A motion that failed in Senate on Oct. 17 sought to protect the academic standing of students with moral objections to crossing MUNACA picket lines. The motion argued that students should not be penalized for failure to submit work out of their desire to respect the picket line. It would not have applied to assignments worth 35 per cent or more of the final grade, pre-scheduled midterms, final examinations or mandatory clinicals, field placements, and rehearsals. It would have also only lasted three days, after which time students would have been required to go back to class.
“It is certainly not intended as a ‘get out of class free’ card, but rather to support students in expressing their beliefs in a reasonable way,” SSMU President Maggie Knight said. “While I can’t guarantee this, I would anticipate that reasonable accommodation would look similar to the circumstances when a student obtains a doctor’s note for an illness and gets a few days’ extension.”
The motion would have come into effect immediately and lasted a full year. It was based on the defence that McGill “prides itself as ‘a university that is known worldwide for its academic freedom and freedom of speech’ and that there is a right for freedom from institutional censorship; the right to contribute to social change through free expression of opinion on matter of public interest,” the motion read.
Some students expressed concern that the motion’s failure to pass would impact their ability to express their opinions on the strike.
“Had the motion passed, students would have been able to make a clear statement of their solidarity in a way that would have proved that it is not ‘business as usual’ at McGill,” said Evelyn Stanley, U3 political science. “I find it difficult to stand by idly when a union composed of almost 80 per cent female workers are denied parity, when a 63-year-old woman can be arrested for handing out flyers in a hotel lobby, or when [VP Finance and Operations] Michael Di Grappa can threaten my right to peaceful assembly on campus.”
Mr. Di Grappa has maintained that students always do have the right to protest peacefully, and that the quote regarding students’ right to protest was taken out of context.
After lengthy debate and various modifications proposed before senate, the motion failed to pass.
Senator Darin Barney, elected member of the faculty of the arts, expressed his disappointment at the failure of the motion.
“I feel that granting amnesty under the highly-circumscribed conditions set out in the motion is the very least we should be doing to accommodate students who feel they cannot cross a union picket line to attend class. I had high hopes it would pass,” he said. “I think we can do better than this.”
In contrast, SSMU VP of University Affairs Emily Yee Clare, who presented the motion at Senate, described the meeting as constructive and productive.
“I am so proud of [the SSMU senators]. I’ve been getting so many wonderful responses from senators, even senators who voted against the motion,” Clare said. “I think it really shows the strength of the McGill community because we got feedback from administrators, from professors, parties, and constituencies so I think it was an incredibly strong motion.”
