Is McGill using ‘harassment’ claims to shut down Palestine solidarity work?

Metropolis

In this interview, Ivory from QPIRG McGill discusses the McGill university’s recent move to threaten the organization’s student funding unless QPIRG McGill severs ties with the Students for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) group. McGill has issued a formal notice of default on QPIRG’s Memorandum of Agreement (MoA), claiming that QPIRG has violated university policies by maintaining an association with SPHR. This notice threatens to suspend QPIRG’s essential funding if it does not cut all connections to SPHR.Ivory strongly challenges the university’s claims, describing the harassment allegations against SPHR as baseless and unsupported by any legal or institutional finding. They emphasize that neither McGill’s internal tribunals nor any courts have found SPHR in violation of any policies or codes of conduct. Instead, McGill appears to be scapegoating SPHR for misconduct attributed to unidentified individuals, without clear evidence. The inference by McGill seems to be that protests are tantamount to harassment. If this is legislated there is a huge risk to the right to strike and protest across Québec.The university’s demand places QPIRG in a precarious position: either comply and lose a key alliance in student activism or risk losing their funding entirely, which has long been supported through decades of student referendums. Ivory underscores the power imbalance inherent in McGill’s control over student fees via the MoA and highlights how this financial leverage is being used to pressure QPIRG into compliance with unfounded accusations. The conversation sheds light on broader issues of institutional repression of student activism and the politicization of university governance.