Dear colleagues,

 

AASUA, the Students’ Union, Graduate Students’ Association, and Non-Academic Staff Association, met with President Bill Flanagan, Todd Gilchrist, Melissa Padfield, Verna Yiu, and other members of university administration yesterday morning to discuss the forceful removal of protestors from the Quad on May 11.  

 

This meeting resulted from our collective push via a letter to Bill Flanagan. It was incredibly positive to see staff and students come together to advocate for accountability and a way forward that honours our commitment to safety and freedom of expression on campus.

 

The meeting began with fact-finding questions about what led up to the police being called to remove the protestors. Discrepancies between administration’s account of the events and the protestor’s accounts remain. We were pleased to hear that there are currently no restrictions and no ban from campus on any of the students, staff, faculty, or alumni who participated in the protest.

 

It surfaced that administration has additional video and photographic evidence of what happened that they have not released to associations and to the public.

 

Ultimately, AASUA and the other campus unions and associations are pushing for two key actions to ensure accountability moving forward. These include:

 

  • That in addition to an investigation by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) which will look into police conduct, the U of A shall commit to a thorough third-party independent investigation to assess the decisions, statements, and actions made by Senior Leadership Officials that led up to the police being called to forcefully remove protestors; and,  
  • That the U of A shall review, in consultation with all other campus associations and unions, the existing policy for campus protests and explore the potential for revisions to avoid an unnecessary escalation of force in the future.
We were pleased to hear administration is considering these next steps. These actions are essential to rebuild trust with students and staff following this incident.

 

We will have another meeting with Administration next Wednesday to follow up on these steps forward.

 

Sincerely,

 

Gordon Swaters
AASUA President