McGill is expected to select a public relations agency this September to help it carry out a rebranding campaign, attempting to reposition how the Quebec government and McGill’s students and donors perceive the university. The potential rebranding deal could cost McGill up to $6.7 million CAD. 

Student protests, tuition hikes, disputes with Indigenous communities, labour strikes, and conflicts with the Québec government have greatly impacted McGill’s reputation in recent years.

In a written statement to The Tribune, Co-President of the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) Emma McKay commented on the public backlash McGill is facing from its responses to conflicts on campus. 

“McGill believes its reputation has been damaged by widespread pro-Palestine activism (ironically worsened by their own security response), the Quebec government’s moves against anglophone universities, and labour strikes,” McKay wrote. “We believe the more serious issues are their funding of genocide, overwhelming and alarming use of private security, poor responses to reasonable asks from workers, and their immense turn toward austerity.”

From hunger strikes to solidarity encampments, McGill’s downtown campus has been the site of years of student activism for Palestine. The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) ratified a three-day student strike in April 2025 to pressure the university to divest from companies complicit in the genocide of Palestinians. During this strike, protesters blocked classrooms and demonstrated across campus. In response, McGill temporarily severed ties with SSMU for “[supporting] a three-day strike that further divided a campus community already deeply cleaved and hurting,” according to Interim Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Angela Campbell.

Critics of the termination called McGill’s decision an attack on freedom of speech and assembly, which damaged the university’s brand in the public’s eye.

McGill has also recently been the site of multiple contentious labour struggles. In March 2024, the AGSEM went on a three-week long strike to demand better pay conditions for teaching assistants. In August 2024, the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL) also decided to strike in response to McGill’s failure to meet their demands regarding faculty governance and pay conditions. The AMPL accused McGill of implementing a strategy of delaying their collective agreement negotiations, and thus denying employees their right to unionize. 

McKay said that McGill is prioritizing its administrative executives’ paychecks over students and staff. 

“[McGill cares] more about lining pockets of upper admin and maintaining the interest of wealthy donors than the education they offer,” McKay wrote. “[McGill’s] response to budget constraints from the government has been to hand them down to workers through the 60 layoffs this past spring and cuts to hours and functions across the university.”

In a written statement to The Tribune, McGill’s Media Relations Office (MRO) asserted that the university is reviewing its marketing strategy to make sure it is productive.

“We are engaging in a competitive process to help ensure that the resources dedicated to [marketing] initiatives are used as effectively as possible,” the office wrote. 

The MRO also specified that McGill is undertaking its public relations efforts to bolster enrolment. 

“[Marketing efforts are] particularly to support student recruitment,” the MRO wrote.

McGill’s enrolment has been impacted by the Quebec government’s announcement of a $3,000 CAD tuition hike for out-of-province students at English-speaking universities in Fall 2023. Although a Quebec judge ruled that the rationale behind the tuition increases was faulty, Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry announced that the government would move forward with the financial decision. McGill is planning to cut its 2025-2026 budget by $45 million CAD as a result of the Quebec government’s actions. 

In light of tuition hikes targeting English universities, Ernan Haruvy, a professor of marketing in the Faculty of Management, emphasized in an interview with The Tribune that McGill has already shifted to being more bilingual, but has not communicated this effectively.

“The issue [was] messaging. [McGill] did not control it, [while] the government did,” Haruvy said.