The Divide Between McGill University and Pro-Palestine Activists

In this month’s episode of Metropolis, Savanna Craig and Kalden Dhatsenpa explore Local 514’s reporting of pro-Palestine protests and the Gaza Solidarity Encampments in Montreal over the last few months in this segment of Hello Goodbye Lines.

Savanna Craig – Local Journalism Initiative

Craig shares her interactions and responses from institutions while reporting on these topics, notably, the lack of communication from McGill University and unwillingness to answer questions regarding the encampment and McGill’s decision making process over the nearly three month existence of this encampment. One circumstance Hello Goodbye Lines recalled was trying to get a comment from McGill University regarding why they did not offer to uphold an academic boycott of Israeli institutions and scholars, as demanded by activists involved in the encampment.

With visual support, Hello Goodbye Lines addressed the policing and brutality activists at the encampment experienced, including being tear gassed at a support rally for a sit-in at the James Administration Building on June 6. Many activists shared that McGill’s intentions throughout the whole negotiation process was not in activists’ best interest and violent, using the June 6 protest as an example after McGill called the police in.

The divide between McGill’s administration and pro-Palestine activists stems long before the encampment, but since October 2023. In November 2023, McGill Students voted in a student union referendum calling calls for the school’s administration to condemn what it calls a “genocidal bombing campaign” against Gaza and cut ties with “any corporations, institutions or individuals complicit in genocide, settler-colonialism, apartheid, or ethnic cleansing against Palestinians.” Despite a 78.7% vote in favour, McGill said they could end their agreement with the student union that governs its funding and no longer allow the union to use McGill in their name.