If we needed further reminder of how far the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) has fallen in this university, we got it on Sept. 24 when our council refused to pass a basic motion to support and affirm safe spaces in our university.
In the process, our executive made it crystal clear, they had no interest in creating a strong CUSA safe space policy to supplement the university policy.
Indeed, many councillors said they had no interest in further discussing the issue, and many councillors expressed open doubts about the safe space policy.
The motion called for the CUSA council to “fully reaffirm its support for the University Safe Space Policy . . . and will begin consideration regarding the drafting of its own safe space policy.”
What they proved by rejecting this motion is that they just don’t get it.
They don’t get why so many students are up in arms to protect their safe spaces, and why there is a movement of hundreds of students continuing to fight for this end even a month after the safe space shirt controversy.
They don’t understand how important it is for our council and our student association to stand with vulnerable communities, regardless of whether it is a supposedly popular or politically prudent stance.
They didn’t get how important it is to show to the countless students who mobilized in a movement for safe spaces on this campus, that their student association was listening and taking note.
They didn’t get that this movement is not about condemning the students who wore those shirts, it was about starting a conversation about the lack of support our safe spaces are receiving.
I believe we have all forgiven those students. What I believe we do not forgive is the weak policy and lack of support that this association has shown not just for safe spaces, but for every student movement on this campus of any consequence.
There has been no support for an anti-tuition movement, no support for safe spaces, even after the massive mobilization in favour of it.
The motion on Sept. 24 would have allowed us to start the conversation that is desperately needed in our undergraduate community, about the need for our student association to start taking an interest in student movements—to become an ally, not an onlooker—to the activism and passion of countless fair minded and open hearted students.
But instead of opening up that conversation, CUSA council slammed it down. They saw no role for themselves in being an ally for the safe space movement in this association, and that is a tragedy.
The student movement, and the safe space movement, deserve better from CUSA.
