But Only If You Agree With Me

Free speech is great. It is a principle that most people claim to support, but sometimes that support is contingent upon the subject under consideration. In a shameful episode yesterday, it became apparent how fragile the concept can be as McMaster University showed its true and cowardly colours.

The union representing academic workers at McMaster University says three students who are also connected to the labour group have been banned from campus activities after they participated in a pro-Palestinian protest earlier this year. 

The students are elected leaders with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3906. CUPE 3906 said on social media late last week they each received a notice from the Hamilton university that they have been declared "persona non grata."

Personal non grata is a term I have not heard in a long time. Often a diplomatic sanction, it means that a person, often a representative of another country, has said or done something that has offended the host constituency.

In diplomacy, a persona non grata (PNG) (Latin: "person not welcome", plural: personae non gratae) is a foreign diplomat who is asked by the host country to be recalled to their home country. If the person is not recalled as requested, the host state may refuse to recognize the person concerned as a member of the diplomatic mission (including the removal of diplomatic immunity). A host country may declare persona non grata status for any member of a diplomatic staff at any time without any explanation.

According to McMaster's Student Code of Rights and Responsibilities, that designation is given to someone who is "denied the privilege" of entering specific parts of the university. 

"If PNG individuals are found or seen in the area they are denied, then they will be subject to a charge by Security Services under the Trespass to Property Act," the policy states. 

Demonstrating on behalf of a people experiencing genocidal attacks by Israel has therefore become a crime at McMaster.

CUPE 3906 said the status effectively bans the students from participating in campus activities, ranging from extra curriculars to any protests, but they can attend classes. At least one of the students confirmed to CBC Hamilton by email he had received the notice from McMaster. 

In its online post, CUPE 3906 said the school is hoping to "use police violence to silence resistance to its complicity in the ongoing genocide in Palestine."

According to McMaster spokesperson Michelle donavan, who refused to speak about specifics, such a sanction can be applied if the code of conduct has been violated.

The code lists activities which constitute a violation, including engaging in threatening behaviours or communications, failing to comply with safety regulations, failing to cooperate with university officials, trespassing and causing disturbances.

"A PNG notice is given if there are concerns, based on the evidence of the case, that an individual poses a potential risk to campus or members of the campus community," she wrote. 

The offending behaviour apparently was the encampment set up at the university, one of several across North America, to protest the killing of over 40,000 Palestinians by the state of Israel. 

The protest grew within a week to have over 100 people and close to 70 tents, with daily activities and speakers. It ended in May after two-and-a-half weeks.

At the time, organizers said they'd come to an agreement with McMaster which included commitments around transparency about its investments and human rights considerations in international agreements that the university is involved in. 

One of the students who says he received the notice is Mason Fitzpatrick.

Fitzpatrick is the union's vice president. He said the other two include the co-chair of a tenant solidarity working group and the chair of a working group on funding for graduate students.

Fitzpatrick told CBC Hamilton he was involved in the encampment as a camper and a union representative. He and others with CUPE 3906 were planning to speak out about the decision Tuesday afternoon at a rally just off campus.

"We will not be intimidated. We will not back down. This move by the university only serves to clarify the need for workers to stand against imperialism," CUPE 3906 said on Instagram.

"We will use all means available to us to fight for the right to protest and look forward to seeing our members back on campus."

A sad day for people's Charter Rights, and a big black eye for McMaster University. 

One More Thought For Today.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on education, lamenting the fact that like just about everything else, it has become a commodity, measured almost exclusively by its ability to lead to a good-paying job. Last evening, while watching the local news, I once more had confirmation of this.

An economics professor from McMaster talked about how education gives you a much better return on the dollar than most 'financial instruments' such as stocks or RRSP's. The report went on to say that having a Masters will enhance your earning power 8 or 9% on top of a Bachelor's degree.

As I have written previously, there is nothing wrong with the idea of pursuing education for the economic benefits it can confer, but to have it considered purely in those terms, without any acknowledgement of the value of the critical thinking skills benefits than can also accrue, seems to me quite short-sighted and yet another indication of the shallowness of our times.

You can watch the full report here.

Why I Do Not Donate To Universities - Part 2

The other day I reprinted some material from The Hamilton Spectator dealing with the Freedom of Information request it had made to uncover some of the perks meted out to Peter George, the recently retired three-term President of McMaster, and his family.

Today, the paper has a hard-hitting editorial about the attitude of entitlement that afflicts so many of our institutions. I am reprinting it below:


Secrecy makes it all worse

It is too easy to simply rail against former McMaster University president Peter George regarding the university paying his spouse’s airfare so she could accompany him on a week-long trip to Australia in 2006.

He made a ton of money as the head of the university, we tell ourselves. Surely they could have covered the cost themselves. And besides that, he’s making a ton of money — $99,999 a year over 14 years — even after having left McMaster. Why shouldn’t we point our angry fingers his way?

Because this is not just about George and his ability to negotiate a lucrative employment contract and convince the university’s board of governors to pay his wife’s way to Australia.

It is about the “fat-catism” that seems to infect so many of our public institutions. And it is about the fact that those in charge of those institutions, including members of their governing boards, are so out of touch with both the optics of their spending habits and the day-to-day financial realities most of us face. Add to that a heavy shroud of secrecy and it’s no wonder individuals such as George end up at the business end of those angry fingers.

Most people would not object to an executive taking his or her spouse on a business trip. But most of us would also expect that executive to cover the extra cost. That an executive would ask for and be granted coverage of a spouse’s travel expenses smacks of a sense of entitlement and a complete lack of understanding of what the average person would deem appropriate.

What’s hardest to swallow, though, is the idea that expenses such as George’s — which totalled almost $30,000 for the Australian conference — are both so high and so, apparently, not our business.

Universities receive taxpayer funding and are supposed to be accountable to the public. Granted, universities are not solely funded through taxpayers’ money. But the public makes a substantial enough investment in post-secondary education that it is not unreasonable to expect an open accounting of that money.

The financial information regarding the Australia trip was released to The Spectator through a Freedom of Information request. That should not be necessary, just as it should not have been necessary for The Spectator to fight almost two years — between 2006 and 2008 — for disclosure of George’s contract, with details of its perks and job entitlements. It is even more aggravating that the university spent $66,000 on legal fees to prevent details of the contract from being released to The Spectator. McMaster abandoned its fight in June 2008, releasing the information to the paper.

It was a wise change last March when, four months before he took over as McMaster’s president, Patrick Deane’s five-year contract was made public on the university’s website.

Secrecy only makes bad optics even worse.

Lee Prokaska

Why I Do Not Donate To Universities

The following two stories, the first of which could only be obtained by the Hamilton Spectator through a Freedom of Information Request, demonstrate two of the reasons I do not donate to universities. The first illustrates McMaster's tendency toward profligate spending by those it favors, and the second represents what some would say is the cost of such lavish expenditures:

Mac defends $13,000 to fly former president’s wife to Australia

McMaster University spent more than $13,000 on executive class airfare for the spouse of former president Peter George so she could accompany him on a week-long trip to Australia in 2006.

The $13,125 spent for return flights from Toronto to Adelaide for George’s spouse was part of nearly $30,000 in expenses he submitted for attending the Australian conference, hosted by the Association of Commonwealth Universities in April 2006. The documents were released to The Spectator through a Freedom of Information request.

The airfare for George’s spouse is equivalent to the average yearly tuition for two McMaster undergraduate students.

The university also paid $700 AUS (about $588 CDN) for George’s spouse to attend social activities and city tours associated with the conference.

The trip also included five nights’ accommodation at the Hyatt Regency in Adelaide.

Documents released to The Spectator also showed that McMaster paid $445 in airfare so George’s spouse could accompany him to New York City in March 2006 for what was billed as a four-day trip for “donor cultivation.”

A McMaster spokesperson said the spousal travel arrangements in both cases were pre-approved by the chair of the university’s board of governors and considered an appropriate use of the school’s funds.

“Under Peter’s contract, spousal travel was permitted when it was travel that served the purposes of the university,” said Andrea Farquhar, McMaster’s director of public and government relations.

“This wasn’t a holiday,” Farquhar added. “It was a trip for a conference. It was just a week, so it was essentially fly there, do the conference and fly home.”

George attended the Australian conference to speak on issues related to leadership and fundraising. At the time, the university was in the midst of an ambitious four-year fundraising campaign that ultimately brought in $473 million.

The fundraising campaign necessitated a significant amount of travel, Farquhar noted, and there were times when it was appropriate for spouses to be in attendance.

“Spouses often play roles in different kinds of events,” she added. “They can be called upon to meet with alumni or donors or spouses or business or government representatives or other university representatives.”

Information obtained from an earlier Spectator FOI request showed that George claimed more than $200,000 in expenses from January 2006 to August 2008, while another $185,000 in expenses was claimed by McMaster’s five vice-presidents during the same period.

The Spectator also requested receipts for a $2,676 expense submitted by George to cover the cost of a rental car for the month of October 2006.

The university indicated that the actual receipt was lost. The university said that the vehicle rented by George was a Nissan Altima.


The following represents the flip side of McMaster's largess with its employees, and is written by Cupe 3906, the bargaining unit in the new labour dispute:


To Hamilton Area Unions and Labour Organisations and allies:

I am writing to inform you of a pending strike at McMaster University
by the Hospitality staff who are members of SEIU Local 2. At present
picket lines are scheduled go up Friday Jan. 7th at 6am.

For the past few months we have been in negotiations with McMaster
University and have reached an impasse at the bargaining table.

The employer, a publicly funded institution, has demanded concessions and roll backs from some of the lowest paid workers at the University. Importantly the administration has asked to remove a job security
clause that would then allow them to move to casualize the workforce.
This would mean the eventual end of 175 decent paying full and
part-time jobs in Hamilton. In essence the administration wants to take
these jobs away and create poverty level McJobs in their place.

Several years ago we worked with the University to adopt a living wage
policy that would ensure the university paid its staff a living wage
and would not contract out our jobs. The new administration wants to
throw that out and begin a race to the bottom.

At present, barring a miraculous change of mind by the employer, we are
heading into a strike position as of 6am Friday January 7th.

It is sad that an institution funded by public money can see fit to give raises to its top administrators but demands the lowest paid give
what little they have.

We are hoping we can count on your support and where possible to ask
members to respect our picket lines, where that may not be possible we
ask that you request your members who may have to go into McMaster to
spend as much time as possible discussing the situation with our
members.

Further we will in the near future be calling for a solidarity rally at
the picket lines and we hope you will be able to send members from your
union or affiliates.

Of course all support on the lines is appreciated.