McGill University calls on police to break up pro-Palestinian encampment

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McGill University has taken the extraordinary step of asking police to deal with the pro-Palestinian encampment on its campus just days after it began.

McGill president Deep Saini said Tuesday that the university had informed protesters that their demonstration, which began Saturday, was not authorized. The university gave the protesters time to gather their belongings and leave, which they refused to do, Dr. Saini said. McGill has now turned to Montreal police and requested their assistance.

“The police understand our values as an institution and that the safety and well-being of all our students and staff is our paramount concern,” Dr. Saini wrote in an e-mail distributed across the university Tuesday morning.

He described it as a “gut-wrenching decision” that he did not take lightly, but that he judged necessary in the circumstances.

Dr. Saini said police have “expertise in skillfully resolving situations such as these” and will work through their own protocols. Montreal police confirmed on social-media platform X that they had received a request from McGill and would be evaluating avenues for a peaceful resolution.

Meanwhile, two McGill students brought an application in the Superior Court of Quebec seeking an injunction to force the removal of the McGill encampment.

In their application, the plaintiffs say the encampment and the protesters’ behaviour make them feel unsafe. They asked the court to forbid protests within 100 metres of McGill buildings.

The protesters have “created an environment of aggression, hatred, and violence, whereby plaintiffs do not feel comfortable receiving educational services,” the application says. The plaintiffs lawyer, Neil Oberman, said in court that nine other students and professors have filed affidavits describing similar sentiments.

Sibel Ataogul, a lawyer for the Association of McGill Professors of Law, and the Students’ Society of McGill University, who intervened against the petition Tuesday, said the application is unenforceable and aimed at silencing pro-Palestinian voices.

“It’s basically putting an end to the right to protest in a large portion of downtown Montreal because two students have felt uncomfortable,” she said. Ms. Ataogul added that the encampment is peaceful and does not block access to any facilities.

David Grossman, a lawyer for McGill, said the university was “neutral” with regards to the injunction, although it has been clear that the encampment should be dismantled.

Elsewhere, protests at the University of Ottawa and at the University of British Columbia continued Tuesday. A protest encampment of several dozen people remained in place at MacInnes Field on UBC’s Vancouver campus. At the University of Ottawa, protesters say they have made a strategic decision not to form an overnight encampment but instead to run a daily protest that shuts down at 9 p.m.

At all three locations, student demands include that the schools divest from corporations tied to the Israeli war effort and cut ties with Israeli universities.

A wave of demonstrations has also swept across campuses in the U.S. over the past two weeks. Students at Columbia University occupied a campus building Tuesday and erected barricades at the entrances as the New York university administration threatened those involved with expulsion. At other U.S. campuses, encampments were cleared by police and students arrested.

At the McGill encampment, students, professors from McGill and other institutions, and members of the public reiterated demands for the university to divest from companies they say are complicit in or benefit from Israel’s attacks on Gaza or its occupation of Palestinian land. McGill has not publicly addressed these demands since the encampment began.

The encampment, located on the lower campus behind the Roddick Gates, had grown to dozens of tents on Tuesday.

Ari Nahaman, a student at nearby Concordia University, said the encampment was created after months of protests and workshops.

“Now is the time to make a camp to be heard,” they said.

Nahaman, who is Jewish, said they are creating a workshop on antisemitism for fellow protesters.

Dyala Hamzah, a history professor at the University of Montreal, said she was “terribly worried” that the police would intervene to dismantle the camp.

“To me, this is crossing a red line” on a university campus, she said.

In his message to the McGill community, Dr. Saini said the university is committed to protecting free expression and assembly within the bounds of the law and university policy. Encampments are “outside of protected parameters,” he said.

James Turk, director of the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University, said it’s quite unusual for a university to ask the police to intervene in a peaceful demonstration on campus, even if it has made life uncomfortable. There’s a long history of such protests on university campuses, Prof. Turk said, and efforts to stifle them will likely only make the situation worse.

“It’s like trying to put out a grease fire with water,” Prof. Turk said.

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