Some Carleton classes were put on hold last week as professors and academics took part in an international Scholar Strike across Canada and the United States.
The strike, which took place across Canada on Sept. 9 and 10, was an effort to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and to protest police brutality.
According to its website, the Scholar Strike was started in the U.S. by Anthea Butler, who was inspired by the striking of athletes in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the National Basketball Association (NBA).
While the Canadian movement aligns itself with the strike’s call for racial justice and an end to police brutality, it also focuses on other Canadian issues, such as anti-Indigenous and colonial violence.
Many professors postponed or cancelled their classes, with some attending digital teach-in sessions featuring presentations about police violence and anti-racism. These sessions were created by activists and scholars at the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, York University, and Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD).
Mohammad Hasan, a faculty member at Carleton’s law and legal studies department who described himself as a long-time human rights activist, said he participated in the strike to show solidarity and to protest racial discrimination.
Hasan cancelled his class on Sept. 9 and encouraged his students to watch the digital Scholar Strike teach-in sessions, providing them with an online forum to discuss anti-racism.
By striking, Hasan said he also hopes educators can push for police officers and special constables to be removed from university campuses across Canada.
“We don’t want to see any police on campus. There were multiple incidents of racial segregation and Black people were harassed by police, so from these protests, we want police to be withdrawn,” he said.
Strike organizers called for the ending of all forms of racist, incarceration-related, institutional and systemic forms of violence with a list of calls to action which include supporting the demands to defund the police and to remove campus police.
Charlotte Lister, a fourth-year law and legal studies student at Carleton, had one of her law classes interrupted by the strike on Sept. 9. In an email sent to students, Lister’s professor said she was taking part in the strike to protest anti-Black racism and police brutality.
Lister, who expressed support for her professor and the Scholar Strike movement, said she agrees with calls to remove police officers and special constables on campuses.
“I don’t believe that police have a role on university campuses or in any other educational institutions. They are overused and not required in every setting,” Lister said in an email, adding she does agree with the presence of campus security.
Laura Macdonald, a Carleton professor in the department of political science, signed the official Scholar Strike petition and emailed the students in her politics of Latin America class, encouraging them to educate themselves on the strike.
Macdonald said she believes the university needs to create a more diverse learning environment, in both its faculty and syllabus material, in order to support students from marginalized communities.
“There are some obvious changes that could be made around the hiring of faculty—targeted hirings to bring in scholars of colour, especially Black scholars and Indigenous scholars,” she said.
Macdonald added that she hopes the strike will encourage more professors to incorporate anti-racist teachings into their courses, and support inclusive approaches to the recruitment of students.
Featured image from file.
