INTRODUCTION (Ruidi Zhu / McGill Tribune) Last week, McGill announced a new set of strategies to confront the issue of sexual assault and build a more cohesive policy on the matter. This comes in the wake of campus debate over the past month, stemming from reports linking three former McGill[Read More…]
Opinion
Opinions from our editorial board and contributors.
Our fragmented campus
A term we often hear from time to time—sometimes in the pages of this newspaper—is the idea of the “McGill Community.” While this works best as a tidy phrase to lump together disparate stakeholders—students, faculty, employees, the administration, and alumni—in most instances, there is no such “McGill community,” so much[Read More…]
Hasty judgments hazardous in response to sexual assault
Three members of a varsity sports team are accused of sexual assault by a woman who does not attend their university. The story becomes public and, predictably, outrage ensues. Groups on campus pressure the coach to discipline the players. The suspects are charged, and a trial is pending—but observers have[Read More…]
Harassment of students not an answer to student harassment
Last Wednesday, about a dozen protesters interrupted the class of professor Gary Dunphy, a professor in the Faculty of Environmental Sciences. The protest was in response to allegations that surfaced in early April that Dunphy had repeatedly harassed, and made a death threat against Amr El-Orabi, a student he was[Read More…]
Letter: Divest McGill turns one year old
About a year and a half ago, Bill McKibben wrote an article in Rolling Stone magazine outlining the climate crisis and urging the world to take action against its main perpetrator, the fossil fuel industry. This call to action saw the conception of over 400 divestment campaigns around the world,[Read More…]
Making STEM Less Sexist
The overt sexism that was once present in academia has largely disappeared. Women are finally accorded the same opportunities as men for success, or so it seems. The reality, however, is that subtle vestiges of sexism remain, limiting the ability of female students to reach their maximum potential. Remnants of[Read More…]
Ford sputters in media circus
Rob Ford, with all of his latest foibles, has now achieved worldwide infamy. In just a matter of weeks, the mayor of Toronto has revealed himself to be a crack user, drunk driver, and ultimately unfit for office. What’s missing in this list of labels the media has conjured? That[Read More…]
Owning the medium: media consolidation in Canada
Canada has the most concentrated media ownership of any liberal democracy in the world—more concentrated than America’s, or even Britain and its Murdoch empire. In 1999, our five largest newspaper chains accounted for 93 per cent of all daily circulation. Today the number is 82 per cent—lower, but still very[Read More…]
A word for the liberal arts
With budgets being cut left and right, and students worrying about their employment prospects after university, Liberal Arts degrees have come under siege. The question—or accusation—on people’s minds is whether the Liberal Arts are truly relevant to life post-graduation. In recent years, budget cuts have been a serious concern for[Read More…]
A charter of values but not inclusion
On Nov. 7, the Parti Québécois (PQ) moved to table the controversial Charter of Values, revealing the document with its new, lengthy title—the “Charter affirming the values of secularism and the religious neutrality of the state, as well as the equality of men and women, and the framing of accommodation[Read More…]
