The Students for Palestine Committee at Vancouver Island University said protest actions will continue, despite the dismantling of the last Palestinian solidarity encampment in Canada.
Palestinian student Sara Kishawi, one of the protesters and a named defendant in the university's civil case, told the News Bulletin that the idea that the students would simply stop protest actions due to the dismantling of the encampment "extremely naive."
"There's a genocide going on, that's our No. 1 goal, to raise awareness and stand against injustice," Kishawi said. "We've been doing it since October. The encampment is an action we started on May 1 because VIU was ignoring all types of actions and if they're going to ignore this, we're not going to stop standing up against injustice, we're not going to stop demanding the end of the genocide and the end of the complicity in the genocide."
The student-led encampment, which was dismantled on Aug. 18 following a court order, called for the university to release a statement condemning genocide in Gaza, disclose all university investments, shut down the campus Starbucks and open an investigation into an incident at VIU this past winter when Muslim students' bags were allegedly searched without their consent.
After a meeting with protesters in May, the university released the investment information that had been requested. Beyond temporarily closing Starbucks, the other demands weren't met.
Kishawi said student protesters are still planning their next steps, but sit-ins and walk-outs will continue and a future encampment hasn't been ruled out.
"Part of the encampment was to act as a place of community, it was a place for people to grieve together, to look at atrocities and know the people surrounding you share the same values. It is difficult to go to class and wonder if the person you're sitting beside supports genocide or not."
The university, as an organization, has accused the student protesters in court documents of ongoing nuisance, trespass and "conspiracy to injure the university," but a number of VIU staff members have taken the students' side.
Four open letters have been signed by teachers and other employees of the university, criticizing the school's response, with signatory numbers that range from 26 to over 70.
In the most recent letter, released the same day as the encampment removal, staff shared "dismay" at the $604,000 the university spent on security services, roughly twice the cost of VIU's recently cut music faculty.
"During our deficit crisis, the cost of this security and surveillance, and the additional cost of legally prosecuting our students, is unconscionable, especially when dialogue with our students would have cost the university nothing," staff wrote. "We call upon VIUFA, CUPE, BCGEU, and VIUSU to hold senior management accountable for this reckless expenditure."
Sonnet L’Abbé, professor with the departments of English and creative writing and journalism, attended the dismantling, along with fellow letter-signatories Melissa Stephens, a professor with the department of English, and Sarah Lovegrove, a professor with the bachelor of science in nursing program.
"If they had simply spoken to the students about their concerns when they were first asked, when students approached them numerous times through appropriate channels there would have been no need for this spending," L’Abbé said. "We, as faculty, expressed there was never any need for that kind of spending on security; nonetheless, they chose not to hear that."
Stephens said so far, university administration has yet to respond to any of their letters.
"This court situation … raises a lot of concerns about the culture the senior management team wants to create here, and we should make a distinction between them and the faculty and the students and the other staff that work here," she said.
