This weekend, the NSCAD Student Union—SUNSCAD—and Students for the Liberation of Palestine—Kjipuktuk (Halifax), or SLPK—will host a two-day event “in solidarity with the Indigenous struggle against the genocide in Palestine.” However, the event’s location has been thrown into flux.
The SLPK is a coalition of students from across Halifax universities, including NSCAD. Over the spring and summer, the SLPK created Al Zeitoun University on Dalhousie’s campus as a space for teach-ins and organizing for Palestinian liberation.
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According to Al Jazeera English, the latest death toll in Israel-Palestine stands at 43,824 Palestinians and 1,139 people killed in Israel since October 7, 2023. On Monday, Israel passed a law banning the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency, or UNWRA, from operating in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem. Writes the BBC, “almost all of Gaza’s population of more than two million people are dependent on aid and services from the agency.”
On Oct. 17, SUNSCAD president Owen Skeen requested a space on the NSCAD campus for the two-day event, saying the student union was interested in “pursuing a more educational role in response to the outcomes of some recent student organizing efforts,” and is “hoping to create a space for our student body to engage with an academic discussion of the ongoing genocide in Palestine by platforming and centring Arab and Palestinian academics, as well as professors we have become connected to through Independent Jewish Voices.”
Skeen wrote that the “weekend-long forum” would include NSCAD, Dal and SMU professors. Programming would feature guest speakers “in addition to presentations and lectures being conducted by NSCAD professors and students,” wrote Skeen, and the event would be “open to all NSCAD students and live-streamed to students outside of NSCAD.” He said the schedule was being finalized and would be made public soon.
The request was approved Oct. 22 for the two-day event at NSCAD’s campus on Granville Street in the Bell Auditorium. NSCAD’s room booking system still shows the auditorium held for both days—Nov. 2 and 3—under Skeen’s name.
However, this approval has been reversed as of Monday, Oct. 27, following the event’s schedule appearing online Saturday, Oct. 26.
According to its schedule, the event was to run from Nov. 2-3, 9am6pm both days. It would feature lectures, panel discussions, teach-ins, organizing sessions and art-making workshops for NSCAD students and invited guests.
Mount Saint Vincent University professor and activist El Jones; Dalhousie professor and researcher Ajay Parasram; and Saint Mary’s professor emeritus and Independent Jewish Voices organizer Larry Haiven would be visiting teachers. The closing session was to be a Palestinian cross-stitching textile workshop with Nour Beydoun.
NSCAD’s president, Peggy Shannon, emailed Skeen on Monday, saying it had come to her attention that SUNSCAD had reserved the auditorium “for an event promoted as ‘Al Zeitoun Weekend’ in reference to the Al Zeitoun University/encampment at Dalhousie University.”
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Shannon wrote that Skeen had provided “few details about the specific itinerary and invited participants from outside NSCAD’s community” in the original booking request and that the booking was “initially approved in error.”
Shannon wrote that because the event’s posters conflated NSCAD with Al Zeitoun University and because “the partnerships and participants involved with this event are not with NSCAD University, I am denying the request.”
Shannon wrote that the event “must be moved off of our campuses…to ensure the safety and security of all our students, which this event does not support.”
Skeen then shared his booking details with Shannon. He wrote these “provided ample context about this event prior to it being legitimately approved.”
He wrote that by cancelling this event, Shannon is “refusing a space on NSCAD campus for a NSCAD student who is Palestinian to teach the art of Tatreez, a traditional Palestinian embroidery, as well as de-platforming numerous esteemed Arab and Jewish academics, who NSCAD should be honoured to be a host to.”
He wrote Shannon is “refusing a space legitimately booked by the Student Union of NSCAD” and “harming the Arab and Palestinian students at NSCAD who invested much effort and labour in the organization of this event.”
Skeen wrote “students of NSCAD have the right to use NSCAD campuses for educational purposes.”
He took issue with Shannon’s statement that the booking is being cancelled to “ensure the safety and security of all our students, which this event does not support.”
He wrote: “Palestinian academics, speaking about Palestine on our campuses does not necessitate any safety or security threat to students. We are all here to keep students safe.” He asked Shannon to outline how the event fails to ensure their safety and what would need to change to make her consider this event safe and secure.
Jana Macalik, NSCAD’s interim vice-president of academics and research and provost, replied. She said the issue is: the room was booked on behalf of SUNSCAD but that, when Skeen was asked for additional information, “the content highlighted SUNSCAD holding an event with some external speakers.”
The space was approved “in principle, as the space was available, but I believe prior to any final approval from Facilities,” wrote Macalik. “The approval was given in error, as the understanding was that all the information had been shared. Once it was found that we had not received the full program, the approval was withdrawn.”
Macalik said the event was not being called a SUNSCAD event “but rather hosted by Al Zeitoun University with co-sponsors—this is thus similar to conferences that we host…is considered a public event, an external event, and is covered by the External Space Policy.”
This policy states that external events are those where “the majority of participants are not NSCAD faculty, students, or staff.”
Macalik wrote that “for the event to move forward with institutional approval:
- “A booking agreement will need to be signed, which includes the need for insurance coverage. We will waive the room rental.”
- “Additional costs will be incurred for additional security. Facilities can confirm these fees.”
- “A guest list will need to be compiled by SUNSCAD to ensure you are aware of who is attending should any issues come up. I would recommend using Eventbrite or a similar outlet. In either scenario (internal/external) this would have been required as all non-NSCAD attendees would be considered guests of SUNSCAD and would need to be signed in.”
- “The only use of space being allowed is the Bell Auditorium. The activity of lino cutting infers additional space usage, which is not permitted.”
- “The event needs to be shortened to a single day event.”
Skeen tells The Coast that the university is “trying to limit how we can use the space.” He says the event “will still happen at NSCAD,” and that SUNSCAD is now deciding whether that means hosting a two-day rally outside of NSCAD building, instead.
The rally would be held, Skeen says, “due to their attempt to de-platform these students and professors, and to preemptively criminalize Arab and Palestinian students, by asking for extra security and insurance.”
The Coast has asked NSCAD whether the event will proceed on campus as scheduled. The school says it doesn’t have a comment at this time.
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This article appears in Oct 1 – Nov 6, 2024.
