Meanwhile those at in Science, Law, Medicine, Engineering, and Telfer shrug and realize that we’ll all be paying for you for the next 30 years.

“The students, united. We’ll not be divived….” except when only 2% of us show up for a protest. Then I guess we’ll be divided. Sort of. You know, the majority doesn’t care. But we have the magaphones.

There’s been plenty of scandals on campus in the past few years, ranging from financial scams where student societies pocketed money they were responsible for, to absolutely disgusting and degrading newspaper columns. The university right now has no power to moderate these crimes short of filing a costly lawsuit against the (broke) students involved in these scandals. Introducing a code of conduct will hopefully slightly decrease the amount of irresponsible students on campus, and increase the amount of mature adults, because it gives the university the right to kick students out for tarnishing the reputation of the university, be it through financial crimes, or literary ones.

Limiting freedom of expression is against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which applies EVERYWHERE in Canada (even on private property). The Code, effectively, limits our freedom of expression when it prohibits us from disrupting University ‘activity’. Should we, as responsible students and adults, who wish to point out the moral deviations of our University–such as the Burmese blood money donated by Paul Desmarais to build his building–be forced to suffer sanctions for doing so? If this Code is allowed to be enacted, ‘damaging the reputation of the University’ will be more of a grave offence on campus than any of the institutional pathologies which currently flourish.

Many of the ‘offenses’ that are included in this Code may seem reasonable to most: i.e. harassing or threatening others, defacing, stealing or damaging books etc. However, these are already covered by existing regulations. The inclusion of these ‘offenses’ is a mere legitimizing device used by the drafters of the Code to encourage us to accept it. After all, who would want to go against a piece of legislation wholesale if it includes reasonable clauses, such as sanctioning those that threaten to physically harm others?

The fact that clarification of the MANY vagaries in the Disruption clause is left to the University should be even more disturbing. This unilateralism should not be tolerated. This is an institution of learning, not a prison or garrison. What guarantee am I given that I will not be sanctioned if my research ‘damages the reputation of the University?’ If this is the case, then the University will succeed at subverting academic freedom, long cherished in academia for promoting free thinking and inquiry for students and teachers alike. This will be quashed, first through discipline deriving from fear of sanction, then through internalization of the norms embedded in the Code. Normation through the Code will lead to normalization of the students.