ALUMNI QUARTERLY
WINTER 1997

Top: In April 1997, students demonstrated against higher tuition fees from the Principal's office. [Photos: Owen Egan] Bottom left: Students protest in front of Administration building in 1969. Bottom right: Part-time faculty member and activist Stanley Gray supports the students in a standoff with Vice-Principal Michael K. Oliver, 1969 [Photos: McGill Archives]

When students occupied Principal Shapiro's office last April, they took their place with McGill student protesters of yesteryear. Styles may change but the mainspring of protest is often the same: tuition fees.

by Andrew Mullins and Sean Pierre, BSc'97


It used to be that students threw themselves into a protest at the least provocation, but in recent years campuses have been better known as "hotbeds of rest" as students focussed on finishing their degrees and getting out into a moribund job market. Last spring, however, a group of 18 McGill students, angry over proposed fee increases, paid a visit to the Principal's office in the James Administration Building. It was early morning and there were few office staff at work. After announcing a non-violent student occu-pation, the students presented a list of demands that included the withdrawal of the proposed fee increases (a $255 administrative fee, additional session fees for graduate students, and increased international student fees) and greater representation on university committees that directly affect student wallets. Rising from his desk, Principal Bernard Shapiro said he refused to negotiate under such conditions. The protesters refused to leave and they stayed put for three days. Once again, the costs of higher education led to student revolt.

And while university campuses aren't necessarily returning to the heyday of student protests seen in the '60s, ten Canadian universities experienced similar occupations in 1997, while in October 1996, students organized a "Pan-Canadian Week of Action" against education cuts and tuition increases culminating in a "Day of Action" on Parliament Hill.

The McGill sit-in last April was the climax of four days of protest against the fee hikes. There was a panhandling demonstration at the Leacock Building, the chaining shut of the Arts Building doors, a "Taste of the Future" protest where students served Cheez Whiz and crackers on the steps of the Faculty Club as a symbol of the future student diet, and a fax-jamming campaign directed at the Board of Governors who approved the fee increases.

Still, some would say it's hard to muster a lot of sympathy for students whose tuition is the lowest in Canada. Additional fees, however, can add up. McGill tuition averages $1,668; administrative and services fees can tack on another $600 to $1,000. For the 8,000 out-of-province students, Quebec is welcoming them with an additional $1,200 increase in tuition (a total of $2,868). Universities meanwhile are trying to cope with enormous budget cuts. The Quebec government plans $100 million in cutbacks to post-secondary education next year, which will leave McGill $11.4 million poorer in 1998-99, and then again in 1999-2000. With tuition fees frozen and budgets cut, universities are trying to raise auxiliary fees.

"I was a radical once myself"

All the recent campus unrest is still a far cry from student protests at McGill in the '60s. At McGill, the atmosphere of protest began in 1965 with demonstrations against rising tuition. Others had different concerns: in 1968, political science students occupied the Leacock building, demanding a say in the workings of the department; while in the McGill Français March of 1969, 10,000 students from Quebec CEGEPs and universities marched on campus demanding McGill become a French-language university.

Perhaps most explosive of all was the McGill Daily incident in 1967. In a satirical column, arts student John Fekete reprinted a part of an American article that described necrophilia involving John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. This prompted charges of obscene libel made by Principal Rocke Robertson and the University administration against the Daily editors and author. The controversy escalated quickly as students felt shut out of disciplinary procedures. Hundreds of students took over the James Administration Building. Classes were cancelled, which even prompted some professors to deliver impromptu lectures on civil disobedience. What had been a minor disciplinary problem exploded into a general protest over student power within the university.

At the height of the incident in November, 30 students broke into Principal Robertson's office. As Montreal city councillor Sam Boskey, BA'70, BCL'78, recalls, "We occupied the principal's office in a very peaceful way. Within minutes we were surrounded by TV cameras, Sydney Margales from CJAD radio who had a portable transmitter on his back, Maxwell Cohen, Dean of Law, who intoned, 'Dear Occupiers, I was a radical once myself,' [ed.: in an effort to get students out of the office] and many observers.

After a few hours the police arrived. We were ceremoniously carried out into what we thought would be paddy wagons - instead we were merely dumped outside and the police left."

In the aftermath, only Fekete was dis-ciplined for his article, with a token one-week suspension. And shortly afterward student seats were added to the McGill Board of Governors and Senate.

Recalling the '60s protests, Fekete, BA'68, MA'69, now a professor of cultural studies at Trent University, said, "During the high water mark of student activism, fee increases were at the origins of the political processes that eventually produced the sit-in of 1967. People should be reminded that in those days, the conservative student position was: Freeze Tuition Fees! The liberal student position was: Free Tuition! And the left-wing student position was: Salaries For Students! The whole social expectation on the issue of the costs of education has shifted."

More protests in sight?

Indeed, expectations have shifted radically. Many students today worry about creeping privatization. "It's happening in management, in engineering. It's definitely a concern," says McGill Students' Society President Tara Newell (who nevertheless supports outsourcing McGill Bookstore management to Chapters).

Sam Boskey sympathizes with student concerns over the costs. "Fees and fee increases always filter out potential students. When summer jobs were plentiful, it might have been an inconvenience. When academic costs and living costs are high, and the possibilities of rapidly paying down loans via quick employment following graduation are low, there is a severe threat to democratic access to the system."

Have the 1996-97 protests had any effect? "They raised a lot of awareness," says Newell. "Students learned they had rights." The "administrative fee" was reduced from $255 to $156 per year. McGill entrance scholarships to out-of-province Canadian students were increased from $2,000 to $3,000, one of the effects of an additional $3 million from the university operating budget which has been allocated to student assistance. But according to Newell, "Students are on edge. They're at the point where they won't take any more."

With the government on their backs and the banks at their doorstep, many students feel that McGill should be working closely with them. "There's definitely not enough student representation at the lower levels. There are four student seats on the Board of Governors but when something arrives there it's already at the approval stage." (Students have been overruled by the Board on every fee increase during the past seven years.) "We need involvement on sub-committees, at the planning stage." Shapiro admits that matters might be improved by routinely consulting students, though he is quick to point out that "there is a difference between representation and getting what you want."

Student leaders are also not completely unsympathetic to the university's position. "It's a difficult situation to be in, biting the hand that feeds you," Newell says of the relationship between the university and the government. "But the root of the problem is government funding and the administration is not fighting the government." Still, the students who occupied Principal Shapiro's office last spring believe in fighting fair. When they left they dutifully cleaned the office and private toilet with Windex.