The struggle for the liberation of Palestine has activated and brought together people around the world in a solidarity movement that stretches back decades, but has gained new momentum since October of 2023.
Palestinians have long made it clear that the obstacle to their liberation is not just Israeli settler colonialism, but the broader network of Western states and institutions that support and profit from Israel’s actions. In places like Canada, then, taking a stand for Palestine often involves recognizing and challenging the ways that local institutions like banks, bookstores, and universities are linked to settler-colonial occupation, violence, and genocide abroad.
Canadian universities have become a major node in this broader struggle. In the spring of 2024, student solidarity encampments appeared on campuses across the country, bringing visibility and political leverage to students’ strategic demands. Like the broader Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, student groups demanded their universities cut ties with companies and institutions that support and/or profit from Israel’s 76-year settler-colonial occupation and current genocide in Palestine.
Rather than meeting students’ demands, most universities responded to the encampments with various repressive actions, including calling the police or private security firms to attack their students.
Our findings paint a portrait of repressive policies and practices but also include the administrative anxieties provoked by students who have dared to demonstrate what solidarity looks like and what universities could be – places of learning and liberation rather than institutions devoted to corporate donors and deadly imperialist interests.
As students returned to campuses last fall, they entered a new phase of the struggle for the liberation of Palestine. The encampments were gone, corporate media had turned away their cameras, but student organizing continued in new forms and upon a new and more repressive terrain. Indeed, university administrators had spent the summer months preparing a new arsenal of “security” policies and personnel intended to prevent the appearance of a second student intifada in the fall.
It is difficult to grasp the full extent of this new repressive apparatus at any given university, much less Canada-wide. In order to provide a fuller picture and support ongoing Palestine solidarity organizing, we investigated changes in “security” policy and personnel from June to December 2024 at 17 Canadian universities: Acadia University; University of Alberta; University of British Columbia; University of Calgary; Concordia University; Dalhousie University; University of Manitoba; McGill University; McMaster University; Memorial University; Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD); Queen’s University; University of Toronto; Vancouver Island University; Western University; University of Winnipeg; and University of Waterloo. Our research relied on media reporting, social media posts, university websites, and information provided by students and/or faculty at these universities.
Our findings paint a portrait of repressive policies and practices but also include the administrative anxieties provoked by students who have dared to demonstrate what solidarity looks like and what universities could be – places of learning and liberation rather than institutions devoted to corporate donors and deadly imperialist interests. It shows how a longer history of political repression on university campuses, perhaps most evident in the late 1960s, has been reactivated through moments of conflict between universities’ support for imperialism and students’ commitment to anti-imperialism and international solidarity.
New protest policies
Nearly all the universities we investigated either introduced or reinforced restrictions on the type or location of campus protests. Many universities implemented policies against erecting tents or other structures on campus, while reinforcing restrictions on protests that “occupy” university spaces or disrupt university activities through physical actions, chants, or music.
Universities introduced new policies (Acadia University) or put new emphasis on existing policies (Dalhousie University and University of Winnipeg) against students appearing on campus after designated hours without authorization. Other administrations such as the University of Toronto also enacted policies against particular protest activities, such as using chalk, paint, video projectors, megaphones, and/or amplification equipment. Though the university states these policies are not new, the documents they reference had not previously specified this equipment or tools.
Some of the new restrictions are incredibly broad, leaving their application to the discretion of security guards. At Queen’s, for example, new protest guidelines prohibit “occupying” university spaces, without defining what counts as an occupation. A spokesperson for Queen’s University Faculty and Staff for Palestine told us that in October 2024, a group of students and faculty waiting to make a presentation to the Responsible Investing Review Committee were confronted by security guards, who accused them of “occupying” the hallway outside the meeting room and ordered them to leave.
The spokesperson conveyed the group’s concern that the university’s vague protest guidelines allow officials to “make up the grounds to repress protests on the fly.”
The strictest policies were a pair of temporary injunctions authorized by the courts. The first, instituted at the request of McGill’s administration, prohibited a range of actions by Students for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance (SPHR) McGill and “any person aware of the judgment” between October 8 and 18, 2024. Prohibited actions included “disturbing the peace,” hindering access to a university space, and any protest activities within five metres of a university building.
Another 10-day injunction was instituted at Concordia University on October 2, 2024 at the request of two Zionist student groups. The ruling prohibited actions that impeded access to university spaces or “intimidated” students, faculty, or staff. Two student groups, SPHR Concordia and Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) Concordia, would be held in contempt of court if they were present at a protest on campus in which these actions were carried out – by members of the two groups or anyone else.
New event policies
Nearly all the universities we investigated also passed new policies on campus events. In most cases, the policies involve extra administrative scrutiny for all event bookings. At the University of Winnipeg, for example, event organizers must now have their event materials and topics verified by security staff, who can deny permission to hold any event that poses a risk to student safety or “the university’s reputation.”
At Queen’s, event bookings must now undergo a risk assessment by a committee that includes the provost and three other high-level administrators. Under the policy, a group can see its booking request denied for vaguely defined security reasons. If the group submits a similar request in the future, it can also be prohibited from booking space for a period of six to twelve months.
Many universities have also cancelled room bookings or permits for Palestine-related events at the last minute. At the NSCAD in Halifax, a room booking for a teach-in was cancelled when the administration learned that a Palestine solidarity group would be participating. At Concordia, the administrative approval for a film screening and fundraiser for Lebanon was revoked the day before the event, citing its violation of a university policy on “neutrality.”
At McGill, a room booking for a November 4, 2024 invited lecture by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, was cancelled by the administration at the last minute, citing security concerns. Acting quickly, the organizers relocated the event to the student union building. On November 26, 2024, McGill announced that events on campus would be prohibited entirely until January 2025.
A Pro-Palestine activist from Students for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance McGill sets up a PA system in front of the James Administration Building during a walkout against McGill University. Photo by William Wilson.
Private security
Aside from new policies, most universities have also upgraded their campus security operations in various ways. In some cases, this has simply involved hiring more security guards, but there are also more alarming changes that have mostly gone unreported in the corporate media.
At least three universities have hired private security firms last fall (Concordia, McGill, and Dalhousie). At Dalhousie, a private security firm was called during a two-day student occupation of the university’s main administrative building from November 28 to 30, 2024.
The sit-in was called after the board of governors voted against a student union motion to cut financial ties with Israel. In response, campus security escorted the board members out of the building and then coordinated with private security and the police to seal off the premises, preventing flows of people and supplies (e.g., food) to support the protesting students.
At Concordia, the administration retained the services of private security firm Perceptage International last fall. According to a Concordia spokesperson, the Perceptage agents on campus are Canadian ex-military, not ex-Israeli soldiers. However, the firm is owned, managed, and partially staffed by ex-members of Israel Occupation Forces (IOF), including the firm’s CEO, Adam Cohen.
One security guard reported to be a Perceptage agent was observed using physical violence against a student during a protest in November 2024. A witness recounted to us that the security guard held the student in a chokehold, while another guard lifted the student’s feet so that he was fully suspended in the air and his glasses were broken. The student was finally de-arrested by another student.
The links between Perceptage and the IOF were revealed by student researchers and denounced by SPHR Concordia, the Concordia Student Union (CSU), and other groups. “What we see is psychological warfare against students,” CSU external affairs and mobilization coordinator Danna Ballantyne said to Concordia’s student paper, The Link. The university’s consistent characterization of pro-Palestinian students as a security threat, she argued, “enable[s] violence against them, whether it be at the hands of security or whether it be at the hands of other students.”
At the University of Toronto, a different kind of private security entity has made its presence felt. Various vigilante groups have begun to patrol the campus, including a pro-Zionist group linked to the Jewish Defense League (JDL), a group that calls for the violent removal of all Arabs from “Jewish-inherited soil” and is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “hate group.” In addition to its ties to the JDL, this group has been observed on campus carrying the flag of the Kahane Chai, a group committed to the violent restoration of the “Biblical state of Israel” and listed as an “extremist Jewish entity” in Canada and outlawed in Israel.
At Concordia, security guards have now been outfitted with zip-tie handcuffs to enable them to carry out “citizen’s arrests.”
The pro-Zionist group has positioned itself as a “safety patrol team” dedicated to protecting Jewish students at the university. Members of the group chanted “make Gaza a parking lot” on university grounds last fall, an action the Muslim Students’ Association hosted a press conference to denounce, while the university itself made no statement.
Security technology
Universities also introduced new surveillance and security technology for the fall 2024 semester.
At both NSCAD and King’s College in Halifax, new cameras were installed immediately before important Palestine solidarity actions – in the first case, a board of governors’ meeting that would consider divestment and, in the second, a student union meeting during which members would vote on a pro-Palestine strike.
New surveillance infrastructure has been implemented at the University of Calgary in the form of gates surrounding the Taylor Family Digital Library, with entry permitted only after students scan their IDs. NSCAD has also implemented mandatory ID checks to access campus on specific occasions.
At Concordia, security guards have now been outfitted with zip-tie handcuffs to enable them to carry out “citizen’s arrests.” Partially redacted purchasing records received through an access to information request we made also show that Concordia purchased thousands of dollars in “video intelligence analytics” technology from a company that sells facial recognition surveillance systems.
Repressive tactics
Most universities we investigated increased their surveillance, harassment, and punishment of student activists during the fall 2024 semester.
Testimonies collected by Concordia Against Tribunals (CATs) – a group formed to defend suspended students and resist political repression on campus – and published by The Link, reveal the level of repression at Concordia as especially notable. Student activists describe harassment by security who began following them to classes and on-campus workplaces, using physical force against students, and performing “citizens’ arrests” on and off campus.
During a September 2024 protest, four security guards pinned a demonstrator against the ticket booth in a campus-connected metro station. At an October 2024 protest, a security guard chased and slammed a demonstrator into a wall before three guards tackled and attempted to zip-tie the demonstrator’s legs together. In both cases, security guards held the students until police arrived, and then informed the police which infractions the students should be charged with.
Just as Canadian universities were complicit in the genocide, they are also complicit in the settler-colonial “day after” – the violent denial of a free Palestine, from the River to the Sea. The struggle must and will continue.
Concordia security facilitated at least seven arrests on campus over the span of three months. In each of these cases, witnesses told us that security either handed the person they were detaining over to the police or pointed out individual protesters in the crowd to be arrested.
In four cases, the students were also suspended from Concordia’s campus and denied the opportunity to defend themselves before a university tribunal because of pending criminal charges. The collaboration of security guards and police has markedly worsened the repression faced by students, allowing them to be removed from campus without due process.
CATs links these repressive tactics to the genocidal violence of the Israeli state. The tactics, the group argues, seek to repress the “huge wave of mobilization across campus and across the world in response to the horrific genocide in Palestine” – violence “the university is supporting” through its investments and institutional ties.
Students have also faced academic disciplinary actions at other universities such as Calgary, Dalhousie, McMaster, Memorial, and Vancouver Island. In Halifax, two students are facing disciplinary actions from protests during the summer of 2024. The first, president of the NSCAD student union Owen Skeen, was banned for six months from Dalhousie for protest actions this summer. Skeen argues the ban shows that Dalhousie “doesn’t want cross-campus organizing, does not respect the rights of student unions in Kjipuktuk [Halifax], and does not want the power of students to be felt as a movement.”
The other target, a Palestinian student at Dalhousie, also had restrictions placed on where they were allowed to be on campus.
From the River to the Sea
As Israel continued its genocide in Gaza through the fall of 2024, continued to bomb civilian and military targets across the region, and continued to ignore countless resolutions of the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, student solidarity with Palestine persisted unabated.
The signing of a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in January 2025 does not diminish the importance of this struggle. The cessation of saturation bombing is not peace, and the return of Palestinians to a landscape of rubble and continued occupation in Gaza is not freedom. As we write, Israel is regularly violating the terms of the ceasefire while escalating its military violence and land grabs in the West Bank. Just as Canadian universities were complicit in the genocide, they are also complicit in the settler-colonial “day after” – the violent denial of a free Palestine, from the River to the Sea. The struggle must and will continue.
What the repression of the student intifada has demonstrated, more than anything, is the close affiliation between Canadian universities, the Israeli occupation, and Western imperialism. These affiliations are so important to universities that they are willing to attack their own students, ban public events, and construct or augment elaborate webs of private and public security.
What students have faced, then, is simply the softer side of an international network of occupation, extraction, and violence that links institutions and spaces from Palestine to Turtle Island. In this context, the long history of student solidarity with Palestine intersects with the emerging movement to remove cops from universities, schools, and other educational spaces.
The struggle for the liberation of Palestine is also a struggle for a liberated university.
