police historically use more force against racialized people, and the colonization of Palestine specifically affects racialized people.
In my opinion, the public’s characterization of this university must convey it as an oppressive, greedy, and violent institution that consistently endangers its students and values profit first. Until then, it will continue to take undemocratic and dangerous actions — like these protest policies — with near complete impunity.
Anaum Sajanlal is a third-year student at St. Michael’s College studying history and critical equity studies. They are a part of ClimateJusticeUofT and the South Asian Liberatory Collective.
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