Students insist McGill statue must go
A group of McGill students is keeping up the pressure to remove the statue of James McGill, which dates from 1996 and is more casual than idolatrous, but nonetheless, it must go. There’s meant to be a demonstration on Saturday. The next step will have to be the removal of his offensive name from the university.
Update: The Gazette talks to one of McGill’s ten Black professors about systemic racism at the university.
Meezly 10:44 on 2020-08-01 Permalink
Ogunremi: “From my experiences with the university administration…the university needs to be pushed, needs to be pressured constantly to do the right thing. They won’t do the right thing unless their hand is forced,” and this often needs to be done by “the people who are most affected.”
So true. Their track record has consistently proved so, from refusing to launch investigations on sexual misconduct, divesting from fossil fuels, even taking years to rename a bloody sports team. I feel if they give in to one thing, they will have to follow suit with others. God forbid that they become a more progressive and inclusive university!
david184 22:22 on 2020-08-01 Permalink
I don’t disagree that the administration will basically do nothing unless chased. But chasing them on this is just kooky. Renaming the school! Like, what’s next, renaming Montreal itself? Should I change my name because of something some ancestor of mine did? We’re all beneficiaries of some old injustice, is the next white ultra-progressive position that we should organize a mass suicide to atone for this fact?
ant6n 08:00 on 2020-08-02 Permalink
McGill is one of the few Canadian universities known internationally outside of academia. It may take a couple of decades to get back to that point if one were to rename the school.
(That said, I agree with Meezly, the school itself should be more proactive about dealing with its shit)
Blork 09:43 on 2020-08-02 Permalink
They should name the university after a fictional character. Suggestion: Saul Goodman from “Better Call Saul,” whose real (fictional) name is Jimmy McGill.
Kate 10:32 on 2020-08-02 Permalink
I’m sure once it is renamed it’ll be obvious, but clearly it can’t be the University of Montreal, because that’s taken. Maybe the University of Tiohtià:ke?
JaneyB 12:19 on 2020-08-02 Permalink
This is unfortunately a very tricky problem because foreign students (who fund much of McGill due to their exorbitant tuition fees) actually go to McGill expressly for the name. Maybe they could hyphenate it somehow? Any replacement name will also need to be English because Americans are a bit afraid of non-English names. It also can’t have ‘of’ in it, because Americans associate that with (lower quality) state universities rather than private ones eg: University of Michigan vs Harvard, Stanford, MIT etc. I’ll bet that all Americans assume McGill is a private university, even the ones going there right now.
Kate 13:48 on 2020-08-02 Permalink
JaneyB, good points. But who to name it after, if not the founder? Who have we notably failed to honour in public life?
They could get tricky and say they were renaming it for Peter McGill, the city’s second mayor, and no relation to the unsainted James.
Jebediah Pallindrome 18:36 on 2020-08-02 Permalink
I think this is silly. Aside from donating the land and providing the start-up funds McGill had nothing to do with the institution that bears his name.
The issue of McGill’s reputation derived primarily from the name of its initial benefactor, rather than the actual work of professors and students, is a problem unto itself. McGill didn’t do any of the work that gave the institution its well-earned academic reputation.
As to whether foreign students will continue to flock to Montreal if the name is changed, I can’t imagine highly-discounted Ivy League quality education will in any shape be deminished should the institution re-brand. Corporations literally do it all the time with minimal impact to their botom lines. This is what marketers do, and McGill can afford a ‘product re-launch’ as it were.
As to a new name, we’re not limited in our options: Harriet Brooks, William Osler, Wilder Penfield, John Peters Humphrey (the guy who wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights!!!).
Norman Bethune’s an option too (and would have plenty of name recognition in China, arguably far more so than the name McGill).
Alternatively, Mount Royal University, Montreal University, Hochelaga University, Kondiaronk University…
We have *a lot* of slavery-free options.
david13 20:21 on 2020-08-02 Permalink
Just so goofy. Canadians have this tendency toward self-abnegation, and this American-imported racial moment perfectly feeds into that. Where other cultures want to (and do) believe the best about themselves, we seek (and inevitably find) the worst, and then elevate the voices that articulate our sins most damningly, as a sort of cultural practice. This has been going on for so long that so many of us have been raised with this hate/contempt for our “culture,” and are glad to see this contempt confirmed by external sources.
This latest latching onto the American movements of the moment, which argue in some basic sense that ‘whites’ have lost the moral authority to govern, it’s so obviously a ‘Canadian’ move. But, of course, it’s nothing close to a true problem in Quebec.
When were growing up, the anglos were the conservatives/nationalists, and everything that happened was a franco move eroding our culture, as it was.
Like, truly, how crazy do you have to be to suggest that we change the name of McGill? Seriously, just so so crazy.
david13 20:36 on 2020-08-02 Permalink
And this Jebediah poster – what’s the odds that he’s an American? 3/1? Better?
Like, move to our country, demand that the school you chose to attend changes its name, because of something you learned about the guy who donated the land/money almost two hundred years ago.
Yeah, that’s not privilege.
Hamza 23:32 on 2020-08-02 Permalink
privileged McGill students should put their weight behind a more practical, effective response than this . i can assure you that BIPOC students will feel almost no difference from this action, despite the legitimate reasons behind it
Ian 08:32 on 2020-08-03 Permalink
David(x) I find it interesting that you think everyone who is socially conscious is somehow being influenced by American thought to the extent that you consider it an “American import”. This speaks loudly to how little you know about our intellectual history in Canada and Quebec, or even about socially conscious thought in general. Even more worrisome is that the implication is you think that not being socially conscious is not only the better way to be, but emblematic of thought “chez nous”.
Your line of “foreign influence” reasoning is ignorant dull, and offensive… and has been addressed on many occasions here. Please stop.