WE ARE CURRENTLY VOTING!!
On May 26th a group of UVic faculty from across campus submitted 8 motions (A-G2) to the Faculty Association supported by more than the required 50 signatures to convene a special general meeting. At that time, we requested that the meeting be called as quickly as possible. Subsequent to that, other faculty members submitted another set of counter motions (H-M) and the meeting was delayed several times to allow these motions to be reviewed and amended.
The FA general meeting was held on June 12th and 19th. On the 12th we moved to split our motion “G” because divestment and academic boycott follow two different policy and procedural pathways. On the 19th other members retracted their motion “K”, which called for our membership to determine the legitimacy of civilian infrastructure as a wartime target.
The motions are now open for voting!
Because many in the membership were unable to attend the general meeting where the motions were debated, we have assembled the rationales we prepared to support our motions, for your consideration. We hope you find this helpful to inform your vote.
| Motion | Highlights from rationales shared at General Meeting |
| A: Academic Freedom. The FA will urgently communicate to the administration its intent to unequivocally and vigorously defend its members’ rights to exercise academic freedom and express their viewpoints on campus without fear of intimidation, disciplinary actions or retaliation in any form, including through supporting or engaging in peaceful encampments, in accordance with CA Article 14.3 and the statement from British Columbia’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner. | CA Article 14.1 states that “Academic freedom is the freedom to conduct research, examine, question, teach and learn, and it involves the right to investigate, speculate and comment, as well as the right to criticize and challenge the University, the Association and society at large.” [end quote] Articles 14.2 and 14.3 also explicitly state that no institutional reprisals or “arbitrary constraint” can be enacted against members in the exercise of their freedom of expression, and “without regard to outside influence.” Academic freedom “includes the right to pursue research and open inquiry in [a] search for knowledge that is free from institutional censorship” and “is especially critical at times of war and conflict where scholarly voices are an important corrective to widespread disinformation campaigns”. This quote from the ARC that sums up perfectly why we should all support this motion: “Silencing the ability to name and challenge racist and colonial endeavours of any state or institution is completely contradictory not only to the mission of the university but to decolonial knowledge production and institutional adherence to the anti-racism goals that most Canadian universities have publicly committed to upholding.” |
| B: Students rights. The FA will urgently communicate to the administration its serious concerns regarding the implicit threats of sanction and discipline for students involved in peaceful actions/protests including peaceful encampments. | On May 6th BC Human Rights Commissioner Kasari Govender made the following statement about student encampments at academic institutions across the province: “I stand with the United Nations in asserting that speaking out about atrocities in Gaza or the actions of the state of Israel must be allowed.” She added that “universities, colleges and public institutions should stand up for and protect the rights of students, faculty and staff to make their voices heard on campus.” Anyone who spends time in the encampment or talks to the campers would find that it is a safe, peaceful, thoughtful, and inclusive space. Protest by its nature is meant to disrupt the status quo, to call our attention to an urgent crisis and demand we stop business as usual and address it. Frequently people attempt to undercut protest by demanding it be done in a manner that does not inconvenience anyone- so that they can easily ignore it, and more importantly apathetically ignore the issues being protested. What warrants disruption of the status quo more than a genocide? Universities operate as powerful institutions that shape society. Globally, they have long been sites for student demonstrations of mass collective will towards shaping of the worlds we live in. Student demonstration is a necessary sign of a healthy university culture and democratic society. We question what might be happening at a university, or the society a university is embedded within, when there is no questioning of or protest against genocide, or no volition or desire to preserve life. |
| C: Campus Safety & Protection of Privacy. The FA will urgently communicate to the administration its serious concerns regarding the current militarization of campus, including a substantial increase in police and security forces and planning use of intrusive surveillance technologies (e.g., surveillance cameras, potential use of facial recognition, etc.), and its disproportionate harm to Indigenous and BPOC faculty, staff, and students. Other motions describe the encampment as violent. It is anything but, which we know from engaging with the students there. Please visit our testimonials page and read this | In its communications about the Palestine Solidarity Encampment, the university administration has frequently defended their reliance on increased campus security presence and the Saanich police. For example, on May 23, their email said, “While some may not like the presence of security, emergency services and police on campus, many in our community welcome and need their support. We appreciate their efforts to keep our community safe and supported. The university will continue to do what is necessary to provide a safe and secure campus.” There is a clear asymmetry in their statement and a conflation of police with other emergency services. While those who object to police presence are framed as disliking it, those who welcome it are framed as needing their support. However, objections to police presence on campus are based in the findings of researchers and our colleagues across the country; for instance, a public statement on behalf of faculty in the School of Public Health and Social Policy cites research from the Yellowhead Institute in support of the students’ claim that “police contribute to an environment that is unsafe for and directly harmful to BIPOC and other visible minorities”. Campus security have barred our own faculty from entering the Michael Williams Building to deliver a letter to President Hall’s Office. And the administration has misled the campus community about the presence of a security camera that proved to have been present despite repeated denials. It’s not a matter of “liking” or not “liking” the police. Increasing police and security presence on campus increases the risk of racial profiling, surveillance, and violence for Indigenous, Black, racialized, Palestinian, and Muslim students, faculty, staff, and community members. In the Racism in Greater Victoria Community Report co-led by UVic faculty and community partners, 30% of Indigenous, Black, and racialized respondents reported experiencing racism from local police, including “fears of being shot.” To follow through on UVic’s aims to “create conditions in which everyone feels a sense of belonging” we must recognize as research experts and advocates across Canada and the US (including in this room) have shown for over 20 years – that police perpetuate colonial and racial harm towards Indigenous members and Black and other racialized members. The university is in a fiscal crisis. The escalation in the use of private security and police overtime $$ is coming from where? As my colleagues have pointed out, who is being protected, and from what, at what cost? |
| D: Collegial Governance. The FA will launch an internal process to develop principles regarding the presence, action, and mandate of police and security forces and surveillance on campus; incorporate a process of collegial governance (aligned with CA Article 8.1) to ensure faculty consultation; and issue a public statement summarizing those principles. | Within hours of the encampment going up, and without any evidence of violence or threats to safety, the university launched into a heavy-handed policing- and security-driven response. Some of these measures included bringing Saanich and Oak Bay Police to campus; hiring a private security firm, Paladin, to install a perpetual presence and to patrol campus day and night; locking buildings, setting up security at building entrances and authorizing security personnel to question people who wanted to enter their place of education or place of work; setting up security cameras on rooftops without informing anyone that their privacy was being breached, initially lying about it and then taking them down and making up implausible excuses for the action. The university’s response also included “soft” measures such as erroneous and misleading public statements, cultivating a sense of unsafety and danger on campus that simply had no foundation in reality, as well as blaming the encampment and supportive faculty for violent incidents on campus that were not caused by the encampment, and, finally, threatening both students and faculty in their public statements with discipline, thereby implicitly criminalizing both students and faculty for simply expressing their views. Section 8 of the Collective Agreement is unequivocal: Faculty and Librarians must be able to participate in university governance, and the university is obliged to consult with the FA on any measures that have “a direct, substantive impact” on faculty members. Consultation here is not just, oh by the way, here’s what we’re doing FYI. Consultation as described in CA is a thorough, rigorous back-and-forth process that includes measures for follow-through, accountability, transparency. According to FA communications (Petch Procedures FAQ), “Valuing collegial governance means valuing the shared accountability and responsibility of members to govern an institution.” The motion speaks to CA article 8.1, which guarantees that we “have the right to participate in the formulation and recommendation of academic policies and procedure.” Perhaps the administration interpret that to mean we have no say in questions of security, that should not be the position of the FA; the presence of police, security forces and surveillance technologies undermines the ability, particularly of marginalized colleagues and students, to undertake their work and studies. In the spirit of collegial governance, I support this motion to develop principles upon which we can advocate for a formalized presence in decisions related to security on campus. |
| E: UVic statement condemning atrocities and calling for ceasefire. The FA will issue a public statement urging the University to firmly and unequivocally condemn the atrocities that are being committed in Gaza, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and destruction of university, health, school, and social infrastructure; call for an immediate ceasefire; and, while condemning all forms of racism, antisemitism, and Islamophobia, recognize the disproportionate impacts of the war in Gaza on particular groups of UVic students and faculty. | For Canada (and many colonial nations) to participate in resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict in a manner that acknowledges Palestinian people as human beings equal to the promised people would require reflecting more deeply on the Canadian situation such as a two-state solution, or other forms of enacting Indigenous nationhood. All around the world there are calls to end this war. We are shocked that this humanitarian crisis is so easily veiled as a political problem in another part of the world requiring neutrality, when the university, the FA, did not doubt the humanitarian crisis of the Ukraine and encouraged the university community to provide help where we could. There was no messaging about the negative impacts to Russian scholars or citizens. The university statements denounced this war effort. Given Canada and the United States positions on Russia, this was not politically neutral but rather being on the right side of politics. |
| F: Support for Palestinian Scholars. The FA will work with the UVic Administration to strengthen ties with Palestinian scholars and educational workers and support their academic freedom, including creating a program of scholarships, research assistantships, and scholar-at-risk opportunities to host displaced Palestinian scholars and students at UVic in the short and long term. | There are no universities left in Gaza. On January 17th the Israeli military systematically deployed 315 mines to destroy the last one, Israa University in south Gaza City. Gaza is not just another conflict zone whose scholars and students need support. The war on Gaza is unparalleled in recent decades: so far, an average of 150 people are killed per day in Gaza – higher than Syria (96.5 deaths per day), Sudan, Iraq, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Yemen – all lower than Gaza’s daily death rate. By spring all 12 universities were destroyed or damaged, 90,000 university students stranded, more than 350 academics killed. Starvation is used as a method of warfare. Exceptional circumstances demand exceptional support. Palestinians are a highly educated population – they must be given opportunities to continue their studies and research in order to contribute to the gruelling rebuilding that lies ahead. UVic has been participating in the Canadian Section of Scholars-at-risk Network (SAR-Canada) as one its 28 University members. This program aims to house global scholars and academics who have been adversely impacted by wars, conflicts, or repressive regimes. UVic has recently sponsored such a scholar in collaboration with other SAR university members. Due to the continuous destruction of Palestinian colleges and universities, Palestinian academics and scholars have been misplaced and deprived of the means to communicate their knowledge. As such, Palestinian scholars qualify for the SAR program. As an association driven by the principle of equity, the UVic Faculty Association should encourage University of Victoria to take an active role and support UVic’s sponsorship of Palestinian scholars through SAR program and any other means that can provide a scholarly home for Palestinian academics. |
| G.1. divest from all companies and investments contributing directly or indirectly to the human rights violations of Palestinians, complicit in illegal occupation, manufacturing or supplying weapons, munitions, public surveillance, or funding therein, of war crimes against Palestinians and everywhere. As part of this process the FA will call upon UVic to develop a transparent process and concrete timeline for reviewing its responsible investment policy for the Working Capital Investment Pools and the UVic Foundation Endowment Portfolio to ensure better alignment with the United Nations Guiding Principles of Business and Human Rights, and the UN Principles of Responsible Investment. Motion “M” is misleading because it is asking for something that already exists at UVic. In contrast, we are asking UVic to strengthen its current ESG/SRI practices to avoid complicity in human rights violations in Palestine and everywhere, and to avoid investments in weapons. | This motion is not asking for a drastic departure from UVic current investment policies. Rather, it urges UVic to address some weaknesses and blind spots. As a signatory of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI), UVic already committed to integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into investment policies and decisions. Since 2020, UVic has prioritized the E in ESG leading to significant reductions in emissions associated with our portfolios. Most of the factors under the social (S) pillar are human rights related. The challenge with the current policy is that it doesn’t have clear exclusion criteria to implement divestment in situation when dialogue with companies involved in human rights violations is ineffective. UVic is exposed to significant financial, reputational and potentially legal risks, if it does not urgently address these weaknesses. Resources and guidelines exist to assist UVic in dealing with these issues. Since 2020, PRI published a human rights framework for investors, Why and How Investors Should Act on Human Rights. It urges investors to embed the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) into investment policies and due diligence processes. Palestine is one example where gross human rights violations have been extensively documented by many UN and international bodies, as well as Israeli human rights organizations, but a change in the UVic policy will apply to violations of human rights everywhere. Many institutional investors around the world have publicly announced divestments from Israel, Russia, and other places due to systematic violations of human rights. For example, KLP, Norway’s largest pension company recently divested from 19 companies for complicity in illegal settlements. You can watch this webinar hosted at UVic to see how KLP embeds exclusion criteria in their investment policy: webinar link. Our motion also asks UVic to divest from companies involved in weapons manufacturing and deployment. The military sector is responsible for close to 6% of global emissions fuelling the climate crisis, so such investments are misaligned with our CSAP, in addition to the ethical question about profiting from wars. |
| G. 2. Cut or suspend institutional ties with Israeli universities complicit in the violation of Palestinian human rights until Israel complies with all its obligations under international law. This is NOT a boycott of individual Israeli scholars and does not affect academic freedom of UVic scholars to collaborate with Israeli researchers. | We are NOT calling for a boycott of individual Israeli scholars, therefore this motion does not violate principles of academic freedom and will not prevent UVic scholars from collaborating with Israeli researchers. Academic boycotts have long been used as a powerful non-violent tool for universities to further their missions to advocate for and contribute to human rights and social justice (remember the BDS movement against Apartheid South Africa). By cutting academic collaborations, universities aim to apply pressure on governments and organizations to address and rectify their actions perceived as supporting apartheid, genocide, or other violations of human rights and international law. For example, in February 2024, University South Eastern Norway cut its institutional ties with two Israeli universities saying in a statement “We want to give a clear message that the warfare that…Israel is now carrying out in Gaza is unacceptable and undermines the democratic foundation on which all universities must build.” The boycott of Israeli universities is supported by academic associations across the world, and has accelerated since the start of the war on Gaza with dozens of world universities in Norway, Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, and Asia cutting ties with Israeli institutions. See this brief for more info. Boycotting academic institutions is not new. Similar measures were taken by universities in the US, UK, Canada, EU and Australia against Russian universities. In Canada, the federal government instructed federal funding agencies, including NSERC and SSHRC, and major grant recipients to freeze ties with Russian research institutions and offered support to Ukrainian students since March 2022. This Q&A webinar hosted by the American Anthropology Association last year (before Oct.7) answers many common questions and concerns about academic boycott. One of the speaker is Jewish scholar Maya Wind author of Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom. |
Statement about the Counter-Motions H-M
We do not support any of the motions H-M. While we cannot tell you how to vote, we would like to share here some of our key concerns about these motions.
Motions H-M were intentionally written as counters to our motions A-G. They mimic our themes – e.g. scholars at risk, encampment, divestment, academic freedom – but are couched in a language that erases the specific context and situation of Palestinians in Gaza.
Our motionsfocus on protecting academic freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful protest such as the student encampment, freedom from intimidation by police and security, etc.
The counter-motions H-M, while couched in language of academic freedom, unity, and neutrality, actually impose limits on these very freedoms and are especially biased against Palestinians, as we explain below. Here are some key concerns with each of the counter-motions:
H –
The core concept, neutrality, here is used to explicitly depoliticize the FA’s mandate by reducing it purely to contract management. This motion forces the FA to stay out of any political issues. Our position is that, couched this way, neutrality is an expression of privilege that would bias the FA’s mandate in favor of that privilege: The requirement to stay neutral would prevent the FA from adequately representing any faculty members whose lives are indeed affected by “outside political events” and who suffer many harms from them, such as discrimination, racism, harassment, etc.
As mentioned in the correspondence from the FA with the opening of the ballot:
“The executive has specific concerns about motion H, which although it contains the word “neutral,” articulates a specific and much more limited interpretation of the FA’s mandate than has previously been the case for our union, and may have unintended negative consequences for the FA. If motion H was passed, it could limit the FA’s ability to support academic unions or scholars under threat either in Canada or in other countries and if new governments come into power provincially or federally that seek to undermine or attack the professional or material status of members or our right to engage in collective bargaining, the requirement to be neutral regarding outside political events could also impact our ability to advocate regarding changes that might be coming to various government policies, such as provincial labour legislation and policy, healthcare policy provincially or federally, or economic or climate policies. We will also note that, if this motion had been in place during the COVID pandemic, it could have limited our ability to advocate for mask and vaccination policies with the provincial government, as there were differences among our membership on this matter.”
Moreover, Given the specific context of Israel’s war on Gaza, if passed, this motion would prevent the FA from being able to support Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab faculty members, whose lives are severely impacted by this war, both personally in terms of trauma and mental health, and institutionally through discrimination they may be experiencing when exercising their academic freedom.
I –
The key issue with this motion is its rejection of any type of boycotts. However, boycotts are a well-established, widely used form of nonviolent protest and an effective means of applying pressure on governments and institutions, and a tool that UVic has also used in the past (e.g. against Russia). This motion would completely remove UVic’s ability to reject partnerning with institutions whose values do not align with ours, such as institutions that do not respect academic freedom or are complicit in human rights violations. It will present UVic from being an ethical agent and a force for justice and peace in the world.
Given the specific context of Israel’s war on Gaza, if passed, this motion would prevent UVic from joining the growing chorus of academic voices against the atrocities that are being committed against Palestinians. UVic would become a disempowered, uncaring institution, which in the present moment would send a chilling message to all UVic faculty and students who look for UVic’s leadership in upholding principles of social justice, and especially devastating for our Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab colleagues and students.
J –Without cause and without providing evidence, this motion is demonizing our students as criminals who promote violence and hate. This is simply not the case as you can see from multiple testimonials here from those who actually engaged with the camp. Our students have consistently acted peacefully and nonviolently in the entire period since the encampment went up. We are deeply concerned about the portrayal of our students in this motion. We worry about what repercussion this motion would have for them and for any future student protests.
Given the specific context of Israel’s war on Gaza, if passed, this motion would censor expressions of pro-Palestinian sentiment.
K –
Was withdrawn
L –
The idea of “balance” in this motion is biased in several important ways. Given that it is about the scholars-at-risk program, we are dealing with situations of inequity, injustice, war, i.e. situations that are inherently un-balanced and asymmetrical, where there is no conceivable parity. What is a scholar-at-risk from a war zone supposed to be “balanced” with?
Who gets to define what constitutes balance? In this motion, the criterion for balance is that UVic should favor scholars at risk “who engage in multifaceted scholarship regarding their places of origin.”
Given the specific context of Israel’s war on Gaza, and given the fact that this motion is specifically written to counter our motion F Support for Palestinian Scholars, this motion is very clearly driven by an anti-Palestinian bias. If passed, motion L would compel UVic to “balance” the very urgent needs of Palestinian scholars in Gaza, where there is no educational institution left standing, against criteria that censor any overt pro-Palestinian stance. This motion would make it virtually impossible for Palestinians to be rescued via the scholars-at-risk program unless they agree with the war of extermination and starvation of their people.
M –
This motion is misleading because it is asking for something that already exists at UVic.
UVic already integrates ESG factors in its policy, however, its approach to responsible investment (see 1.3 of UVic’s Responsible Investment Policy) explicitly favors engagement over divestment, thus limiting the scope for exclusion of certain sectors or companies as an additional tool when engagement is not effective.
Motion G is asking UVic to strengthen its current responsible investment policy by explicitly setting up exclusion criteria to allow divestment from companies and funds that are complicit in wars and human rights violations in Palestine and everywhere.
Given the specific context of Israel’s war on Gaza, if passed, motion M would simply keep the status quo and would thus continue to limit UVic’s capacity to use divestment and as crucial and effective tool to avoid complicity in human rights violations and wars. This will also increase UVic’s exposure to financial, reputational, and legal risks
UVic Workers for Palestine 