Campus encampments and protests are a sign of failed university governance
Last year, there were multiple protest encampments and other actions by groups of students on Canadian university campuses regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Regardless of one’s stance on the issue, the protests by both sides point to a larger systemic problem. Canadian universities are prone to civil unrest because their governance structures lack transparency and do not give enough power to students.
As my research has examined, one consequence of students being disempowered in university governance is that they resort to disruptive activism tactics that put themselves and others at risk of harm.
Instead of repressive policies that attempt to restrict student activism, the solution to mitigating protests should involve trusting students more and giving them a proportionately representative place in university decision-making.
In a recent article, I theorize that a way universities can alleviate these governance issues is by creating democratic mechanisms that allow the entire campus community — students and non-students alike — to propose and vote on ideas that could improve their education institutions.
Investment concerns
An underlying reason why pro-Palestinian students chose encampment tactics was because they were concerned about universities’ investments, and that university finances were not transparent enough.
Read more:
What students protesting Israel’s Gaza siege want — and how their demands on divestment fit into the BDS movement
Students didn’t have sufficient means of changing these investments and increasing transparency democratically through university governance processes. While the recent wave of encampments appears to have subsided, the governance issues remain unchanged. This leaves the door open for tensions rising again over future divisive issues.
An encampment of Pro-Palestinian protesters is shown at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver in July 2024.
Students and university governance
As my recent article notes, students in Canada have some seats on university governing bodies, including academic senates and governing boards. This democratic representation was a result of the worldwide student power movement in the early to mid-20th century, when students organized to have more say in the universities where they paid fees.
Read more:
How universities relate with students changed in the past century, but a duty of care remains
However, these seats tend to represent such a small percentage of the total number that students often don’t have enough votes to sway decisions. Student representation is disproportionate to their population within campus communities and the proportion of money students contribute to university budgets.
Students on these bodies largely lack resources to sufficiently consult constituents. Their roles are often separate from student unions, powerful student-run organizations with ample resources to consult with students.
Student representatives on academic senates and governing boards tend to be disconnected from student bodies and largely tokenistic.
Student power via unions
In Canada, the student power movement helped transform university student governments. These shifted from being largely organizers of extracurricular activities controlled by university administrators into student unions: independent non-profits with multi-million-dollar budgets. In addition to building community, these unions conduct advocacy and activism while providing services to improve students’ quality of life.
Canadian student unions are among the most powerful student governments in the world today and actively lobby provincial and federal governments.
However, student union representatives in Canada, despite having the resources to consult their constituents, are often not given formal representation on university governing bodies. It is also worth noting that university governing bodies are often undemocratic, with appointees occupying large swaths of the seats.
Tokenistic representation
So what happens when students’ participation on university governing bodies is tokenistic and their student unions are shut out of the process? Students go outside formal university governance channels to try to get the attention of educational leaders. This involves activism campaigns, including encampments.
Read more:
Universities can foster more deliberative democracy — starting by empowering students
This kind of activism increases the risk that students and others could be harmed through multiple forms of violence, or that local conflicts could intensify, escalate or be further polarized by external or extremist groups. History has shown us that student protests can turn into violent clashes with authorities that can leave people criminalized, hurt or killed.
Police stand by as protesters hold up signs at McGill University in Montréal in July 2024. The university closed its downtown campus as police descended to help clear a pro-Palestinian encampment.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
Administrators and faculty who have more adequate representation in university governance processes can more powerfully enact educational change in boardrooms or within collective bargaining.
Students, by contrast, are faced with the prospect of spending immense time and resources doing activism to achieve similar results, in addition to the demands of higher education and other commitments.
Each student is typically more financially marginalized than their administrator and tenured faculty counterparts, making tactics such as legal action less feasible options to seek justice.
Proportionate representation for students
If students had a proportionate say in universities, I hypothesize there would be fewer protests and more collaboration between students and non-students. Achieving proportionate student representation would require amendments to universities’ guiding documents that reallocate governing body seat numbers based on how many people on the campus are in each stakeholder group.
Seats could alternatively be allocated based on the proportion of the university’s revenue that comes from student contributions like tuition fees. This would help ensure university decisions align more closely with students’ democratic will.
Read more:
Debates on campus safety in response to Palestine solidarity activism show we need strategies to navigate discomfort
Students seats should be occupied by elected representatives or delegates from the campus student union. If these changes could be successfully implemented, students would be able to accomplish more by working within the system, while protests over university decisions could be understood as not having the support of the majority of the student body.
Another way to reduce tensions would to be to create a direct democracy mechanism where anyone in the university can create proposals to improve the campus. Proposals would go through a consultation process and then a referendum. Each member of the campus community could contribute, and each person, whether they’re students or non-students, has one vote.
Students reflect part of wider public interest
Contrary to prevailing perspectives on university board governance, I argue that the student interest should be understood as a key part of the public interest that boards are supposed to act in, as opposed to a separate internal interest.
Instead, some universities have responded with measures that some students and faculty say served to restrict current and future student organizing.
At some Canadian universities, security authorities allegedly used force to thwart both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel activism efforts.
Read more:
Middle East student dialogue: As an expert in deep conflict, what I’ve learned about making conversation possible
Opportunities for students to express themselves within university governance remain limited. Even before the past year, there have even been efforts to gradually erode democratic student union power by circumventing them via appointed student advisory councils. Such measures will likely increase tensions further. Läs mer…