McGill encampments spark debate over campus status

Experts at odds over whether universities are public or private spaces

- JOE BONGIORNO

A person walks past the pro-Palestinian encampment on McGill University campus in Montreal on May 13. McGill has labelled the encampment an illegal occupation of its property.

After four weeks that have featured torrential downpours, blistering heat and two failed legal bids to have them removed, pro-Palestinian protesters remain encamped on McGill University's downtown campus.

Quebec Minister of Higher Education Pascale Déry said their continuing presence is an affront to the rule of law.

"These encampments have to be dismantled," she told reporters this past week in Quebec City. "It is not the appropriate place. Again, we are talking about private lands that are currently occupied."

McGill, which last week failed in a bid for an injunction, has also labelled the encampment an illegal occupation of its property.

But as protesters, angry over the mounting death toll in Gaza, have erected tent cities on Canadian campuses in the past month, demanding that schools divest from Israeli companies and cut ties with Israeli universities, the legality of their actions remains a subject of debate. Experts say the nature of a university means the answer is not as clear-cut as the minister and McGill suggest.

Constitutional lawyer and Université de Montréal instructor Frédéric Bérard says that while a campus belongs to a university, it shouldn't be understood in the way a private residence belongs to an individual.