On Wednesday, March 4 the Peterborough Coalition for Palestinian Solidarity (PCPS) was told by Richard Clarke, the University Librarian, that the group’s poster in the library’s display case, advertising Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), had to be removed or covered. In an email later in the day he also asked that PCPS “voluntarily remove or replace the other copies of the poster… that have been posted around campus. If you are unwilling or unable to do this, the University may undertake to carry out this task.”
Clarke writes that the image in the poster, which shows a child in a walled area with ‘Gaza’ written beneath him having a missile shot at from a helicopter with the word ‘Israel’ written on it, “communicates an inflammatory message, and does not promote the positive discourse on the Palestine-Israel question that the University wishes to encourage.” He adds, “temporarily modify[ing] the existing poster by removing the… image and replacing it either with more text, or with imagery of a non-controversial nature, will be acceptable.”
Kim Wilson, of PCPS, told Arthur that, “We have no idea what inflammatory expression means, we haven’t even been told what was controversial or offensive about the image. In fact we think it represents a part of the conflict that has been under-reported and often not properly acknowledged: in the recent Gaza assault over 430 children were killed by bombs from IDF helicopters. There’s no way for us to be polite about this and, frankly, there is no way to have a discussion about Palestine without it, in some way, being controversial.” She adds that the decision to use the image was a strategic one to express solidarity with other Palestinian Solidarity student groups who have had the image banned by university administrations for “amorphous and non-descript” reasons. “The whole point of the image,” she says, “is to encourage debate on our campus.”
Senior Director of Student Affairs, Meri Kim Oliver, wrote in an email to Arthur, that, in the end, “No decision was made to remove the posters, and administration has not removed any posters. A request was made that the image be voluntarily removed as the poster image caused some students to be very uncomfortable.” She adds, “After further consideration, it was determined that posters would not be removed. Only the poster in the display case outside the library has been modified, in response to students’ concerns.”
Feyzi Baban, Chair of the Politics Department, suggests that the university administration was extremely clear that they wanted the posters taken down. “Perhaps they didn’t do it the way that U of T, Carleton or Laurier did, where the demand was explicit and there were threats of fines, but I think the outcome is the same. The students were told to take down the poster or the administration would take it down. So there is no difference,” says Baban. “They deliberately leave [the question of whether this is a demand or a request] vague,” he adds, “in the absence, however, of any kind of policy, and given how difficult it is to decide what is inflammatory, [the administration] should not be making these kind of decisions without consulting the wider university community.”
A Letter to the Editor, sent by a number of Trent Faculty, addressed to Oliver, Clark, Robin Lathangue (Head of Colleges), and Don Cumming (Senior Director of Public Affairs), in this issue of the Arthur, however, takes issue with the administration’s actions: “We are also deeply troubled about the level of intimidation implicit in your ‘request’ that the students of PCPS ‘voluntarily remove or replace the other copies of the poster containing the… image.’ We find it extremely irresponsible, and possibly actionable as harassment, for the university Administration to deliver such a ‘request’ without a) citing the policy grounds for it, and b) informing the students about the penalties they face for non-compliance.” The letter also notes that faculty, who are a “significant party” in the university, “have not been consulted or invited into the dialogue.”
Last Updated on Wednesday, 09 September 2009 10:45
