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Student assault: Fourth-year sustains injuries after attack F R I D AY , M A R C H 2 8 , 2 0 1 4 — I S S U E 3 9
J THE OURNAL QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY — SINCE 1873
Campus talks Men’s Issues Awareness event sparks controversy
PHOTO BY SAM KOEBRICH
B Y O LIVIA B OWDEN J ESSICA C HONG Journal Staff
AND
Hundreds of students packed into Ellis Hall auditorium Thursday night to listen to and debate Janice Fiamengo’s controversial men’s issues talk. The talk, organized by the Men’s Issues Awareness Society (MIAS), has
been a cause for outcry from some members of the Queen’s community. Last week, the group Opposition to the Misrepresentation of Men’s Issues and Feminism at Queen’s University attempted to have MIAS de-ratified as an AMS club. The motion to de-ratify the club failed through a vote conducted by secret ballot. Several AMS members, such as ASUS President Scott Mason, said prior to the
vote that they could not condemn the MIAS, as they had not run an event yet. The MIAS, created and led by first-year student Mohammed Albaghdadi, launched the event along with their sponsor, the Canadian Association for Equality (CAFE). The talk, called “What’s Equality Got to Do With It? Men’s Issues and Feminism’s Double Standards,” featured speaker Fiamengo, currently an English
professor at the University of Ottawa. Fiamengo spoke for an hour, addressing what she believes to be men’s issues such as child custody rights, high suicide rate and sexual assault against men. She said that patriarchy doesn’t exist, and that feminism creates a skewed vision of a past dominated by men. “Maybe our vision of the past, a See It on page 7
SPORTS
Vote nullified
Varsity team of the year result altered after Queen’s Athletics disqualifies team retroactively B Y N ICK FARIS Sports Editor An unspecified infraction changed the outcome of Queen’s varsity team of the year vote. At Tuesday night’s Colour Awards banquet, women’s rugby was honoured as the top-performing Gaels varsity team of the 2013-14 season. On March 13, however, a five-person panel voted to give the award — the Jim Tait Trophy — to men’s rugby, with women’s rugby finishing second in the vote. The original voting panel consisted of two senior Athletics managers, two Athletics administrative employees and a Journal reporter. Two days before the Colour Awards, the Journal was informed by Queen’s Athletics that the original vote had been nullified. The process was redone with an entirely different group of voters, who chose women’s rugby as the new winner. According to Jeff Downie, associate director of business development and
facilities at Athletics, one Team of the Year nominee was removed from consideration due to an infraction. Downie said Athletics then struck a new panel to reconsider the Team of the Year award. He declined to name the team that was removed from the voting process. He also declined to comment on the nature of the infraction. “It is our policy not to allow a team that’s on probation to be eligible for major awards,” Downie said. “This was just an administrative oversight to leave them in the pile. “By striking the new panel, we think we took the most unbiased, transparent process to redo it,” he added. “[It’s] easier to bring in new faces, who were unaware of it and could debate the merits of the teams in front of them.” Before the vote was redone, the original panel met on March 13 in a boardroom at the ARC to choose the recipients of Queen’s varsity team and rookie of the year awards. See Athletics on page 17
Postscript Short Fiction Contest winners page 18
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Student vigil for Ukraine crisis