OPIRG Guelph supports the People’s Plaza for Palestine and their actions to hold the University of Guelph accountable for its unethical investments. Both students and community members showed admirable dedication to education and community organizing in their efforts to push the University of Guelph to divest from companies profiting off the genocide of the Palestinian people.
Students have historically played a crucial role in campaigning for social and environmental justice. Here at the University of Guelph, students have raised awareness for many causes, such as: the South African apartheid, Anti-Black racism, Iranian women’s rights, divestment from fossil fuels, and more. However, these demonstrations have also faced significant pushback and roadblocks to having their demands met. Direct action is an important tactic and has consistently been a catalyst for change in our societies.
OPIRG Guelph witnessed these student-led demonstrations and the subsequent reluctance of the administration to address these calls for change within their institutions. OPIRG has supported and will continue to support direct action towards justice. We know what it means to be a part of the University of Guelph and to want to see improvement. It is with our belief in a better future and our dedication to anti-oppression and anti-racism that we support the students and their campaign for divestment.
The University of Guelph claims that it must follow the Special Action Policy it created in response to student organizing for fossil fuel divestment, and that no matter a situation’s urgency, the administration must use this policy granting them six months to issue a statement. However, this policy was only used for the cause it was created for – why must students be condemned for saying the policy is now ineffective? Why must students be beholden to a five-year long divestment that took six years of campaigning to start?
Like UWindsor, the University of Guelph should consider the ramifications its actions will have in the years to come and revise its responsible investment policy. Why say divestment is too difficult now, when the university should not have been funding materials for war in the first place? War is not neutral and it is not without harm. Not now, not ever.
In 2020, in the University of Guelph news release on its vote for fossil fuel divestment, Shauneen Bruder, former chair of the Board of Governors, stated: “finding and supporting ways to live and work sustainably is fundamental to improving life – U of G’s core mission. To us, sustainability is about stewarding our valued resources – our people, our campus and our planet – and to meet the needs of today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own”.
The ongoing genocide in Palestine has resulted in mutifaceted destruction of human rights, the environment, educational institutions, culture, and the ability of current and future generations to meet their needs and thrive. There is no future generation when children are dying.
Students come to the University of Guelph to learn and deepen their understanding of the world around them. Many of them come to learn about colonialism, imperialism, and racism and the legacies of harm they bring to individuals, societies, and the environment. Students are taught that these are things to be fought against, that they are principles the university does not support. However, it is ironic that in the university’s relentless pursuit of capital, it waives the very lessons it claims to promote and uphold.
Instead of recognizing the demands for ethical conduct by its students, the University of Guelph threatens to penalize these students for promoting values it claims to uphold and revere.
Discovering that the University of Guelph is ignoring students’ voices while profiting from genocide of its students’ loved ones is an experience that all students in a higher learning institution should expose and reject pointedly. It is our hope as an organisation that this is an experience students will not have to face in the future. Until that day comes, we as an organization will continue to support students and their right to demonstrate in support of social and environmental justice.