U of T announced in late May that it will shut down during the G20 Summit for four days, citing the university’s proximity to the designated protest zone at Queen’s Park as a security concern that warrants the closure.

The shutdown begins at 6pm on Wednesday, June 23, when buildings will be emptied and locked, and the campus’ main entrances will be barricaded to block road traffic.

A poll on the U of T Magazine website reveals that 70 per cent of students think the university is overreacting. It’s fair to say that many in the university community are rightly miffed.

The closure will burden the U of T community in a multitude of ways: student residences will be vacated and students will be relocated to Scarborough or 89 Chestnut, while others will be reimbursed, incurring unnecessary costs for the university; classes and exams will be rescheduled, disrupting an already condensed summer school timetable; events, such as the Council of Canadians “Shout Out for Global Justice” that was to be held at Convocation Hall, have been cancelled.
Allowances have been made for some offices to remain open – namely, the university’s research labs and the Munk Centre for Global Affairs, which houses the G8/G20 Research Group.

While the administration may consider it prudent, the shutdown carries implications that contradict the spirit of its own statement of institutional purpose. The statement boils down to this: a university should provide a forum for free expression. To close down isn’t exactly supportive of the right to free speech. The closure feels symbolic, and smacks of a broken trust.

Providing an opportunity to dialogue would serve to temper those feelings of frustration that in past G8/G20 meetings have led to vandalism and violence. A campus with students means there are “eyes on the street,” a term used by urban theorist Jane Jacobs, to act as witnesses and thereby decrease the likelihood of vandalism. But U of T’s decision to shut down effectively turns a living campus into a ghost town, a stretch of buildings where less-cerebral protest tactics can play out.

It’s now up to students, academics, and campus groups to organize events that fill this lacuna with meaningful debate.
- Helene Goderis, the newsmagazine