Last Thursday night, during or after an end-of-classes event in Mount Allison’s student centre, someone vandalized the school’s Black Resource and Information Centre (BRIC), and left behind what school officials have called “hate speech”.
Mount Allison vice-president of student affairs, Anne Comfort, addressed the incident in a video message on Instagram on Friday, saying the centre was “the target of hate speech and vandalism,” and that “this is one of a series of events that have occurred on our campus.”
The school has not shared further details about the nature of the incident on Thursday.
The BRIC is a new space which just opened this fall in the student centre. It offers a dedicated safe space and resources for Black students to gather or study.
In her social media message, Comfort went on to call for support for Mount Allison’s Black community members, saying “there is no place at Mount Allison for discrimination, for hate, or any forms of harassment.”
In an email to students on Friday, university president Robert MacKinnon said, “there will be zero tolerance for acts of hate speech, discrimination or harassment,” at the school, and that anyone found to have violated the school’s anti-racism policy would face disciplinary action. The school also says it has contacted the RCMP to help investigate the incident.
The school offered a counselling session on Friday afternoon, though the email from the president announcing both the session and the incident itself went out after the session time had started. The school also increased security on campus over the weekend, and on Monday, Mount A community members were invited to bring snacks and write messages of support in an effort to fill the BRIC with “love and positivity”.
The reaction from the administration left the Mount Allison’s Black Student Union disappointed. In a statement on Instagram, the BSU said that the school did not provide enough details about what actually occurred. “We are kind of wanting to know what exactly happened in this space,” says BSU president Beyoncé Gibbons, “because the university has just said that it’s vandalism, which can be interpreted in many ways.”
Gibbons told CHMA she heard from unofficial sources that there were racial slurs written in the room. “Vandalism and hate speech does not begin to describe the emotions and negative connotations around what has actually occurred in the space,” said Gibbons. “People need to know the risks that they are faced with when going to campus.”
Gibbons says the BSU was also concerned about the move to increase security on campus in the wake of the incident. “Increased security is something that negatively impacts Black communities, but also racialized communities in general,” says Gibbons.
While she welcomes an investigation into who might have perpetrated the vandalism, Gibbons is particularly concerned with an increase in campus security, because she’s heard complaints from Black students about their treatment by some security officers. Gibbons says there is a formal complaint being investigated by the school, but the school refused to confirm or deny the existence of one or more formal complaints.
CHMA asked the school to share the number of complaints involving campus security. In an email, communications officer Renee Belliveau wrote, “we are unable to comment on individual cases due to privacy and confidentiality concerns,” and cited two policies, one focussed on anti-racism and one focussed on harassment, where complaints could be filed.
Gibbons says, “increased security staff on campus is actually ineffective, because what happens is then there’s security guards that are going into residences and placing blame on the people who are actually victims in the situation. So that’s when it becomes problematic.”
Gibbons and other Black students, staff and faculty asked to meet with the university administration Tuesday to discuss their response to the vandalism.
“The main thing is just that they hold themselves accountable for the way they’ve addressed the situation,” says Gibbons. “And hopefully learn that increasing security and not being fully transparent is not helpful.”
