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Volume 104, Issue 2 Monday, September 8, 2014

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Published by The Daily Publications Society, a student society of McGill University.

EDUCATION FOR ALL PAGE 8

Table of Contents 03

September 8, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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NEWS

Demilitarize McGill reveals unethical research SSMU still grappling with new lease

FEATURES

Under-told stories of McGill’s campus

Language revitalization in Listuguj

12

Water main damaged in McTavish construction

Should students learn to code?

AUS holds first Council meeting

08

COMMENTARY

SCI+TECH

Online gamers join forces with scientists

14

SPORTS

16

CULTURE

Conversations with Decolonizing Street Art participants Chris Bose and Bandit Beyond the beer: how OAP defines McGill music Nuit Blanche attendees become a part of the local art community This week’s culture pick from the editor

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EDITORIAL

Undocumented children struggle to access education

When discrimination won’t go down swinging

The University needs a formalized research ethics policy

The bigoted side of Stephen Leacock

Catch up on McGill’s sports action

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McGill researchers allegedly committed ethical breach in psychology study Military funding and purpose not disclosed to participants Igor Sadikov The McGill Daily

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esearchers from the psychology departments at McGill and Carleton University allegedly breached research ethics in a study conducted in 2012 and funded by the Canadian military, according to findings released on August 28 by campus group Demilitarize McGill.

The researchers, which included McGill psychology professor Donald M. Taylor and then-PhD student Michael King, failed to inform the research subjects of the funder and intended counterinsurgency applications of the research.

According to a report submitted by the researchers to Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) – the research wing of the Canadian military and the funder of the study – eighty Somali Canadians were given a survey “designed to shed light on the attraction of young people to Armed Non-state Actors,” and their responses were analyzed “in terms of their relationship with support for engaging in terrorism.”

The participants of the study, however, were informed of the purpose of the research in very different terms. After taking a questionnaire entitled “Your voice: Somalia according to Somalis,” they were notified that the research “aims to understand which groups you identify with, what your feelings are about your group’s status, and what you think can be done for the future of your group.”

Demilitarize McGill member Isaac Stethem described the study to The Daily in an interview. “Essentially, what the military seems to be interested in finding out is how young Somali Canadians feel about groups such as al-Shabaab, which the Canadian state views as a terrorist organization; there were also questions about Muslim identity, how strong their Canadian versus Muslim identity was,” said Stethem.

“Nowhere in any of the documentation [...] they gave to participants did they say either that the purpose of the study was to provide information to the military on sympathy for what they termed ‘nonstate actors,’ nor did they actually disclose that the military was funding it,” added Stethem.

Stethem argued that the failure to disclose the funder and the full purpose of the research, even in the debriefing documentation given to

participants after they completed the survey, is a violation of the TriCouncil Policy Statement, which governs research ethics in Canada.

“When you do a study on human subjects, you have to get their informed consent [... which] is supposed to include what is the purpose of the study, as well as who is funding it. That wasn’t done here.”

Researcher defends phrasing of research purpose Michael Wohl, professor of psychology at Carleton and lead investigator in the study, argued that the purpose of the research was presented accurately to the participants.

“The purpose of the research on the Somalis, as outlined in the consent form, was to understand the issues facing Somalis in Canada,” Wohl told The Daily. “The issue of support for al-Shabaab is but one small piece of a larger study trying to understand how this marginalized community is adjusting to life in Canada.”

“They [DRDC] are interested in a broad spectrum of issues, one of them being how different groups adjust to being in Canada,” added Wohl.

“We strongly suspect that there was a fear among the researchers that if they told people what the study really was, then people might have been less inclined to participate.”

Isaac Stethem, Demilitarize McGill When asked whether the participants were informed that the report on the study would be transmitted to the DRDC, Wohl said, “No. It’s the same as if [...] we published in an academic journal, we don’t then go back and direct [the participants] to the journal.”

Stethem, however, held that Wohl’s comparison was faulty. “Of course, one can never predict every possible application of a study,

Professor Taylor’s office door on September 4. but in this case it very clearly did have planned uses and applications that were known beforehand,” said Stethem.

“From the outset, [the researchers] were told to design a study that will tell us if and why people are attracted to ‘armed nonstate actors,’” he added. “That was the point of the contract they were paid for, and clearly something that could have been disclosed to participants and wasn’t.”

Taylor, who was a co-investigator on the study, did not return The Daily’s request for comment.

Requirement to disclose source of funding waived Shelley Brown, chair of Carleton’s Psychology Ethics Board, which approved the study, conceded that the requirement to disclose the identity of the funder of the research is present in the Tri-Council Policy Statement. However, she noted that the requirement can be waived at the discretion of the ethics board if the researcher provides a rationale.

In an email to The Daily, Research Ethics Officer Lynda McNeil confirmed that McGill operates in the same manner. “It is then up to the REB [Research Ethics Board] to consider, for each specific project, whether all elements listed, such as the identity of the funder, are nec-

Igor Sadikov | The McGill Daily

essary to the consent process of a specific project,” wrote McNeil.

“The data that was collected was stripped of all personal identifiers,” Brown told The Daily. “There was no risk to participants that their responses would [...] be shared with anybody outside of the research team, namely DRDC. Because the risks had been mitigated in terms of confidentiality, [...] the requirement to have the source of the funder in the informed consent [form] was waived.”

In response, Stethem argued that the fact that confidentiality was protected was not a sufficient rationale to waive the requirement to disclose the funder.

“The researcher has to present an argument and convince the board there’s a good reason [to waive the requirement], and they [the Board] didn’t seem to be able to provide any reason,” Stethem said.

“We strongly suspect that there was a fear among the researchers that if they told people what the study really was, then people might have been less inclined to participate.”

Military research: beyond weapons As a group that fights military research at the university, Demilitarize McGill has focused its work in the past on research in science and engineering with military applications in foreign wars, such as the development of drones and explo-

sives. However, the study on Somali Canadians shows that the scope of military research at McGill extends beyond these technologies, Demilitarize McGill member Kevin Paul explained in an email to The Daily.

“Dr. Taylor’s work shows that military research at McGill not only supports the development of missiles and drones used to kill people in distant wars and occupations, but also augments the capacities of military and intelligence to surveil and control domestic populations, particularly those non-white groups that the Canadian state deems inherently threatening,” said Paul.

Echoing Paul’s sentiments, Stethem spoke to the broader role of university research in perpetuating systems of oppression and social control.

“There’s also an enormous amount [...] of social science research being done for [the] military,” said Stethem. “It’s a sort of trend where social science research is being used in order to improve the effectiveness of [...] military strategies – in terms of imperialist wars you see going on in a variety of places, and also in terms of internal policing, repression, and so on.” “[What’s notable is] certainly not only that these kinds of instances of oppression go on, but also the extent to which universities contribute to them, and give them [...] prestige and funding.”

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Shatner building fee levy to go to vote in Fall referendum SSMU Council to revise contingency budget regardless of result Cem Ertekin The McGill Daily

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inding itself under severe budgetary constraints, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) will once again seek approval of the University Centre building fee in the Fall 2014 referendum, it having been rejected by students in the Winter 2014 referendum. The fee was introduced to pay rent and utilities costs for the Shatner building, which have increased almost twofold in virtue of the lease agreement signed by McGill and SSMU last March. The signing of the lease, which covers a ten-year period from 2011 to 2021, followed almost four years of negotiations.

The non-opt-outable fee levy proposed in the Winter referendum amounted to $6.08 and $3.04 per semester for full-time and part-time students respectively, increasing at a yearly rate of 5.6 per cent to cover planned increases in costs. For the Fall referendum, the fee has been slightly lowered to adjust for an in-

crease in the number of students.

Having approved the question in February, SSMU Council did not form a ‘yes’ committee to campaign for the fee in preparation of the Winter referendum. The referendum question failed to pass, with 53.6 per cent of students voting against levying the new fee.

Since its constitution forbids it from running a deficit, SSMU was forced to come up with a contingency budget, which included a reduction in building hours, an increase in fees for SSMU Mini Courses, and cuts to the personal budgets of SSMU executives (though not their salaries). At its last meeting of the year on April 10, Council approved the budget and resolved to ask the building fee question again in the Fall referendum.

According to VP Finance and Operations Kathleen Bradley, the contingency budget will be in effect until October, at which point Council will be revising the budget regardless of the result of the referendum.

Bradley added that the contingency budget is not financially sus-

tainable in the long run because it stops the yearly transfers of $50,000 to SSMU’s Capital Expenditures Reserve Fund. This fund is used for long-term projects such as the renovation of Gerts and the opening of the student-run cafe.

“If the building fee question doesn’t pass, we will continue to be unable to make that transfer, which is seriously going to impact our ability to maintain the building, to improve the building, [and to] make long-term renovations,” Bradley explained.

In an interview with The Daily, President Courtney Ayukawa emphasized the necessity of informing students on the importance of the fee. “I think my big thing on this is really ensuring that everyone has the information made public and accessible to them so that people can make an educated and informed vote,” she said.

Ayukawa went on to note that many students regretted their vote in the Winter referendum once they were more informed about the issue.

“Unfortunately, in the time following last year’s referendum not passing [...] I received a lot of feelings of regret from a lot of people around the campus. Right now, I really want to make sure people know what they’re voting for this time, and if [...] it doesn’t pass, then at least I know that people made an informed vote,” Ayukawa added.

Ayukawa further explained that there is nothing in SSMU’s bylaws that would prevent it from asking a referendum question that has already failed.

“Something that would not allow for us to re-ask the question is a moratorium period, which is basically this idea that if something does not pass, it cannot be asked within one year,” said Ayukawa.

“That currently is nonexistent in our constitution.”

When asked about the University’s course of action in the event that the budget question fails to pass for a second time, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens said, “I am not going to comment on things that may or

may not happen. [...] We don’t want to comment one way or another and unduly influence the [referendum].”

Although certain Canadian universities, such as the University of British Columbia, lease their student union buildings for a small symbolic fee, Dyens argued that McGill’s model is fair.

“We provide SSMU with free space, which is where the offices of SSMU are located,” said Dyens. “[The] Shatner building runs commercial operations. It is on top of what the student group already receives. [...] It is real estate that is expensive for the University.”

Commenting on the lease, Ayukawa noted that the current executive is not responsible for its signing.

“This legacy of the lease and the building fee not passing – but mainly the greater lease history – is very much a thing that we’ve inherited,” said Ayukawa. “At this point we’re just trying to do our best to move forward with it, in a way that is best for all of the students on campus.”

A look at the new lease 280 000

Proposed fee (failed in Winter 2014)

260 000 240 000

$6.08 per semester for full-time students $3.04 per semester for part-time students

Rent + Utilities

220 000 200 000

Proposed fee (coming in Fall 2014)

Amount ($)

180 000

$5.78 per semester for full-time students $2.89 per semester for part-time students

160 000 140 000

Rent

120 000 100 000

SSMU opening hours as of September 29

80 000 60 000 40 000

New lease signed

20 000 0

2021 - 2022

2020 - 2021

2019 - 2020

2018 - 2019

2017 - 2018

2016 - 2017

2015 - 2016

2014 - 2015

2013 - 2014

2012 - 2013

2011 - 2012

2010 - 2011

Years

7 a.m. to 1 a.m. on weeknights, closed on weekends (open 90 hours per week)

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September 8, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Mi’gmaq community works to revitalize language McGill, Concordia linguists partner to help develop educational tools Janna Bryson The McGill Daily

N

ot all McGill research happens at McGill. Since Fall 2011, the Listuguj Mi’gmaq community has been the site of the Mi’gmaq Research Partnership (MRP), a joint venture between the linguistics departments at McGill and Concordia and the Listuguj community. The project aims to bring linguists, their students, and Mi’gmaq community members together to develop a deeper understanding of the disappearing Mi’gmaq language.

The MRP originally began as LING 415: Field Methods of Linguistics, a joint undergraduate and graduate course taught

by Professor Jessica Coon in McGill’s linguistics department. This type of course is meant to provide students with the opportunity to analyze a language with which they have no familiarity. Janine Metallic, a PhD candidate in McGill’s integrated studies in education department and a native Mi’gmaq speaker from Listuguj, was brought in as a language consultant for the class.

Metallic emphasized that the project was a partnership from the beginning. “During one of our first meetings I asked if [findings from the class] could go back into the community, because I knew that in the community, there’s this renewed interest in teaching the language and having more speakers,” Metallic told The Daily in an interview.

Carol Rose Little, a McGill alumnus who participated in the field course during her undergrad, noted that Metallic’s expectation of community involvement was very clear from the beginning, and that this led to the class being memorable. “I think that’s one of the big differences [about the MRP]. A lot of the time in field methods classes you just do a project and you do a class and [you get] a grade. It doesn’t go back to the community,” said Little.

After the first session of the course, the students presented their findings to the Listuguj community, and were subsequently asked back to continue their research. Currently, the project is developing educational tools to aid Listuguj teachers in teaching Mi’gmaq in schools, and to

The Mi’gmaq Research Partnership team. make it easier for others to learn the language. The MRP has a wiki site that covers the basic linguistic structures of Mi’gmaq, as well as a webpage that has flashcards and information about summer language workshops.

A stolen language making a comeback Metallic said that the struggle to keep Mi’gmaq alive is rooted in a colonial legacy, particularly the community’s experience with residential schools.

“The majority of our [Mi’gmaq] speakers are actually in their late fifties, their sixties, and older. [...]

There were policies back in the 60s and 70s that prevented people from learning the language. We have some residential school survivors in the community who also were not allowed to speak their language when they were taken to residential schools, and due to various factors the language was kind of lost along the way.”

Canada was home to over eighty residential schools, the last of which only closed in 1996. Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their parents, homes, and communities, and placed in schools where they were not permitted to speak their language, wear traditional clothing, or participate in their cultural practices. Abuse was exceptionally common – the Truth

and Reconciliation Commission of Canada estimates that over 4,100 children died in these schools, and the trauma caused by this violence and cultural deprivation is still evident in many Indigenous communities today.

“There’s a really common misconception that a lot of Indigenous languages have gradually fallen out of use because people lost interest.

But that is really not [what] happened,” Coon told The Daily. “At least in a lot of parts of North America, this was a really concerted effort by different groups in Canada to get rid of the language[s].”

According to Metallic, the Listuguj community has found a new generational interest in preserving Mi’gmaq. “[Language] is an important part of identity; it is part of belonging to a community. Now, as people are having their own children, they’re thinking about ‘Oh, I don’t have this language to pass on now,’ but they want to be able to.”

This shift in appreciation for Mi’gmaq opens the door for possible applications of the MRP. Metallic emphasized that the Listuguj community is not relying on the MRP to preserve the Mi’gmaq language, but that it does offer ways to help the process. While the project is very active in providing support for language teachers in Listuguj schools, it also has potential to promote use of the

Courtesy of the Listuguj Education Directorate language outside of the classroom.

Little told The Daily that Mi’gmaq is becoming more popular on social media, especially among young people. “There is this whole #speakmigmaq movement going on right now which is great to see. Hopefully [speakers] will carry whatever words they have learned on social media in their daily lives, and actually start speaking it on a daily basis.”

The Listuguj Mi’gmaq language program has a very active Twitter account, sharing a “word of the day” and encouraging people to #speakmigmaq. It has also been part of a larger social media conversation about preserving both Mi’gmaq in particular and Indigenous languages in general.

According to Metallic, casual use of the language is key to its survival. “We can learn a lot through classes and having [Mi’gmaq] as part of a program in school, but in the end we need to hear the language in the community – at this point, we don’t hear it as much.”

Coon echoed the sentiment, noting that a lack of common usage of the language is one of the biggest obstacles for someone trying to learn Mi’gmaq. “If you’re learning a language like Spanish, you can go to Mexico and spend a semester there,” Coon said. “A challenge for endangered languages is that there isn’t somewhere you

can go and be immersed as easily.”

Out of the classroom and into the community The MRP has continued over three years because of its reciprocal relationship with the Listuguj community. However, this type of project is not the norm in linguistics or academia in general.

Michael Hamilton, a PhD candidate in McGill’s linguistic studies department who has been working on the MRP since 2011, described the research practices the MRP hoped to avoid. “We call them parachute linguists – they go in and they get their data, they pay a couple of people, and then they just leave and that’s it. The community doesn’t know what happened with the data and there is no giving back to the community at all.”

Metallic agreed that cooperative projects were more rare. “I think it just takes some imagination to come up with a project that would suit both researchers and community members and to work collaboratively,” she told The Daily.

Hamilton also commented on the direction researchers should take at McGill. “It would be nice if other people who are doing academic work at McGill [could] think a little bit about the realworld impact that their research can be having,” she said.

News

September 8, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

7

Water main breaks during McTavish construction Repairs long overdue for half-a-century-old infrastructure Olivia Kurajian News Writer

A

water main in front of the Brown building was damaged on Friday during the continuing construction project on McTavish. The required repairs led McGill to close a segment of the McTavish sidewalk for the weekend.

Initiated in response to breaking water lines and flooding, the project has been in progress all summer and is not expected to be completed until October or November of this year.

With an infrastructure that is over fifty years old, the repairs were inevitable, according to Ken Outram, a flagperson responsible for the safety and security of the project. He told The Daily that the current sewer technology has not been modernized to be able to handle the magnitude of water flow

that now needs to pass through.

“When the city was originally here, the sewers and roads were not built with the current population in mind,” Outram told The Daily. “They were never designed for the thousands of cars driving on it.”

The city of Montreal and the University have worked closely together to come up with solutions to ease the inconveniences of the construction. Pedestrian walkways have helped to retain the flow of walking traffic and have allowed for all of the buildings on McTavish to operate as they did prior to the construction project.

Adrian Nicolicescu, McGill Senior Project Manager of Facilities Operations and Development, told The Daily in an email that McGill has been in contact with building owners affected by the construction and has been working with them to “mitigate

the impact from an operational point of view.”

“They collaborated [with McGill] during the final examination[s],” wrote Nicolicescu. “The same with [convocation] activities, they were communicated the same week they took place.”

Some events have been relocated by the construction, such as Street Fest, a component of McGill’s orientation week that allows clubs and services to table along McTavish and introduce themselves to new students. It was relocated to the Molson Stadium and integrated into Discover McGill, as were certain Frosh activities. The McGill Farmers’ Market has also been moved to the Y-intersection.

Nicolicescu also remarked that the work being done on McTavish does not financially impact McGill, as the project is being financed by the city.

Giving more information on

McTavish construction.

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily

the logistics of the construction, Outram told The Daily that the project aims to be environmentally friendly as, according to Outram, about 90 per cent of the materials taken off the site are recycled.

The temporary asphalt bridges will also be recycled once their use on McTavish is completed.

“There have been no injuries throughout this project to workers or students,” added Outram.

AUS holds first Council meeting of the year Members vote in new VP Finance, discuss National Aboriginal Day Cem Ertekin and Yasmine Mosimann The McGill Daily

T

he Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) Legislative Council met for its first meeting of the academic year on September 3. During the meeting, executive members and Arts Senators updated Council on their work over the summer break. Council also approved several AUS staff hirings, voted in Li Xue as the new VP Finance, and reacted to a rejection of a request to fly the Hiawatha Belt Flag on National Aboriginal Day from the Secretariat, McGill’s governance office.

Hiawatha Belt Flag proposal rejected In their report to Council, Arts Senators Jacob Greenspon and Kareem Ibrahim gave a follow-up on two motions that the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU)

Legislative Council approved at its April 10 meeting. The motions mandated SSMU to endorse the moving of the Hochelaga Rock, which commemorates the Iroquois settlement that used to exist at McGill’s current grounds, to a more prominent location, and the flying of the Hiawatha Belt Flag, a symbol of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, on National Aboriginal Day. SSMU’s support was to be expressed to members of the administration.

According to Greenspon’s and Ibrahim’s report, the Secretariat rejected McGill’s Work Group on Aboriginal Affairs’ proposal to fly the Hiawatha Belt Flag on National Aboriginal Day. It justified its rejection by stating that, “People feel that we should more fully consider this request in the context of other community members who may have a similar interest in celebrating a particular group or tradition.”

AUS VP Social Kyle Rouhani ad-

dressed the Secretariat’s decision before Council. “The University has no problem changing the flag for when a representative of the crown comes, but was really, really reluctant to change the flag for the nation whose lands we are on.”

In an email to The Daily, AUS President Lucy Ava Liu suggested that the Secretariat’s decision was not the end of the AUS’ involvement with the issue. “I think it is an issue that will definitely engage a number of Arts students, especially following last year’s recently approved Indigenous Studies minor. I think this topic may be brought up again at AUS Council in the future, potentially in the form of a motion by an AUS councillor.”

Resigned VP Finance replaced Council’s most time-sensitive issue on the agenda was replacing AUS VP Finance Kateryn Kim, who resigned from the position for personal and family reasons. On

August 22, a memo was sent out to members of AUS eligible to run for the executive that instructed them to prepare a letter of intent and a presentation for the September 3 Council meeting, should they be interested in running for the vacant position.

According to its constitution, AUS Council is required to appoint a replacement for the VP Finance position from amongst its members or from an official committee at its Legislative Council meeting.

If deemed necessary by Council, the new VP Finance would temporarily occupy their position until a by-election is held.

The two candidates who ran for the position were Dan Rozenblum, VP Communications of the Society of Undergraduate Mathematics Students (SUMS), and Xue, an Economics and Computer Science double major, who was on the AUS Financial Management Council last year.

Xue won in a secret ballot vote at the meeting over Rozenblum 25-15, with two abstentions.

However, Council deemed it unnecessary to hold a by-election.

As such, Xue was appointed as VP Finance, rather than as interim VP Finance, and no further elections will be held.

Kim expressed her support for a swift appointment rather than appointing an interim VP Finance until a by-election would be held.

Kim stated that it took about a month to get used to the tasks of the job – an interim would only be fully operational at the time the by-election took place, and the process of retraining would have to begin.

Kim told The Daily that she was feeling confident in Xue’s appointment. “This job is very operational, so you learn as you go along, and once you get the hang of the operation, it’s just time management skills,” Kim stated.

Commentary

September 8, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

8

Reading, writing, and rights How undocumented children struggle to access education Amtullah Reage Commentary Writer

W

hen I was six years old, my teacher approached me on the playground with a question. “Are you a citizen?” “Yes!” I answered automatically and enthusiastically. I knew the right answer even if I wasn’t sure it was true.

Later, in fourth grade, kids teased me for what they assumed was a hickey – a reddish, palm-sized stain extending from my neck to my jaw. It was actually a bruise from where my father had smacked me hard across the face when I’d spilled some milk.

My biggest fear was not his temper, but that someone would understand what happened and call social services. I was scared that the truth would come out: not that I was being abused, but that we were undocumented immigrants. We would have been deported over spilt milk.

As I got older, my fears receded into the background. That is, until graduation. I had the right grades to get into university but not the right paperwork. Perhaps I could’ve checked ‘citizen’ on the application form and hoped that I would never be asked for proof. I could have, except that post-9/11, people of colour were asked for their papers at every turn. I couldn’t live like that, never knowing what day was going to be my last in the U.S., never knowing when the life I’d spent years building would tumble like a house of cards. I saw only one option: to leave the U.S., the only country I had known since the age of two, and begin again somewhere else. Ultimately, I was able to enter Canada because I had a hard-won high school diploma and a letter of acceptance from McGill; and only because I was allowed to go to school without my parents being asked to ‘prove their status.’

This is my story. But, unlike me, there are thousands of children in Quebec who are denied the right to go to school due to their precarious immigration status, or their lack of any status at all. This is because Quebec requires families to prove their child’s legal immigration status in order to register for school.

Many families won’t even try to register their children because the climate of suspicion on the one side, and fear on the other, leads to a life lived in terror of deportation. It’s the same reason I never bothered to try to get a driver’s license. With every attempt at accessing the most basic entitlements, you ask yourself whether today is the day your life as you know it will end.

Alice Shen | The McGill Daily Undocumented families are only allowed to register their children for school if they pay a ‘financial contribution’ (read: exorbitant fee) of five to six thousand dollars per year. What’s so unfair about this is that many non-status parents receive exploitative wages and barely make rent. The consequences of this discrimination hardly need enumeration: social isolation, impeded academic and personal progress, and – worst of all – hopelessness.

What would I have done at 18 years old if I had never been allowed to go to school? I graduated with honours, served on student council, and volunteered with ‘at-risk’ youth (never mind that my undocumented status made me one). All those opportunities, and all the dreams these experiences inspired wouldn’t have happened without my public school education. My admission to McGill and study permit to Canada was nothing less than a golden ticket to status, freedom, and a chance at life.

Where are the golden tickets for Quebec’s undocumented children?

My friend Max is one such child.

He is a 13-year-old whose mother immigrated to Canada four years ago and applied for refugee status upon arrival. As the child of a refugee claimant, Max was allowed to go to school for free, but once his mom’s refugee application was denied, they were asked to pay the astronomical fees demanded of the undocumented. There was no way

that Max’s mom, who at the time was cleaning houses to make rent, could afford to pay. As a result, Max stayed out of school and spent most of his days at home. By the time their status was regularized and he could finally go to school for free, Max was two years behind. Stories like Max’s are as numerous as they are heartbreaking, and as shocking as they are unnecessary.

The Quebec Ministry of Education claims they’ve ‘solved the problem’ by allowing fee exemptions for certain categories of immigrants, such as those who’ve been refused asylum but whose deportation is delayed because their countries of origin are deemed too dangerous (think Iraq).

In reality, the cases covered by these exemptions are miniscule and leave out most undocumented families.

The Ministry claims they allow school boards ‘flexibility,’ but the only thing they’ve allowed is the flourishing of an ad-hoc system where information remains murky. Families must depend on the goodwill of local school officials whom they hope will be wellinformed about the nuances of our Kafkaesque and constantly changing immigration laws.

And if they’re not? In some nightmare scenarios, children have been told that they would be reported to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada if their parents did not pay the fees demanded.

Doesn’t it make you long for the days when after-school detention – not deportation – was all kids had to

worry about when they were called into the principal’s office?

Lest we forget, education is a right. Why is this concept so difficult for the Quebec government to grasp?

It’s not just a slogan – it’s a fact long enshrined in international law. Numerous international conventions declare education an inalienable human right, and Canada is a signatory to all of these. Not to mention the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, which state that children everywhere should be able to access primary school. These goals are aimed at ‘developing’ countries but, one has to wonder, will Quebec measure up? The bottom line is simple: the right to education must be given without any thought to a child’s country of birth.

It isn’t such a controversy in other places. In the U.S., where I grew up, schools cannot refuse access to children on the basis of their immigration status thanks to Plyler v. Doe, a 1982 case in which the Supreme Court struck down a municipal school district’s attempt to charge undocumented students an annual $1,000 tuition fee. The court ruled that barring a child’s right to free education violated “equal protection under the law.” Today, Texan schools not only allow nonstatus students in, but they grant them access to financial assistance programs and reduced tuition once in college. These programs are supported by unapologetically rightwing politicians like Rick Perry,

Chris Christie, and Mike Huckabee.

European states, to varying degrees, have all taken a similar position, and many do not require any documents to enroll children in school.

What will it take for Quebec to meet the most basic standards of international law and human decency?

It’s hard to say. I work with the Collectif Éducation Sans Frontières (CESF) and, since 2011, we’ve been demanding that Quebec amend the law to allow all children to attend school for free. We’ve used numerous tactics, even going so far as to occupy the education minister’s office. None of it has worked. Quebec remains the only jurisdiction in North America that systematically excludes non-status children from free access to primary and secondary school.

Today, many students are engrossed in the trivialities of backto-school: what outfit to wear for the first day, or what courses to sign up for. Sadly, there are many children whose only thought is how great it would be to get to go to school at all, who sit behind windows watching other kids board the bus while the TV, their only companion for the day, drones on in the background. Enough. It’s time that Quebec allow every child go to school. Otherwise, what our children are really learning are lessons in discrimination.

Amtullah Reage is a pseudonym.

To contact them, please email massderision@gmail.com.

Commentary

September 8, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

9

Prejudice with a grin We should be ashamed that Stephen Leacock worked at McGill Emmet Livingstone The McGill Daily

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ike any power structure, McGill likes to trumpet its successes. Part of this involves promoting notable figures associated with the University in the hope that their prestige will rub off on the institution. The academic and humourist Stephen Leacock is one of these figures. His name is included among the “McGill Pioneers” and is also stamped onto the 1960s brutalist monstrosity that towers above McTavish. However, power structures also have a habit of hiding their own faults, and true to form, McGill is shy about exposing the darker side of Leacock. A glance through some of his writings reveals an imperialist, racist, and deeply misogynistic man.

Though a professor of political economy at McGill, his real fame came from his fiction, and in particular, his humour. At his height, he was one of the most admired humourists in the English-speaking world, and perhaps the best known Canadian writer in any genre. Leacock’s novel Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is still widely read today, over 100 years after it was first published.

By this measure, we might celebrate Leacock and his relationship to McGill. However, coupled with his humour were forays into social criticism – and any appreciation of his work must take these into account. For a start, Leacock was an unashamed misogynist. He regularly referred to women’s suffrage and women’s access to education as “the woman problem.” In his essay The Woman Question, he portrays the feminist militating for equal rights at the time as “the Awful Woman with spectacles,” arguing that the relatively new phenomenon was

part of a historical trend of troublesome women. He was no stranger to violent imagery, either, pointing out that in “the Middle Ages, [they] called [a troublesome woman] a witch and burned her.”

That being said, he did admit that the momentum of the feminist movement was bound to achieve results, and further argued that legally speaking, it was wrong to bar women from any profession. To assuage his fellow conservatives, though, he writes that dismantling legal boundaries would amount to nothing anyway: “Women have just as good a right to fail at being lawyers as they have at anything else.”

Occupations, to Leacock, were strictly gendered, and any attempt by women to gain entry into the world of men would flop.

This is stock misogyny, but it’s worth noting that even in the early 20th century his ideas were considered antiquated. Describing his male and female undergraduate students at McGill in the 1930s, long after the co-education debate in Canada was over, Leacock writes that “there is no need to raise here the question of which is superior and which is inferior (though I think, the Lord help me, I know the answer to that too).” Most galling though, was his assertion that he wasn’t telling women what they ought to do, but explaining to them what they wanted for themselves.

In another essay, Woman’s Level, he argues that university education for women is ineffectual because they are destined for the role of “home and mother.” For their own good, Leacock writes that “women need not more freedom but less.”

It should come as no surprise then that someone as prejudiced as Leacock was a fierce advocate of the British Empire. What’s more, his

The Leacock building.

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily

imperialism was steeped in vicious racism. In line with his patronizing of women, he thought imperialism was a just way to keep “savages” (his words) from murdering each other.

In An Apology for the British Empire (apology as in defence), Leacock writes that “the right people to keep the world safe and decent and fair, for all the people, decent or not, are the English-speaking peoples.” Furthermore, he goes on to say that in India and Nigeria, the Indigenous population was so divided that they required colonial subjugation for their own good. It rarely occurred to him to acknowledge the movements of national liberation that aimed to right the injustice of exploitaition from abroad.

To add insult to injury, Leacock opposed the immigration of people he considered inferior, stating, “We

would never dream of letting in Indians.” In another essay, despairing of immigrants from Central Europe, he declares that “in Canada, unless we maintain this British stock, we are lost.”

Still, many in the Canadian elite fall back on the trope of Leacock as a brilliant, kind-hearted, and good-humoured man; someone of whom Canadians can be proud. To writer Guy Vanderhaeghe, he is one of the “great interpreters of this country.” At best though, Leacock was an interpreter of anglo-, British-Canadian men during the decline of the Empire.

Why does McGill still boast about this man? Many alumni have gone on to do good in the world – Leacock is not one of them. The tired argument that he was merely a ‘man of his time’ does not hold water here either – socialists and

feminists at the beginning of the 20th century were vocally and actively dismantling archaic beliefs.

These very militants were the subjects of his ridicule.

That a building is still named after him and that he is still touted as someone to admire speaks to McGill’s own colonial, sexist, and racist history. Moving on from such a troubled history requires acknowledgement that it exists.

At the very least, McGill should be honest in its portrayal of Leacock.

In today’s world, we would not hesitate to call him what he was – a violent, racist, woman-hater.

Rights and Legal Pluralism nor the Hebrew University. Minerva Center for Human Rights would have had any interest in running such a sham. On the contrary, the program sought to address the most challenging issues, including self-determination, minority rights, the laws of war, population displacement, socio-economic rights, children’s rights, et cetera. No issue was too contentious to address, no reality too hard to contemplate, and no po-

sition too extreme to be considered.

Indeed, both institutions strove to ensure diversity within each contingent, and a truly wide spectrum of opinions was presented. The outcome was a learning experience that left everyone with a deeper understanding of the complexities of situations like the current conflict in Gaza. Anyone committed to justice in the Middle East, whatever their deeply-held convictions, should wish for more such pro-

grams, not fewer. The McGill-Hebrew University Summer Human Rights program was discontinued in 2014 because of lack of funding, but it was certainly part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Emmet Livingstone is the commentary editor at The Daily, but his opinions here are his own. To contact him, please email emmet. livingstone@mail.mcgill.ca.

Letters letters@mcgilldaily.com

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e should respect deeply held convictions and the wish to react to something that is taken as an injustice, as done by some McGill students regarding the tragic events in the Middle East (“A statement of solidarity,” Commentary, September 2, page 10). I wish to comment only on the McGill-Hebrew University Summer Human Rights Program, because it is the one McGill activity that is specifically mentioned by name in

the statement. I find it more than a little ironic to argue that in order to advance the cause of human rights, McGill should not have participated in a program on human rights. Such a position seems defensible only if this program were not a genuine forum to explore and debate human rights issues, but instead a sham designed to legitimize whatever policies and practices are in place. Needless to say, neither the McGill Centre for Human

Professor René Provost initiated the McGill-Hebrew University Summer Human Rights Program during his tenure as the director of the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism.

Features

September 8, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

MORE THAN TWO SIDES TO EVERY STORY

10

James Ad

James Admin 1988, a three-d research’s offi introducing m for military-fu ing a policy r stricter stand were removed cipal Suzanne tions surround tee, the Unive taking place o

A glimpse at some of McGill’s under-told histories, and their continuing legacies Assembled by Hannah Besseau Illustrations by Jasmine Wang

This map is meant to only be a glimpse at some of the histories at McGill that are either left hidden or under-told. It is in no way meant to be an all-encompassing map; certainly, histories at McGill run far deeper and more complex than a map could ever illustrate. If you want to hear the full stories of some of these blurbs, check out the online version of this article. We’ve packed it full of hyperlinks, maps, and an audio tour – which you can also tune into on The Daily’s radio show, Unfit to Print.

Faculty of Law

The U.S. Air Force sends its lawyers to obtain graduate degrees at the L’Institut d’analyse stratégique et d’innovation, where they produce scholarship that advances American strategic objectives with respect to space warfare. Graduates of L’Institute go on to work for various military organizations.

In 2008, Boeing established a fellowship program here with a $500,000 gift to the Institute.

– Demilitarize McGill

Leacock Building

The Leacock building is home to many departments, including the political science department. Along with Université de Montréal, the department hosts The Centre for International Peace and Security Studies (CIPSS), a research institute that according to Demilitarize McGill, is partly funded by the Canadian military.

The Leacock building has also been the site of several protests including students against the closure of the Architecture Café, and also against the war in Iraq. Also worth mentioning: Stephen Leacock, the man the building is named after, was a bit of a bigot, to say the least. If you want to know more about Mr. Leacock, check out this week’s Commentary section.

– Demilitarize McGill

James McGill

The founder of this university and a renowned busines McGill was also recorded to have purchased and sold slav middle of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th cen was common in Montreal and pre-Confederate Canada. like the Montreal Gazette actually facilitated and advert change of black slaves. Perhaps the reason this history is l because there was no law condoning slavery – this meant need to officially abolish slavery either. Slavery in Quebec economic necessity; it was a form of public extravagance ferred prestige. There were also a great number of slaves in were Indigenous.

This colonial legacy has lived on at McGill – does anyone 2008, when former McGill Chancellor Dick Pound called people savages?

There is some small progress at McGill with the launch of digenous Studies minor; however, there is still a long way decolonizing campus.

– Files from Lindsay Nixon of the Indigenou Two-Spirit Harm Reduction Coalition, and

First Peoples’ House

Despite McGill being founded on stolen Native land, the First Peoples’ House did not come into existence until 1998. Though currently temporarily on University as its usual location undergoes construction to become more accessible, the First Peoples’ House is permanently located at 3505 Peel. In an article in the McGill Reporter, Tracy Diabo, the coordinator for McGill’s First Peoples’ House, described the need for the house as a resource on campus.” If you’re the only Aboriginal student in a class of 400, it’s not only intimidating, there is a real sense of loneliness.” The First Peoples’ House is a resource for Indigenous students on campus to find support and resources.

Hochelaga rock

Located by the Roddick Gates, this rock is meant to co quois settlement that McGill is established on today. A First Peoples’ House, back in 1860 when what is known a undergoing construction, workers found traces of human as well as old household items, which were eventually dis ing to a Hochelaga Iroquoian village from 1535.

Features

September 8, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

11

dministration Building

nistration Building: In day occupation of the VP fice ended with McGill minimal ethical standards unded research. Followreview, despite calls for dards, these regulations d in 2009. Although Prine Fortier has expressed interest in examining the ethical quesding research and recently convened a policy review commitersity has yet to support ending any of the military research on campus.

– Demilitarize McGill

Mcconnell engineering building

This building is home to the Centre for Intelligent Machines (CIM), which conducts research for military and law enforcement. The purposes are ongoing at the CIM, in areas that include automated surveillance and artificial perception.

According to Demilitarize McGill, from 1999 to at least 2010, the CIM was the site of missile guidance and target-tracking research in collaboration with Lockheed Martin (a technology company), the Canadian military, and Israel.

– Demilitarize McGill

Macdonald Engineering Building

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The Shockwave Physics Group (SWPG) works closely with Canadian military researchers on topics related to thermobaric bombs, which create an explosion, killing people by asphyxiation and the pressure of a shock wave.

They were used by the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq, and most recently by the Syrian regime. Scientific reports for the U.S. military have specifically cited SWPG research as aiding in the development of more lethal thermobaric weapons.

A more recent research project at the SWPG is concerned with air-breathing propulsion, with applications to hypersonic missiles and jets. Demilitarize McGill carried out a blockade of the SWPG lab complex, shutting down work for over four hours, on February 25.

– Demilitarize McGill

Milton-parc

More commonly – and problematically – known as ‘the ghetto’ by McGill students, this Montreal neighbourhood has never been a homogenous pool of McGillbubble students and sororities. In fact, Milton-Parc has had a long and arduous history. Post-WWII, the community mostly consisted of bourgeois estate owners, who later moved to Westmount or Outremont. As buildings became run down, the neighbourhood came under the sights of developers, who began developing the area under the guise of ‘urban renewal’ or ‘slum clearance.’ Such development projects included the La Cité high rises, which were intended to be three times bigger than what is seen today. The residents of the community, organized under the Milton Parc Citizens’ Committee, resisted such projects with door-to-door outreach, petitions, and even direct action occupations. Eventually, the development project ran out of money, and residents were able to convince the federal government to buy the undeveloped lots. Co-op houses were built in their place, creating the largest co-op community in North America.

– Files from Aaron Lakoff

Arch Café

The Architecture Café, formerly located in the Macdonald-Harrington building, was one of the last student-run food providers on campus. It closed in 2010 amidst an uproar from students. Since then, there has been a big push to open a student-run cafe.

Does the food counter on the third floor of SSMU count as a student space? Some remain to be convinced.

Parc Oxygène

Just off Hutchison Street, this green space was under threat of condominium development for years. Local residents and community members resisted development for years; however, the park was destroyed this summer after condominium construction was approved.

– Files from Aaron Lakoff

Sci+Tech

September 8, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Coding on campus and beyond Should students learn to code?

Arielle VanIderstine Sci+Tech Writer

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n a Daily article on the importance of teaching kids to code published last year, we addressed the increasing prevalence of coding literacy in a technical society. Though it may be true that we are moving toward a society where computer science knowledge will be as integrated as math and English in the primary school system, coding literacy is even more important for university undergraduates as they prepare for the competitive, technologically advanced, and evolving job market.

It’s difficult for students to make sense of the hype around computer science, programming, and ‘hacking.’ Long-standing barriers between technical and non-technical folks create misunderstandings that conceal the true breadth of technology and its essential applications across all academic fields. University students should be encouraged to harness the potential of programming to expand opportunities in their fields.

The question of what to do after graduating is a daunting one.

Many fields have grim outlooks, and an undergraduate degree no longer has the power to secure a well-paying job. However, technical literacy can greatly improve job prospects. A paper by researchers at Oxfirst, an economics consulting firm, estimated that the growth in computer specialist jobs in the U.S. would increase at double the rate of all other jobs.

Even outside of strictly computerbased jobs, many occupations expect candidates to have coding or technical knowledge.

Coding is creating a buzz as a critical skill, with tech giants Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, politicians Al Gore and Michael Bloomberg, and countless other celebrities and public figures endorsing the ‘learn to code’ movement. Code.org introduces children and adults alike to the basics of code through games (including the notorious Flappy Bird) as well as tutorials that have them play logic games, engage with basic programming languages, and even create apps. This site is also the hub for the “Hour of Code” challenge, which brings kid-friendly coding tutorials into classrooms around the world.

Coding hasn’t always been this accessible, as computer science has often been viewed as a kind of intangible ‘other.’ A lack of resources, education, and informa-

Eleanor Milman | The McGill Daily tion on coding for non-tech students has built a boundary around computer science. For example, computers with relevant software to get started in coding are not as easily accessible for students outside of computing, and, even with the proper technology, there are fewer academic support systems to facilitate learning. The division has been perpetuated by tech-exclusive events that are elusive to other students due to an unfamiliar culture, technical jargon, and steep learning curve.

However, the walls are breaking down. Computer science, which once stood as an autonomous field, is now increasingly becoming integrated into everything we do. Mohamed Adam Chaieb, a U3 software engineering student, has witnessed the changing dynamics within industries. “Everyone needs to understand that things are changing,” he told The Daily.

“Software is everywhere. People who don’t have an understanding are missing out on so much potential.” He echoes the growing consensus that some knowledge of computers and technology is absolutely essential to achieve progress in any field. Technical literacy is a prerequisite for the future.

Across academic fields, we are

seeing the integration of computation and programming. Biology has embraced technology to give way to computational biology, which aims to model, represent, and understand complex physiological systems through algorithms and data processing. Recognizing the potential of programming within the field, McGill offers a joint major in Computer Science and Biology that trains students to apply computer and math skills in the analysis of large data sets. The interdisciplinary Quantitative Biology program also uses students’ foundation in coding to use data.

The marriage of computers and biology has led to initiatives such as the Human Genome Project, which successfully sequenced the genome’s three billion base pairs, and has opened the doors to new, more powerful research.

Biology is not alone in the technology revolution. Nearly all fields now have an integrated coding component: linguistics uses sound analysis, language acquisition software, and machine translation; history implements databases and 3D artifact reconstruction; medicine relies heavily on scanning and imaging technology and record keeping software; environmental studies employs tracking devices;

architecture uses modelling software. Coding is not just for programmers and engineers anymore.

“Software is everywhere.

People who don’t have an understanding are missing out on so much potential.”

Adam Chaieb, U3 software engineering Beyond academia, understanding code can help students understand the technology that powers their lives. From online course software to mobile applications, a basic knowledge of code logic can help you harness technology. Many aspects of the university student’s life could be simplified or clarified by a knowledge of code. Things like understanding Google search commands (like filetype options, AND/OR, or the use of quotation

marks) can improve search results, and manipulating Excel documents with booleans and logic equations can make labs a breeze.

Even beyond practical usage, coding provides an alternate way of thinking. Employing logic through the ‘mind’ of a computer forces rationality, brevity, and accuracy. Strong leaders harness interdisciplinary critical thinking by considering problems from within different mindsets (creative, mathematical, emotional, etectera) to form an optimized solution.

University students are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of coding literacy, and luckily post-secondary education provides an ideal incubator for coding acquisition. McGill offers numerous introductory courses to both general computing as it relates to society and to programming. Electives, minors, and joint majors are accessible as a complement to nearly any academic program, and provide an advantage when searching for employment.

Students are also connected to a world of online resources to learn tangible, practical skills such as web design, script writing, or basic game development. The door to technological literacy is open to all.

Sci+Tech

September 8, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Harnessing the world’s computational power Crowdsourced computing makes innovation more accessible Arielle VanIderstine Sci+Tech Writer

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s the Ebola virus spreads through Africa with no viable vaccine or cure, scientists are racing to counter the deadly disease.

The search is being bolstered by an unlikely ally: thousands of online gamers. Foldit, a free online game, has thousands of users collaborating and competing to solve protein folding puzzles that could help scientists by predicting new protein structures computer programs may have missed.

Foldit crossed the line from science-based game to scientific research in 2011 after developers published a paper in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. According to the paper, gamers were essential to the research discovery. “Following the failure of a wide range of attempts to solve the crystal structure of M-PMV retroviral protease [...] we challenged players [...] to produce accurate models of the protein. Remarkably, Foldit players were able to generate models of sufficient quality.”

The structural protein model developed by the Foldit gamers provided new insight for the design of antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV. Recently, users have been folding away on Ebola-related puzzles, and scientists have been following up on the proposed protein structures with the hope of developing a new vaccine.

This type of network has huge potential for small, independent researchers, for whom computing costs are extremely restrictive.

A similar program, EyeWire, creates a game out of mapping neurons.

Gamers fill in artificial intelligence knowledge gaps by highlighting logical paths and eventually completing maps of individual neurons. More than 2,000 EyeWire gamers have

Nadia Boachie | The McGill Daily been accredited in a recent paper, also published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, that unveiled the mechanism by which mammals detect an object’s direction of motion. The publishing of legitimate papers gives credibility to the idea of mass outsourced innovation: it’s more than just gaming.

Mass outsourcing, or crowdsourcing, isn’t a new idea. Ten years ago, Luis von Ahn, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, conceived a project called the ESP Game, which gathered information about images on the web in the guise of a game. Images pose an issue in computer science, as they are not easily analyzed, recognized, or classified by computers.

However, collective human logic can help fill in the gaps that automated systems will inevitably leave. You’ve probably contributed to this crowdsourced data: Google harnessed the concept in 2006 with its largely popular Image Labeler game, and the security program reCAPTCHA contin-

ues to use human image recognition as both an authentication and a data collection method.

The crowdsourcing trend has also expanded from human processing to computer processing. Stanford’s Folding@home lets volunteers donate their computer power to compute protein folding problems similar to those done by Foldit.

The computer can be left alone to process data and contribute to the project. By combining the power of hundreds of thousands of computers, a crowdsourced computing network is created.

This type of network has huge potential for small, independent researchers, for whom computing costs are extremely restrictive. Though there are huge amounts of data available for scientists, processing it to make real progress can be unreasonably time-consuming. However, as a result of open source initiatives, scientists can turn to the crowdsourcing of data processing power.

An open-source program called

BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) acts as the middleman between independent scientists and the mass global network of volunteer data and processing power. Mass computation can propel science: connecting innovators with the resources they need could mean a surge in new technologies and discoveries.

After the success of BOINC, an app was released for Samsung devices that makes donating computing power as easy as charging your phone. Power Sleep uses a phone’s processing power for scientific computation while it is plugged in, fully charged, and connected to WiFi, turning everyday actions into a medium for research.

These initiatives harness power that would otherwise be wasted. Gaming becomes productive, and idle computers become tools for problem-solving. Increasing accessibility to innovation while putting excess power to use creates a productive and positive

win-win technology network.

University students are stakeholders on both sides of crowdsourcing, with the potential to be both the creators and part of the crowd. Open source volunteer computing means that young startups and research projects can focus on formulating great ideas instead of securing funds and resources. Innovation, progress, and technology become more accessible to all. Helping out is also easy and accessible, and creates real results and innovation.

Open source networks and mass crowdsourced data could be precursors to a technology revolution: a connected global data network. We are moving toward a world of open technology, open data, and open computing. Could playing games and letting your phone sleep be enough to battle diseases and spark innovation despite a lack of funding? It seems that this crowdsourced teamwork could pave the way for some truly great discoveries.

Sports

September 8, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

14

Time to bench discrimination The distorted coverage of Mo’ne Davis and other female athletes Emma Noradounkian The McGill Daily

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n August 15, 13-year-old Little League Baseball pitcher Mo’ne Davis made history as the first girl to ever pitch a shutout in the Little League World Series. This feat caught the eye of the mainstream media, which resulted in many press ops. In one of them, Mo’ne Davis appeared on Fox & Friends, where co-host Eric Bolling seized the opportunity to ask why she doesn’t play a “more female-friendly sport, like soccer.”

Bolling’s sexist remark was one of the few outwardly offensive comments in the media about Davis since she pitched the shutout. However, once you dig a little deeper into the headlines and articles on Davis, you will notice that most coverage of her has been as discriminatory, if not more so, than Bolling’s comment.

Largely white male journalists and sports commentators, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and other sports programs and publications have deemed Davis ‘media-worthy’ in recent weeks; this is more in part to her gender and her race. Instead of recognizing her impressive 70 miles-per-hour pitch and her shutout achievement on their own terms, the media have repeatedly emphasized the fact that she is a woman who has ‘outdone herself ’ in a male-dominated professional sport, and that she is an African-American from inner-city Philadelphia who has escaped poverty through her athleticism.

Fox News Insider, the Australian, the New York Times (to name a few publications) are also riddled with gendered expressions that are unrelated to Davis’ athletic accomplishments.

It should come as no surprise that Davis or any other female athlete is athletically talented, and stating otherwise and acting shocked at her athletic abilities upholds the popular yet erroneous assumption that women are not as athletically capable as men. Calling Davis the best female pitcher implies that there is a better a male pitcher. In reality, Davis is the most dominant pitcher in the league.

Additionally, their surprise at her talent reveals that if it were not for Davis’ participation in a team and a league exclusively for men, she would have gone unnoticed.

This is not an isolated incident; the has happened to many other profes-

sional female athletes. Take Billie Jean King, for example, the female tennis player who made headlines when she won Wimbledon in 1973 upon defeating her male opponent, Bobby Riggs, in a tennis match dubbed “Battles of the Sexes.” Or notice how Manon Rhéaume captured the attention of sports commentators only once she entered the male-dominated National Hockey League (NHL) in 1992 as the Tampa Bay Lightning’s goaltender. Davis, King, and Rhéaume commanded the media’s attention because they played against men in a men’s league rather than against women.

Their athletic abilities were evaluated in comparison to those of men, rather than on their own merits.

McGill Martlets hockey player and Canadian Interuniversity Sport player of the year for women’s hockey in 2013-2014, Katia Clement-Heydra, expressed concern over the amount of attention given to men’s sports in the media in general: “In the mainstream media, you hear about tennis players [and] you hear about golf players that get a lot of attention. […]

It’s all about men’s sports, right?

Just look at the morning news on Sportsnet. It’s [men’s] baseball, NHL, and there’s the [men’s] tennis, and that’s about it.”

“And I think that stems from past history. You know, males have always dominated the sporting world. [...]

We have to build a name for ourselves, and we have to kind of prove that we deserve the same attention, the same audience,” added her teammate Adrienne Crampton.

The media has not only chosen to identify Davis by her gender but also by her race. By identifying her as such, these media outlets are perpetuating the commonly held racial stereotype of the black American athlete who has escaped poverty through their individual athletic achievements, despite racism. According to this stereotype, lower-class African-Americans who cannot succeed economically and socially remain poor of their own doing. This thinking places the fault of one’s social and economic situation on the individual, instead of on systemic racism.

The media has shown a complete lack of respect to Davis and has done the same in the past with other female athletes, especially female athletes of colour. By doing this, sports coverage also downplays their athletic abilities. No matter how talented an athlete they are, they will be

Emily Martin | Illustrator met with sexist and racist sports coverage. These athletes deserve the same attention and dignity given to white male athletes, and it seems that this will only happen once sports networks and newspapers begin to hire more people of colour and women as commentators, anchors, and journalists. As it currently stands, white men make up a large portion of the mainstream media, and so the coverage is tailored to what they deem to be ‘legitimate’ sports. Unfortunately, female athletes are seen as less legitimate.

A recent study entitled Gender in Televised Sports: News and Highlights Shows, 1989-2009 revealed that in 2009, coverage of women’s sports by three Los Angeles affiliate sports networks comprised only 1.6 per cent of all sports coverage. However, even when female athletes and female athletes of colour are included in that 1.6 per cent margin, the emphasis is usu-

ally placed on their appearance rather than on their athletic prowess, which tends to downplay their athletic achievements.

Female athletes of colour have also come under the scrutiny of sports commentators for failing to meet white Eurocentric beauty standards, though this was not largly the case for Davis, particularly. For example, Gabby Douglas, a young two-time Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics, was criticized for her allegedly “unkempt” hair during the 2012 Olympics, overshadowing her gold medal awards. Sports journalists have also detracted from tennis players Serena Williams and Taylor Townsend’s athletic abilities by obsessively scrutinizing their weight.

Even though Davis was not subject to racist criticism of her appearance in the media, it should not go unnoticed that some white sports journalists have been racist

against Davis in other ways. They have consistently praised her as “the urban African-American girl from inner-city Philadelphia” who has achieved suddenly greatness.

Davis did not ‘suddenly’ achieve greatness, her 70 miles-per-hour pitch did not appear out of thin air; she worked for it. In contrast, whenever a man achieves athletic prowess, his ‘work ethic’ is usually a main talking point.

Coverage on Davis is the most recent incident in a long history of institutionalized sexism and racism within the world of sports media. The failure to recognize female athletes’ ability rather than their gender or race is still a problem that must be addressed. Every athlete worked hard to get to where they are; to take that hard work and tokenize it is a disservice to all athletes. The sooner we recognize athletes for their achievements, the sooner sports will become more inclusive.

Sports

September 8, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

15

SCOREBOARD REDMEN Men’s Soccer

vs Montreal Impact U-23 (scrimmage) vs Ottawa (scrimmage) vs Dawson College (scrimmage) vs Western (exhibition) at Queen’s (exhibition)

Men’s Rugby

at Queen’s (exhibition)

MARTLETS T2-2 W4-1 W4-1 W1-0 W2-0

Women’s Soccer

at Curry College (NCAA) (scrimmage) vs Western (exhibition) at Queen’s (exhibition)

W7-0 L 0-1 W 1-0

Women’s Rugby

at Carleton vs Western (exhibition) L 5 - 24 at Queen’s (exhibition)

W 54 - 27 W 24 - 20 L 14 - 53

Men’s Basketball

vs Fordham (NCAA) vs Loyola-Maryland (NCAA)

L 71 - 76 L 60 - 65

UPCOMING GAMES Martlets 9/10 – Rugby, at Concordia 9/11 – Soccer, vs UQAM* 9/13 – Ice Hockey, vs Lac St. Louis Tigers (Boys Midget AA)* Redmen 9/10 – Baseball, vs Montreal 9/10 – Rugby, at Concordia 9/11 – Soccer, vs UQAM* 9/12 – Ice Hockey, vs RMC* 9/12 – Football, vs Concordia (Shaughnessy Cup)* 9/13 – Baseball, vs Ottawa Co-ed 9/12 – Swimming, vs Red & White Interclub*

7 p.m., Concordia Stadium 6 p.m., Molson Stadium 8 p.m., McConnell Arena 7:30 p.m., Gary Carter Field (Côte Saint-Luc, QC) 9 p.m., Concordia Stadium 8 p.m., Molson Stadium 7p.m., McConnell Arena 7 p.m., Molson Stadium 12 p.m., Lake Road Park (Dollard-des-Ormeaux) 4 p.m., Memorial Pool

* home games

Roses are red My heart is blue Come write for Sports I need you

Email sports@mcgilldaily.com for more information

Culture

September 8, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

16

Taking back the streets Anti-colonial Street Artists Convergence leaves its mark on Montreal Megan Lindy The McGill Daily

I

t’s not uncommon to see 14-yearold, middle-class white girls don moccasins, or concert-goers who decorate their heads with feathered headdresses. These are much more complex than just whimsical fashion choices; this is the cultural appropriation of Indigenous culture by settlers. How can the ignorance of Indigenous cultures within Western pop culture be addressed and publicized? As of the end of August, Montreal’s streets are replete with answers.

For the last two weeks of summer, the city was home to “Decolonizing Street Art: Anti-colonial Street Artists Convergence,” a gathering of artists that aims to assert and celebrate Indigenous cultures. Montreal, Canadian, and international artists spent their time here painting collaborative works around the city, as well as leading workshops on a variety of topics, from stencilling to cultural appropriation.

The Convergence has certainly left its mark – wheatpastes around the city proclaim “Decolonize Tur-

tle Island,” the Indigenous name for North America. This new art serves to remind all settler occupants of Turtle Island to be conscious of their histories. The organizers hope their visuals will shock people out of their complacency.

The Daily met with Chris Bose and Bandit, two graffiti artists participating in the Convergence, to talk about their work, their medium, and what it means to establish anti-colonial values through art.

Working in Little Italy in a back alley behind Marconi, Bandit and Bose had their hands dirty with spray paint and were well on their way to finishing a second wall of Indigenous art.

Bose is a self-described “jack-ofall-trades” from Kamloops, British Columbia. He writes poetry, makes films, and is the founder of the Arbor Aboriginal Arts Collective, a group that supports emerging Indigenous artists and promotes the creation and dissemination of Indigenous art.

To Bose, anti-colonial values mean Indigenous values, such as caring for the environment and having concern for the human

A new Montreal mural from Bandit. Daniel Kent | Photographer

Chris Bose’s salmon swimming through poluted water. race at large. “At this festival, I’m taking back wall space and painting Indigenous realities and art,” he says, “as opposed to ads and posters only aimed at getting you to buy something. ” His murals illustrate this message well. One presents images of addiction, with bottles representing alcoholism, drug addiction, and even love, which he claims can be as addictive as any other substance. A crow standing to the far right of the mural carries the spirits of the dead to the spirit world, Bose explains.

His larger mural on an adjacent wall depicts a school of salmon swimming in water that becomes increasingly polluted and murky, draining into a large pipe. The image refers to the recent Mount Polley mining disaster in British Columbia. On August 4, dirty water from the mine, potentially including chemicals like lead and arsenic, leaked into the nearby rivers, causing an environmental catastrophe for the surrounding ecosystems, according to Bose.

Bose paints these heavy issues because, for him, the purpose of art making is “to spark interest and awareness.” He hopes to force viewers to address events such as the Mount Polley disaster, which has received little mainstream coverage. “I want people to see my murals and ask, ‘What’s the art mean?’ and dig deeper to find answers,” he says.

Accordingly, Bose has little patience for those who turn a blind eye to Indigenous issues, especially when it comes to appropriating Indigenous symbols. He reprimands those who don’t know their history and flaunt headdresses without having “earned the right or the title to do so.” If people educate themselves, he says, it will completely change the way they

view what now seem like trivial fashion statements.

Bandit, however, has a somewhat different view.

“Street art is anarchy [...] these buildings are established on land that isn’t theirs anyway, so why should I honour that ownership?”

Bandit, street artist At the start of the interview, the Los Angeles-based street artist was holding a ‘Do Not Enter’ sign that had its middle white line replaced with natural scenery, and was about to reinstall it somewhere nearby.

The natural environment contrasts against the concrete surroundings, both shocking and stimulating the viewer. He had also just wrapped up a profile of an Indigenous man with his head turned toward Bose’s work on the rest of the wall, as if bearing witness to his political and artistic creation.

“People don’t know the history,” he explains. “They’re just using Aboriginal culture to their advantage to make money. But at the same time, it promotes Aboriginal culture. I think it helps and it’s better to have exposure, even if it’s in the wrong way, than none at all. The way to reconcile this is through education, teaching people the history behind the symbols.”

Bandit and Bose can agree, however, on the blatant lack of educa-

Daniel Kent | Photographer tion on current Indigenous issues in both the U.S. and Canada. Bandit posits that the public nature of street art makes the festival an integral educational tool. He points out that it’s public and accessible to all, with no entrance fees that would otherwise be associated with museums or galleries.

Street art is also inherently political; it reclaims space, an issue especially poignant at a festival addressing colonialism. Bandit goes even further, proclaiming that “street art is anarchy – it fights the system.”

“I’ll paint any wall. I’ll avoid churches and buildings like that, but otherwise I’ll paint anything,” he says. “These buildings are established on land that isn’t theirs anyways, so why should I honour that ownership?”

Though the Convergence ended September 3, the murals are ready for viewing by any and all Montrealers in Little Italy, along with other wheatpastes and graffiti art around the city available to those who know where to look.

The art is effective in its mere presence; it brings Indigenous issues to the forefront because they’re no longer out of sight and out of mind. Yet the art paints a picture of empowerment rather than victimhood. In claiming urban spaces, the artists assert their voices and the voices of the people they aim to represent. Their authorship is a conquest of cultural space. Montreal needs reminders of its colonial past, and this festival has woven these reminders right into the fabric of the city.

Check out mcgilldaily.com for more images of the murals. For more information about other artists and the festival’s projects: head to the Decolonizing Street Art Facebook page at facebook.com/decolonizingstreetart.

Culture

September 8, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

17

The home of the McGill music scene A closer look at your OAP 2014 soundtrack

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily Ben Demers Culture Writer

A

s one of the most popular seasonal hangout spots on campus, OAP (a.k.a. The Greatest Place On Earth) is a prime showcase for local McGill and Montreal musicians. The Engineering-run pub acts as both a high-energy starting point and a classic stage to come home to, offering new bands a chance to play local and build a fan base and veterans a friendly and familiar atmosphere. Unlike Gerts and its often-glitchy sound system, OAP has a knack for putting together the right mix of clear tunes and slightly intoxicated university students, an ideal gig for members of the McGill music scene. But who are the bands that benefit from this sweet setup?

According to the members themselves, the McGill music scene is admittedly small, and heavily draws on projects from Music students. However, this size only helps create a tight community from which new acts can emerge, with OAP as a great beginning gig for bands looking to move into the Montreal venues that welcome young musicians.

OAP is not only a venue for McGill bands. The pub opens up its

stage to bands outside of McGill: dullboy got invited to play because lead singer Ben Cardilli was a high school substitute teacher for an OAP organizer who invited the band to play. So, while it remains a central stage for McGill bands, OAP brings in a taste of Montreal music outside the McGill bubble.

Not just a great way for bands to meet other McGill and Montreal groups, OAP also exposes them to potential production collaborators.

Masters students in Sound Recording are always looking for new projects (such as McGill bands) – a win-win scenario for both the recording engineer and the group.

OAP is one of the few opportunities for McGill (and Montreal) bands to perform together for a McGill audience, and one of the only events that sheds some light on the McGill music scene. In case you were in line for beer or left when the rain hit on Friday, and didn’t get to see the scene in action, here’s a closer look at three of the groups that played OAP in 2014.

Busty and the Bass With a nine-member line-up -– Scott Bevins (trumpet), Mike McCann (trumpet), Chris Vincent (trombone), Nick Ferraro (alto

sax), Louis Stein (guitar), Milo Johnson (bass), Julian Trivers (drums), Eric Haynes (piano and keyboards), Evan Crofton (keyboards, synths, “hype”) – Busty and the Bass is literally one of the largest bands in the McGill music scene. When applied to funky pop covers, their size explains why these guys have no trouble getting a crowd to dance, which the members admit is the goal of most of their songs.

The members, all McGill jazz majors, met three years ago during Music Frosh and quickly began playing together. What started as house party collaborations between jazz musicians quickly expanded to larger shows and more experimental styles, primarily funk. While all the members draw from their appreciation of jazz, guitarist Stein stresses that as Busty they also explore other styles, finding inspiration in groups like Snarky Puppy and Disclosure.

Busty has recently been focusing on expanding their audience in Montreal and beyond, with recent shows as far as New York City and six new videos set for release.

Coming up, the band will be releasing an electro-funk EP titled Bustified, and are competing against other university bands in the CBC

competition “Rock Your Campus.”

SHYRE SHYRE formed just last year as a project of McGill jazz student Sarah Rossy, when a McGill recording engineer offered her free studio time. Rossy enlisted the help of some fellow McGill musicians, and the studio time turned into a series of YouTube videos. The videos were well-received, and the band began playing shows last March, leading to a tour up Quebec’s coast over the summer. The tour solidified SHYRE’s core six members of the group, allthough the performance lineup in Montreal venues can include as many as nine.

Rossy describes SHYRE as chamber-pop: a mixture of pop and classical to create what she calls a “cinematic soundscape.” The band will be releasing an EP, Winds, sometime in the next month, and is recording a full-length album this year. With the help of Bekah Wineman, a Masters student at McGill in Sound Engineering, the album will feature a full orchestra on various tracks. This might just be the next cinematic soundtrack you can’t get out of your head. dullboy The only band featured here

that is not made up of current McGill students (though guitarist and back-up vocalist Chris See Hoye is an alumnus), dullboy began a few years ago as a project of lead singer and guitarist Ben Cardilli, and just this year settled into its current four-man lineup: Cardilli, See Hoye, bassist Kevin Brunelle, and drummer Pascal Beauregard.

Cardilli compares their sound to nineties rock with elements of modern pop and folk, looking back to bands like Incubus and Audioslave for inspiration.

As for the name dullboy, Cardilli explained that the band has often found themselves working too hard, and, as the proverb goes: “All work and no play makes jack a dull boy.” The name is a constant call for balance: they have to work hard, but let the band be a source of fun in their lives. dullboy recently released a new self-titled album, available through iTunes. If you’re feeling nostalgic for the 90s rock of your wee years and are looking for new Montreal bands, give it a listen.

For more info on these bands and all the others that played OAP 2014, head to the OAP Facebook event.

TVMcGill will also be posting footage of several of the performances.

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Culture

September 8, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Get outside of the gallery Nuit Blanche street festival brings together artists and audiences Christian Favreau The McGill Daily

W

hen I arrived at Mont-Royal last weekend for Nuit Blanche sur Tableau Noir, a street festival showcasing local artists, I was greeted by the Hulk holding a rubber duck. The avenue was painted with such movie poster parodies, including dustbusters in sexy maid outfits, to fit the street festival’s cinema theme. The annual festival, held in August this year instead of the usual June, is the project of Odace Evénéments, a Montreal company that puts on arts and culture events in an urban setting.

This year’s Nuit Blanche featured standard street festival staples of workshops, dancing, music performances, and a never-ending flea market. Walking down the avenue, there were sights to see in all directions: to my right was a group of jokester breakdancers with a paraplegic teammate, who during their off time played the Pokémon theme song and pretended to “catch” random festival-goers with mimed Pokéballs. To my left, children crowded together to have their faces painted with beautiful butterfly and floral designs.

Transparent trucks featured surreal yoga routines, an unsettling blend of performance and advertising due to the lack of a fourth wall between performer and audience. Smiling salsa dancers encouraged us to join them in their workshop as we walked by, while the main stage featured the generic and muddy beats of DJ Claire.

More obvious than Nuit Blanche’s cinema theme was its commercialism – shoe vendors lined the sidewalks, seemingly half of the attraction for festival-goers.

This was, however, only the surface of the festival. Nuit Blanche is all about art and culture, and hot dogs and burgers are only a by-product.

Moving past the seemingly neverending sea of shoes, I discovered the rows of independent artists that make up the festival’s core. Combatting the stereotype that art ‘worth buying’ is found in galleries, each of these artists displayed their innovative and intriguing works along the avenue.

Claude Lapierre, for example, specializes in street photography and documentaries. His major themes include people’s ways of life and unpolished urbanity. His usual phototaking process is spur of the moment, he told me while showing me a photo of a New Yorker holding an ornate picture frame on the street. “I don’t know this guy,” says Lapierre. “It took ten seconds. So, you know, it’s quick.”

His photos, which feature car wheels, birdcages, and fallen shopping carts, contain an element of awkwardness and peculiarity, which stems from a lack of symmetry and sheen. This contradiction between discarded objects and today’s sleek and refined urban living makes for captivating art.

Eager to welcome art enthusiasts into his world, the friendly Lapierre keeps his prices relatively low, considering that all of his images are printed on photographic paper instead of with an inkjet printer.

After I spoke with Lapierre, a notably unorthodox art form caught my eye: street concrete and garbage encased in clear, rectangular prisms.

The artist Jean-Paul Labelle is deeply influenced by the stress of urbanity, and decided to quite literally recuperate the imprints of stress, in object form, that circulate in the streets. He collects asphalt, pipes, car parts, and gloves, glues the pieces together, and then submerges his sculpture into resin. These moulds could not be more relevant to a street festival, he said, remarking on the fact that his art is the reverse of Nuit Blanche’s theme: instead of painting on the street, he takes the street out of the

ground and turns it into art.

After a healthy dose of cold colours from Labelle’s art, I began to search for warmer pieces – and soon came across the paintings of Félix Girard, which bring to mind the artistic board game Dixit. Girard’s work emphasizes bright colours, drawing influence from childhood day dreams.

He tackles many different kinds of images and subjects, from anthropomorphic mushrooms to happy musicians playing in an ensemble. The two elements that truly unite his works are his drawing style and his colour palette, which favours autumn colours in particular. “I have a story in my head for each painting, but I want the people to see what they want, too,” he said.

Opposite to Girard was graphic designer Geneviève Le Guerrier-Aubry, who told me that story has never had any importance in her art. She begins with a blank sheet of paper on which she glues one real butterfly or dragonfly. Then, the insect becomes her inspiration, determining the atmosphere and the colour palette. She creates abstract shapes around it, using a combination of pastels, acrylic paint, and construction paper, the atmosphere evoking flight, instability, and gravity. Once finished, she scans the images to properly conserve them and then cleans up the sides of the page, so that a white void surrounds her expanded shape.

Each of these diverse artists arrived at the same conclusion when asked about the value of Nuit Blanche: they relish the chance to talk to curious observers and allow their personal artist’s touch to seep in as they discuss their work. The artists are happy to connect with festivalgoers – that’s why they came, grateful for this chance to display themselves and their crafts (and the sales don’t hurt either). Opportunities to see accessible art, not to mention converse

Courtesy of Jean-François Leblanc with the artists, are not commonplace. Nuit Blanche brings artists and attendees together at a personal level, chatting casually or listening attentively to each other’s thoughts on the work at hand. People go to Nuit Blanche to connect with the art, without glass and ‘do not touch’ signs in the way.

In the end, there was no theme, cinematic or otherwise, that tied the street festival together – it was simply an amalgamation of its various booths. While talking to spectators

like myself, however, I realized that street festivals don’t need to be curated like a gallery. The commercialism or lacklustre acts that might have hurt a more formal cultural event could not detract from the power of a street festival where everyone – artists, businesses, and spectators – feeds off of each other’s energy. Without the interaction between artist and viewer, galleries can only imitate the depth that Nuit Blanche sur Tableau Noir adds to its art, by situating it within a community.

Les 10 ans du Divan Orange Weekly culture picks from The Daily Rosie Long Decter The McGill Daily

D

ivan Orange, one of St. Laurent’s best bars and music venues (and home to the city’s best Motown dance parties), is celebrating its 10year anniversary this month. Because the venue is one of POP Montreal’s go-to spots, most of the festivities are packed into this week before the

festival takes over. Each night from Wednesday to Friday, the bar will host local acts of a different genre.

strumentalist Joe Grass, whose slide guitar blurs the lines between country and ambient.

Wednesday – Alternative Folk Kicking it off on Wednesday night are two artists with their own twist on folk music. Psychedelic folk singer Mark Berube opens up the night with a groovy blend of acoustic and electronic. After Berube is multi-in-

Thursday – Garage Punk Thursday will be a little rowdier. Punk group PyPy will be getting the crowd moving with their fuzzed guitar lines and piercingly floaty vocals from Annie-Claude Deschênes. Jesuslesfilles, who re-

cently released their second album, “Le grain d’or,” will follow with their brand of garage rock, to keep your head banging.

Friday – Swing An exhibit will be on display Friday, featuring six local artists who have created works specifically for the tenth anniversary. Get there early for the 5 p.m. vernissage

(opening) for drinks and snacks.

After the art show, renowned accordionist Sergiu Popa will take the stage. Closing off the event will be swing jazz stars Le Hot Club de ma Rue, who also happen to be celebrating their tenth birthday. This will be the debut of their new lead singer, Felicity Hamer. Head over to Divan Orange on Friday night if you want to get swingin’.

Editorial

volume 104 number 2

editorial board 3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9

September 8, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Unethical research at McGill must stop

phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com coordinating editor

Dana Wray

coordinating@mcgilldaily.com coordinating news editor

Janna Bryson news editors

Jill Bachelder Emma Noradounkian Igor Sadikov commentary & compendium! editors

Emmet Livingstone Vacant sports editor

Drew Wolfson Bell features editor

Hannah Besseau

Alice Shen | The McGill Daily

science+technology editor

Zapaer Alip

culture editor

Rosie Long Decter Vacant multimedia editor

Vacant Vacant

photo editor

Tamim Sujat illustrations editor

Alice Shen copy editor

Molly Korab design & production editor

Rachel Nam web editor

Vacant

community editor

Vacant

le délit

Joseph Boju

rec@delitfrancais.com cover design Tamim Sujat contributors Nadia Boachie, Ben Demers, Cem Ertekin, Christian Favreau, Daniel Kent, Megan Lindy, Listuguj Education Directorate, Emily Martin, Eleanor Milman, Yasmine Mosimann, Amtullah Reage, Chantelle Schultz, Arielle Vaniderstine, Jasmine Wang

T

wo weeks ago, Demilitarize McGill publicized a psychology study conducted in 2012 on eighty Somali Canadians by researchers from McGill and Carleton University, and funded by the Canadian military. In a serious breach of the ethical requirements for informed consent, researchers failed to inform the participants at any point that the study had been commissioned by the military and designed to investigate the participants’ propensity to support terrorist groups. The fact that this information had to be uncovered by a student group speaks to a lack of transparency and accountability at McGill, and to a broader institutionalized culture of unethical research practices.

Indeed, the University’s history is deeply tainted with unethical research. In the 1950s, a McGill psychiatrist conducted a series of experiments in sensory deprivation, drug use, and electroshock therapy on patients as part of the MK-ULTRA project, which was partially funded by the CIA and the Canadian government. In the 1960s and 1970s, the asbestos industry funded Professor John Corbett McDonald’s research on the health effects of asbestos in which he used a faulty technique, destroyed a part of his data, and concluded that chrysotile asbestos was essentially innocuous. Even though no other researcher has confirmed his findings, the research continues to be used today, especially in countries in the global south. In the 1980s, students began uncovering weapons research at McGill, which continues to this day

the development of drones and thermobaric explosives.

The University has actively resisted efforts to hold its researchers accountable and reform its policies. Pressed to investigate the asbestos research in 2012, McGill conducted an internal review that exonerated McDonald, and held a conference on asbestos where criticism was heard, but no action was taken. McGill also approved limitations on military-funded research in 1988 under heavy pressure from students, but they were applied only sparsely, before being completely abolished in 2010.

As such, it has proven impossible to institutionalize a culture of accountability at McGill, as its researchers have no scruples with disregarding even official McGill policies. The study on Somali Canadians merely continues the trend.

As the University reviews its research conduct regulation this year, a strengthening of the policy to account for harmful consequences of research, as well as better oversight in its application, is imperative. However, policy reform will remain a mere formality if it fails to be accompanied by a shift toward an institutional culture of transparency and accountability in research. It is not the whistleblowers’ responsibility to bring ethical violations to public attention. The University must purposefully act to create a space where unethical research is no longer tolerated.

—The McGill Daily Editorial Board

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All contents © 2013 Daily Publications Society. All rights reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibility of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff.

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Compendium!

September 8, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

20

Lies, half-truths, and putting the ‘in’ in inaccesible.

McGall and Montreal unite to limit student mobility McTavish construction “first step” in audacious plan Heaven Sent The McGall Weekly

S

tudents arriving this week at McGall University were surprised to see McTavish Street almost completely blocked off by construction except for small corridors on the side for pedestrian usage. Most students have found the corridors constricting, all-too-conducive to awkward run-ins with first-year acquaintances, and somewhat Orwellian. McGall sent out a “Sup, Dawgz?/Ça Va, Chienz?” email to reassure students that this was all part of the plan.

The email, sent around 9:30 a.m., announced a partnership between the city of Montreal and the University in the first step of McGall’s Protocol to Limit Student Mobility, Accessibility, Ease, and Humanity. The email reads, “When the city told us that they could make something nearly as inconvenient as the Annual McTavish Flood, but stretch it out over an interminable amount of time, we had to jump on it. Especially if it coincided with the first week of school. In fact, the walking corridors on each side of the street have been in our plans for quite some time!”

The email went on to outline the rest of the steps that would take place under the new Protocol, helpfully abbreviated as PLSMAEH. “PLSMAEH is only entering its first stage,” the email continued. “Phase Two will implement walking corridors through-

Best laid plans not going awry! out campus, each with two lanes.

We know that this will bring the university together as we will all walk the same path! Along these paths, our friendly corporate sponsors have opened shops and restaurants for you to enjoy!” Under the new plan, students will be able to move between classes on these paths only. Lower Field has been divided into thirty two separate cubicles, such that students can have Leisure Time (Brought to

Samim Tujat | The McGill Daily You by Subway) for around thirty minutes a day. The email adds that “students will still be able to enjoy the Outdoor Air Pub in our new MOLSON OUTDOOR PARTY TENT, too!”

Phase Three is frankly fucking terrifying: “Once all have returned from winter vacation for the first day of second semester, the exits will be sealed. McGall will become its own independent state, with tuition rising to competitive rates of

$60,000 per year, plus a mandatory $25,000 room/board/food stipend; if your family ever wants to see you again, they’ll pay. Students may be able to leave once they have completed McGall-sanctioned research.” Early reports indicate that this research will be for-profit and in service of military technology companies, asbestos mines, and the tobacco industry. McGall also announced the purchase of forty new armoured tanks in order to

fully enforce PLSMAEH. Student reaction to the email has been muted, as not one person has ever read a “Sup, Dawgz?/ Ça Va, Chienz?” email before this intrepid reporter. The email ends ominously with these words: “Say goodbye to your families. Fuck budget cuts, fuck protesters, fuck student radicals. You belong to us now.

The Glorious Republic of McGall (Sponsored by Bell) forever. Please join us for a barbecue Friday.”

Fuck this(es) Fuck fruit flies Fuck those little insect assholes that swarm around my food the minute I take it out of the cupboard. Where in God’s green earth do they fucking come from anyway?

One minute it’s all: “jus’ gonna nab me some sweet, sweet nourishment,” then it goes all Seven Plagues of Egypt and critters come flying every which way, salivating and vomiting all over my food from their little

fly-mouths. FUCK OFF. They’re not even real flies anyway. Like fair enough, props to those big bluebottles who have the decency to buzz at an audible volume to let you know they’re just chillin’. But fruit flies?

No. Those fucking misbegotten evolutionary mistakes are so teeny tiny you can’t even see them. That is, unless you touch some food you’ve left out for like a millisecond and the hive

mind decides it’s time for a jaunt around the kitchen, and my head. Ugh. If humans are good at one thing, ONE THING, it’s making other species extinct – why are we doing this to the cool animals like whales and tigers and not fucking fruit flies?.

I say let them burn. Let the mouth of Hell cleave the earth, gobble them up one by one, and suck them into an eternity of suffering.

Fuck summer Hmmm, summertime.

That feeling of cool contentment, sippin’ a cold one, no responsibilities, frisbee in the park, frolicking in the meadow. But oh no, not for you. You live in Montreal, otherwise known as the Towering Inferno on the St. Lawrence. Seriously, just what in fucking fuck is up with the weather here? Fairness dictates that after the elemental survival-struggle that is

winter, summer should some kind of reprieve. But summer comes its merry way and you discover Montreal is one giant furnace, the plate glass reflecting the sun’s radioactive rays onto the street and the city’s brick buildings storing the heat for a rainy day. Fuck that Montreal, and fuck the stupid, cloying humidity from which there’s no escape. The sweat, the smell, the never-ending misery – summer is like a hangover that won’t fuck off.

The fucking worst though (the worst!) is that the only way to deal with this shit is to buy a fucking overpriced piece of plastic junk from Pharmaprix that lazily waves the boiling air in your face. At least McLennan is air conditioned though! Once you’ve peeled your melted feet from the surface of the street outside, you can enjoy the icy meat cooler that doubles as a library over the summer.

Christ. Fuck summer.