A guide to the newly released protest guidelines at CapU straight from a professional Protest Planner!
Anonymous // Contributor
Kayla Kim (they/them) // Illustrator
So, you want to start a protest? You’re angry and you want everyone to know it? Good for you! Student activism has historically been one of the best ways to make a change. From Vietnam to Tiananmen; from gay rights to gun rights, students were there pushing progress. At Capilano University, it’s a little more complex; that’s where I come in. I am a professional protest planner, similar to a wedding planner or an immigration consultant. I help students plan their protest to by ensuring they understand the guidelines published on the CapU website that the university has put in place to regulate protest. (You might ask, ‘Regulate protest, isn’t that a bit oxymoronic?’ Don’t.)
Let’s start with location. As the website states, the campus is “private property and permits peaceful protest under specific conditions […] Locations can be designated to ensure the safety of the University community and the protestors.” It also states, “The University can designate a “protest zone” for lawful, peaceful protest.” What does that mean for you? The university—with its infinite wisdom—occasionally stoops to allow protest, and—if it so desires and is feeling so generous—it may go so far as to allocate a plot of its extensive grounds that the troublesome agitators are permissed to use.
Now that you’ve got the location figured out (for you), it’s time to decide how you will go about your protest. You may have seen famous images of your ideological predecessors with their bullhorns, chants and conviction, but I must dispel you of these aspirational ideas. There will be no bullhorn, and “no use of sound amplification devices” at all, in fact. You are, of course, allowed to hold up signs, “provided they do not contain offensive, profane or discriminatory content.” What constitutes offensive profane or discriminatory content, you might ask? That is up to the all knowing university administration to decide.
Before we continue, I feel it is important to lay out some more do’s and don’t’s that must be followed in order to help you stay in compliance with the rules. In case you were wondering about the washroom situation at your protest CapU has you covered, “[…] unsanitary behaviour such as public urination or defecation” are prohibited activities during a protest, incidentally these actions are also prohibited under Canadian law, but it is always nice to have a reminder.
Another guideline I would like to make you aware of is the prohibition of “[…] gatherings that disturb the peace.” ‘WHAT?’ You might cry, ‘The point of protest is to challenge the status quo!’ Sadly, that is not the case at this institute of higher education.
A sit-in is another famous form of protest you may be considering now that a more traditional rally/march has been ruled out. Sit-ins have been a tool utilized by disability rights activists, feminists and even the great Martin Luther King participated in a sit-in (in his support of a student organized protest against segregation in Atlanta). But, before you get too excited, I must tell you what I’m sure you’re already expecting: The “peaceful protest guidelines” do not allow sit-ins. There is to be no “disruption of others’ […] access to campus facilities,” nor any “blocking entrances, roadways, or disrupting campus services (e.g., transit, deliveries, waste collection).” It’s important to explicitly include waste collection, as who else would come clean up the immense quantities of urine and feces that the protesters will inevitably leave behind.
Now, I’m sure the powers that be will protest (no pun intended): ‘That’s not what the guidelines mean!’ But, when reading through the guidelines, it seems that CapU is more concerned with keeping campus safe and quiet than fostering a culture that encourages students and faculty to use their voices and voice their opinions. Any response from administration defending these guidelines is difficult to take seriously when there was absolutely no opportunity for students or faculty to contribute to the shaping of this policy. These guidelines were not even voted on by the Board of Governors. The question that should be asked to the administration is: Who wrote these guidelines and by what virtue were they given the unilateral authority to put these guidelines in place with no input from students or faculty? The follow up question that should be asked is what protests was this person attending or watching that led them to feel the need to include the ‘poop clause.’ This redundant restatement of federal law and existing university policies are an insult to student rights, a terrible look for the university (Are people defecating publicly at CapU so much that it has to be explicitly prohibited?) and a draconian level of administrative overreach.
So, what can you do to raise awareness? If you were an obedient little student organizer you would stand in your protest zone (moving to allow anyone to pass by of course, wouldn’t want to interfere with anyone’s access to campus facilities), stay silent (dont wanna be disturbing the peace) and hold up a non controversial placard.