By Hate has no place on campus!
KUCFA stands in solidarity and support with our colleagues and students at the University of Waterloo. Our best wishes go out to our colleague and the students injured by this vicious act of gender-based hate and to the rest of the students traumatized by this act of violence.
KUCFA stands in solidarity with and support for our colleagues across Canada who teach gender studies and gender issues. The work of gender studies, intersectional feminism, transfeminism, and indigenous gender studies has increasingly become the target of threats. Our own faculty at King’s University College have experienced such threats. We are committed to ensuring their ability to continue teaching and research without the violence and threats that are aimed at limiting their work and their very being.
KUCFA stands in solidarity with and support for all our LGBTQ2+ and gender nonconforming colleagues and students across Canada. No one should feel unsafe in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding.
What occurred yesterday was not surprising or unexpected. Since December 6, 1989, and in light of the rising hate publicly levelled at the LGBTQ2+ community, gender nonconforming persons, and women asserting their rights to exist and pursue their interests, there has been a complacency on campuses regarding the physical safety of such targeted groups. While policies addressing gender-based violence and harassment have been adopted by university administrations, the implementation of security policy and protocols to ensure the physical safety of these groups has not kept up or been seriously addressed.
KUCFA calls for a serious conversation at King’s University College regarding security policy. This conversation should not only consider the creation of a truly safe space on campus for targeted groups, it should listen to the voices of many of us who have raised alarms regarding the threats of the last few years, and seriously develop an action plan to support the work that is so easily targeted and was physically attacked at the University of Waterloo.
We may have let the memory of the Montreal Massacre fade; this is our wakeup call. It is high time for university administrations to take seriously the threats regarding gender on our campus and in society.