Content warning: This article mentions violence and genocide.

The Scarborough Campus Students’ Union (SCSU) held its November Board of Directors (BOD) meeting on November 22. Members discussed the need for more multi-faith prayer spaces on campus, ongoing campaigns, and approved the Policy and By-law Committee’s review of motions to be presented at the Annual Members’ Meeting (AMM) — formerly known as the Annual General Meeting.

Executive updates

SCSU President Hunain Sindhu began the meeting with various updates. He shared that the SCSU has been in talks with the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) at UTSC to request that more multi-faith prayer spaces be made available across the UTSC campus, as only one such space is currently available in the Student Centre. In contrast, there are at least 11 such spaces available for students at UTSG. 

However, Sindhu claimed that he was told by the CAO that due to the university being a secular space, “[UTSC] can’t have space for prayers or multi-faith prayer on campus anywhere else, other than student centres, because student centres are run by the SCSU.” Sindhu said the plan is to create a petition and gauge the need for more prayer spaces on campus. 

“We want to collect some data and try and present the fact that there is a significant need, and that it is the responsibility of the university to fulfill that need for students,” he added. 

Vice-President (VP) Academics Zanira Manesiya shared that, in her most recent meeting with the Office of Vice-Principal Academic & Dean and the Registrar’s Office, she discussed implementing an extension for the Second Attempt for Credit policy. The policy currently allows students to retake one full credit of a previously passed course to replace their previous grade with a new one on their academic transcripts. The extension would allow for field courses, which are small classes that take place away from campus, to also be included in the policy. 

Manesiya also shared that there is progress on the ongoing campaigns for the Credit/No Credit deadline extension and lowering the GPA cutoff for academic good standing at UTSC from 1.6 to 1.5 to match UTSG and UTM. The updates will be presented at the next UTSC Academic Affairs Committee meeting on January 9. 

VP External Omar Mousa then shared updates on advocacy efforts regarding the UTSC Campus Farm, a vacant 10-acre site “dedicated to teaching, research, and community engagement.” Recently, many community members have been concerned about the non-renewal of the Campus Farm Coordinator Béatrice Lego’s contract. Mousa said that he has been meeting with the Environmental and Physical Sciences Students’ Association to collaborate on a petition calling on the UTSC administration to reverse the decision. 

“Shame on Starbucks”

The BOD also reviewed and approved the recommendations made by the Policy and By-law Committee to amend motions to be presented at the SCSU’s AMM on November 27. 

Students submitted motions to be discussed at the AMM in advance — some of which got revised by the BOD. One of the motions called for the SCSU to write an apology to the Health and Wellness Centre Director Shari Russell Opara for disrupting the HealthyU Experience during a walkout for Gaza on October 10. 

The motion included a clause that claimed Sindhu used a microphone to “exhort protesters in the Meeting Place to condemn Starbucks and leads the protesters in yelling chants directed at employees like ‘Shame on Starbucks.’”

In an email to The Varsity, Sindhu wrote, “A chant like ‘shame on Starbucks’ is in no way a chant towards the employees, but rather, it’s calling out the corporation that is Starbucks for being complicit in the [g]enocide of the Palestinian people.” 

He added that the SCSU did not receive any complaints from Starbucks employees or from Health and Wellness employees or volunteers. 

The motion also called for the SCSU to purchase a Starbucks beverage for all Health and Wellness Centre employees every day from January 6 to February 17, 2025, as part of this apology. This clause was deemed to be out of order as it violated the SCSU’s Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) policy. According to the policy, the SCSU plans to “reaffirm its commitment to the BDS movement by committing to actively support initiatives that raise awareness about Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine and war crimes against Palestinian peoples.” 

While Starbucks is not on the official boycott list managed by the Palestinian-led BDS movement, some pro-Palestinian activists cite Starbucks condemning and suing Starbucks Workers United for posting a solidarity tweet with Palestine as support for Israel. 

“Despite [Starbucks’] claims of being non-political and not directly supporting [Israel], they are a prime example of management suppressing workers for supporting Palestine,” Sindhu wrote. “They suppress and punish the marginalized voices, making them complicit in the genocide.”

On armed resistance

Another motion called on the union to penalize the SCSU staff and executives involved in inviting the Qawim Collection, a pro-Palestinian jewelry and accessory store, as a vendor at UTSC. A clause in the motion criticized the Collection for including “violent imagery such as military rifles that their own website claimed celebrated resistance against Israel and Israelis.”

Sindhu explained that the SCSU “recognizes that armed resistance in Palestine is justified due to the decades of systematic oppression, annexation, and now genocide that has been inflicted upon the Palestinian people by the Israeli government.” He added, “[the] SCSU will be making sure that no symbols of violence are present through any of the vendors at future events.” 

This motion called for the formal censure of staff involved, withholding part of the Executive Director and SCSU president’s salaries, and identifying the executives who invited the Qawim Collective in a report presented to the BOD. These three clauses were accepted to be out of order on the basis that the SCSU does not implement disciplinary action as per Ontario’s Employment Standards Act and that the BOD cannot discuss corrective actions for staff as per the SCSU’s Collective Agreement. 

According to Sindhu, “employers are generally prohibited from withholding or deducting any portion of an employee’s wages as a corrective measure, such as for disciplinary reasons.”

He explained that the Collective Agreement applies to the SCSU’s unionized full-time staff, outlining employees’ rights and that disciplinary actions can only be made by Supervisors, not members of the union or the BOD. 

However, The Varsity was unable to obtain the SCSU’s Collective Agreement.

Financial statements

Another motion called on the SCSU to publish audited financial statements for the first two quarters of the 2024–2025 fiscal year with a breakdown of funds allocated to pro-Palestine events and rallies. This clause was said to be out of order because the SCSU only publishes audits for an entire fiscal year at a time. 

The BOD approved the referral of the revised motions to the AMM.