Thread by @LS4PM

About @mcgillu attempts to interfere with our event today with @FranceskAlbs .
A thread 🧵

1/ On Nov 1, 2024, Neil Oberman sent a letter to McGill's President Deep Saini, with Dean Leckey CC'd, demanding the cancellation of our event with the Rapporteur. The letter was filled with factual errors and had no legal merit.

2/ At 12:11 PM that day, shortly after the letter was received, the Dean imposed arbitrary and onerous conditions for the event, citing vague safety concerns from the University’s Rapid Response Group.

3/ These conditions included rescheduling our in-person event to 7:30 PM or moving it entirely online—clearly an attempt to cancel the event. No daytime academic speaker would agree to such last-minute changes.

4/ Over the weekend, we continued to press the administration to explain their decision, stressing that our event was central to McGill’s mission of fostering free exchange of ideas on public matters.

5/ After pressure from students and faculty alike, the administration walked back its outrageous claims, but attempted at the last-minute to relocate the event to a smaller venue in a busier area of campus, seemingly increasing security risks rather than mitigating them.

6/ This would have required us to turn away registered attendees, and demonstrate an appalling disregard for student voices, academic freedom, the invitation extended to a renowned speaker, and international legal norms as a whole.

7/ We held our ground on the original location despite veiled threats of disciplinary action for "unauthorized use of university space." Refusing to engage with an administration acting in bad faith, we're now hosting the event at a new location on campus.

8/ Why is hosting a world-renowned legal scholar to discuss pressing international law issues at the law faculty met with such interference? Forcing this vital conversation out of the Faculty of Law is a serious affront to its legacy.

9/ We condemn a university that is unaccountable to its community and that fails to provide spaces for learning and sharing ideas. We condemn attempts to silence voices that stand fiercely against genocide.