Studying law as a woman can be daunting. Despite that women are pursuing careers in law more now than ever before, we are still studying institutions created by powerful men, with the original purpose of serving those powerful men. Landmark Supreme Court of Canada decisions that promoted feminist ideals—such as[Read More…]
Commentary
Study Hubs fail to reconcile safety and accessibility
At first glance, McGill’s Study Hub initiative seemed like a good idea: Students would be able to access study spaces multiple times a week in three-hour slots. All spaces would be sanitized, and groups and food would be prohibited to guarantee everyone’s safety. The news gave me a sense of[Read More…]
Online learning must prioritize accessibility
Like many students, I found myself returning home before the end of the Winter 2020 semester. Recognizing that these unique circumstances presented an opportunity, I decided to enroll in courses during the summer semester. This was both a wise idea and a horrible one. Having never been to my parents’[Read More…]
Quebec’s businesses and linguistic minorities need protection during COVID-19
Since gaining a majority government in the 2018 election, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) has advanced a nationalistic agenda for the province, with one of their principal initiatives being the reinforcement of the primacy of the French language. Most recently, a report found that 40 per cent of Quebec businesses[Read More…]
BIPOC voices will no longer be silenced
On Aug. 29, protestors toppled a statue of John A. Macdonald in Montreal. Besides serving as Canada’s first prime minister, Macdonald is infamously known as the creator of the residential school system and as someone who starved Indigenous groups to forcibly relocate them. Macdonald’s treatment of Indigenous Peoples was reconsitiuted[Read More…]
SSMU cannot ignore francophone students’ concerns
In March, during its Winter 2020 referendum, the Student’s Society of McGill University (SSMU) voted on a new constitution, but a French version of the proposed document was not provided on the ballot. It was not even written until three months later — even though SSMU is officially a bilingual[Read More…]
McGill cannot leave incoming first years behind
The end of the last academic year was extraordinary: COVID-19 barrelled through our lives and took the world by storm, instruction moved online at many universities, and the entire education system was uprooted. Unfortunately, the pandemic’s effects were particularly harsh on graduating high school seniors—students who will now be burdened[Read More…]
Is WE “A global force for good?” — An alumni’s perspective
As a nine-year-old, I became committed to ‘doing good’ through my involvement with Little Women for Little Women in Afghanistan, a non-profit organization that helps girls in Afghanistan receive an education. Since then, activism has been a prevalent part of my life. When it came to choosing my university major,[Read More…]
Rankings distract McGill from student needs
The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) have each released their respective rankings of the world’s top universities for the upcoming academic year. After eight years of decline, McGill has improved in both rankings. CWUR rates McGill as the 27th-best university in the world, an increase[Read More…]
Tear them down
It took three years of protests, demonstrations, and referenda for McGill to rename its racist men’s varsity sports teams, all because the administration valued something that students voted overwhelmingly against. For a university that prides itself on its progression, this paternal insistence that McGill knows better than its students is[Read More…]