In a “final effort” to end the pro-Palestine encampment at the University of Guelph peacefully, the school’s president is threatening legal action against participants if they don’t pack up and go home.
“The encampment members’ exclusive use of campus space is making it impossible for the university to maintain an inclusive campus and fulfill our commitment to create an environment where everyone can study, work and live without discrimination, harassment or intimidation,” wrote president Charlotte Yates in a Saturday post on the university’s website.
“This afternoon, the university delivered a letter to encampment participants in a final effort to conclude the encampment peacefully.”
That deadline was set as 8 p.m. on Sunday.
Encampment members challenge Yates’ claim of seeking a peaceful end by threatening legal action.
“They provided only a day’s notice while refusing to engage with the encampment’s demands in a tangible way for over a month,” reads a response post on the group’s Instagram page. “This is not the first time the university has used this tactic against us.
“This escalation doesn’t come as a surprise – the University of Guelph has a habit of lying and throwing unreasonable deadlines at us.”
As an example, the group points to a June 3 email to staff and students in which Yates claimed the school was being fined $20,000 per day due to non-compliance of fire regulations regarding the encampment.
However, Yates acknowledged the next day the university was granted an extension to comply.
A group of students, staff and faculty – dubbed People’s Plaza for Palestine – set up the encampment in Branion Plaza on May 21 to protest the university’s military-related investments in Israel amid the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Yates’ latest call for an end to the encampment comes on the heels of similar encampments being dismantled at the University of Toronto, Western University and the University of Waterloo.
“If encampment participants dismantle voluntarily, the university will not pursue disciplinary action against students or employees for participating in it, though if a student or an employee engaged in violence, property damage, building barricades, unauthorized entry into buildings, harassment or discrimination, they will be held accountable,” wrote Yates.
“The university remains committed to the rights to freedom of expression, assembly and peaceful protest. However, these freedoms are not unlimited, and U of G reserves the right to manage the use of its private property should it reasonably believe the use violates laws, creates safety concerns or disrupts the normal functioning of the university.”