The university’s decision to remove posters advertising the Coalition for a Sexual Assault Centre’s support line is “outrageous,” said the coalition’s co-founder Julie Lalonde.
A letter from the office of student affairs asked the coalition to “refrain from continuing to place posters in non-designated areas.” Administration “reserves the right to take various measures” should the posters go up again, the letter stated.
Although Lalonde said she understands the reasoning, she still finds it hard to take.
“It’s really, really, really offensive to us because we met with Equity Services Nov. 15 and they said they wouldn’t advertise our support line,” she said.
The group then put their own information poster next to Equity Services posters, Lalonde said.
“Then they took them down and they threatened us,” she said.
Equity Services has regular meetings with coalition members, according to the department's director Linda Capperauld.
Capperauld said she and the coalition have discussed the inclusion of the support line on Equity Services' materials, and now she is waiting on information from the coalition.
Equity Services and the coalition submitted a joint proposal for space to Carleton's space and management planning committee 18 months ago, Capperauld said. The committee meets regularly to make space decisions, she added.
“We haven’t heard anything," Lalonde said. "And on top of that, they add insult to injury by not letting us advertise.”
Meetings with the administration are going nowhere, Lalonde added.
“We pushed them hard . . . to actually negotiate with us. They insist the meetings are going well but they’re going nowhere. They just meet with us so they can go and tell the media we’re in discussions, but we’re not.”
The decision to take down the posters had nothing to do with the coalition, said Ryan Flannagan, Carleton’s director of student affairs. It was the university’s poster policy.
“The university has a poster policy which applies to the entire university community,” he said.
People are only allowed to poster in certain areas. Posters outside of those designated areas are removed each night by cleaning staff, he said.
“We have literally dozens, if not hundreds, of posters that are collect and we follow-up as a matter of routine with each of those organizations,” Flannagan said.
He said he doesn’t want to upset people but “there are other ways to communicate.”
For now, plans are in the works for some sort of follow-up to the Nov. 14 rally, but Lalonde said nothing has been confirmed as of yet. For now, she said the coalition will continue to support students.
“It’s clear the administration doesn’t support their students,” she said. “So we have to.”
