September 2024 updates

Despite many attempts by the UW leadership and its security to identify, intimidate, harass, and misrepresent the protesters in the UW encampment, the People for Palestine remained steadfast. 

They were not alone, just as we cannot allow those suffering and being murdered in Palestine to be alone. We must continue speaking out and pressuring Universities and businesses to disclose and divest.

Members of the UW faculty held a press conference in May in support of the encampment. Very recently they shared an open letter with the People for Palestine at UW thanking them for their work in bringing attention to the UW's complicity in financially supporting the genocide in Palestine. Thanking them for speaking out and raising awareness about the horrors happening in Palestine. 

It is a very moving letter in which members of the faculty expressed their admiration for the protestors, who were enacting the very principles and ideas which have long been taught in the classrooms at UW and other Universities, yet rarely acted upon in privileged circles such as theirs. 

UW "leadership" attempted to spread disinformation to the student body, to misrepresent the people in the encampment and their objectives. Throughout, the People for Palestine at UW remained focused on pressuring the University to disclose, divest, defend, and declare. 

I am writing to you today to express my support for the People's University for Palestine Treaty 1. The University materially and ideologically supports genocide and is a complacent beneficiary. I see this as an unethical and unconscionable use of the University's finances—public funding, some of which come from my own pocket as a student. The University should immediately comply with the encampment's demands, which are as follows:​​​​​​

DISCLOSE

The University of Winnipeg has an obligation of financial transparency to all its students, workers, and community members. We demand that the Board of Regents disclose all investments held in endowments, short-term working capital assets, and other financial workings of the University hereafter. 

DIVEST

We demand that the University of Winnipeg divest its endowment, capital assets, and other financial holdings from all companies complicit in Israeli apartheid and illegal occupation, and cut all academic and economic ties with Israeli institutions in accordance with the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This includes, but is not limited to, ongoing relationships with weapons manufacturer Boeing and funders such as the Asper Foundation, as well as Endowment Fund investments in companies such as the Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Montreal, ASML Holdings, CCL Industries, PepsiCo, Metro Inc, and Nestlé.

DEFEND

We demand that no repercussions or disciplinary charges are aimed at students, staff, or faculty of the University of Winnipeg or the University of Manitoba as a result of any actions taken in support of Palestine.

DECLARE

We demand that the University issue a statement immediately condemning the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, including the scholasticide in Gaza, and calling on the Canadian government to immediately cease all military contracts with Israel. As the investments that fuel Israeli apartheid likewise advance the settler-colonial project on stolen Indigenous land, this statement must also declare support for searching the landfill for missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit people, and must condemn the ongoing killing of our Indigenous relatives.

MAKE REPARATIONS

I also wish to express my deep disappointment in the statement sent out by email yesterday on behalf of the Vice Chancellor of the University of Winnipeg, Dr. Todd Mondor.

The email states, “We respect the right to peaceful protest and assembly within the bounds of law and UWinnipeg policies. However, setting up tents and other temporary structures on UWinnipeg premises without permission is in violation of established University policies, health and safety guidelines, and the law. Permission to establish the encampment was not sought or granted, and no advance communication of any kind was received”.

• Part of peaceful protest is not following the rules set out by institutions against which a group is protesting. It’s a form of nonviolent resistance or civil disobedience, which University leadership and administrators well know.

It does not make sense to expect a group protesting against how the university spends its money (public funds from the government and our tuition dollars) to follow the limited and limiting rules set out by that same university which attempts to dictate exactly how they should or should not protest peacefully.

The email also states, “To ensure the safety of all UWinnipeg community members, those seeking access to campus buildings will be asked to provide identification. Access will be limited to current students, staff and faculty and to visitors attending for a legitimate academic purpose”.

• Universities are supposed to be public spaces, a concept which has long since been lost on most campuses. 

UW once had public-access computers outside of the library for the public to come in and use. Now they want people to wait in a long line to have someone check their ID, and have to justify their presence on campus to an inadequately trained pseudo-authority, who represents oppressors such as the police, security forces, and para-policing organizations. 

I understand that safety must be a top priority, however the University and its representatives (such as campus security) are misusing the perception of a threat as an excuse to overstep the boundaries of their authority.

PROTECT THE PROTESTORS

As both a citizen and student, I demand the University cease its overzealous policing and monitoring of protestors, and immediately direct its security team to cease their unnecessary and unprofessional attempts to intimidate protestors. Instead, the University must make a strong statement against the genocidal actions being perpetrated by the IOF in Palestine, in addition to meeting the demands listed above.