Exclusionary student policy challenged
TORONTO, ON—Members of a pro-life group and an atheist club at York University are challenging a motion the York Federation of Students (YFS) recently passed to exclude pro-life groups.
In late May the YFS voted unanimously to deny "resources, space, recognition or funding" to any clubs or individual students "whose primary or sole purpose is anti-choice activity." The motion states that excluded activities include any that seek "to limit the individual's right to choose what they can or cannot do with one's own body."
Margaret Fung, former president of the Students for Bioethical Awareness (SBA), and Michael Payton of the Freethinkers, Skeptics and Atheists argue the YFS decision threatens freedom of speech.
In fact, the SBA has gone as far as to file a formal complaint under the York University Student Code of Conduct, alleging their rights have been violated.
"This motion is scary because it sets a precedent," Fung says. "I know of many students who support the pro-life position, and even if they don't, they recognize the fundamental freedom for their fellow students to express their views."
While Fung and Payton have not formally banded together, they are both pushing to have the YFS decision revisited, particularly because the YFS passed the motion at the end of the 2007-08 academic year when most students were gone.
"The way they have gone about this is at the very least suspicious," Payton says.
He suggests the YFS made a rash decision stemming from an abortion debate that the SBA had organized in February in which Payton was to debate a representative of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Awareness. The York University Student Union shut down the debate at the last-minute.
"Those types of debates are essential to having an opinion on a subject. We need to allow ideas to be challenged and discussed," Payton says.
He is now calling for the YFS to hold an open forum in fall to explain why it is now denying pro-life groups access to resources. "I would like to see them turn this into a student vote," he says.
Gilary Massa, vice-president external of the YFS says the student body is considering holding such a forum. "It's not something we shy away from, so of course we'll talk about it."
Massa says that pro-life groups will still able to operate independently on campus, but they will be ineligible for YFS space, resources and funding. "The rhetoric is that this is a ban of anti-choice groups. That's not it at all. This is control of our resources," she says, adding the YFS is not willing to give resources to or put its name on anti-choice groups that "demonize women."
The YFS decision comes on the heels of another motion the Canadian Federation of Students—a national student lobby group—passed at their annual meeting in May to support all "member locals (of the CFS) that refuse to allow anti-choice organizations access to their resources and space."
The CFS is following through on that promise by endorsing the YFS motion.
"The other students' unions felt that the York Federation of Students should have the right to decide how to allocate its finite resources," national chairperson Katherine Giroux-Bougard said of the decision.
"It would be unreasonable to consider an expression of support by the other CFS member unions, for the YFS' right to decide how to allocate its resources, as a threat to freedom of expression and freedom of religion," Giroux-Bougard added.
But National Campus Life Network executive director, Theresa Matters, points out those resources come directly from students to fund the CFS.
"In an era of high tuition fees, CFS is collecting millions of dollars per year from students across Canada and using this money in part to silence students who disagree with them," Matters says.
The CFS is present on more than 80 campuses across Canada and automatically collects fees from more than 500,000 students. At York University every full-time student is required to pay $7.20 directly to the CFS.
"We are calling on the York University administration to take action by eliminating the mandatory CFS fee. If the York University administration fails to take action against the CFS at this time, freedom of speech will be under serious threat at universities across Canada," Matters says.
Fung says students need to keep abreast of what the YFS and CFS are doing. She encourages students to request seeing meeting minutes. "We need to keep asking questions; that's why we're in school. We have the right to know."
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