Next year, Bill Flanagan’s term as President and Vice-Chancellor will end. While he could technically be re-elected, numerous incidents this year alone highlight why he should not be reinstated. Here are a few reasons why we believe Bill Flanagan must resign.
- Refusing to call a genocide a genocide.
- Alienating Palestinian students, staff, and community members and failing to acknowledge and recognize Palestinians as part of the campus community.
- Failure to offer needed support for mourning Palestinian students, similar to what was previously offered for current and prospective students from Ukraine
- Firing the former Director of the University of Alberta Sexual Assault Centre for signing an open letter calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
- Suspending a majority of University of Alberta Sexual Assault Centre services and firing staff for speaking out against a genocide.
- Calling the police to violently assault and remove peacefully protesting students, faculty, staff, and community members of the People’s University for Palestine, many of whom were asleep at the early hour of 4:30am.
- Reiterating false claims from EPS that there were no injuries resulting from the violent removal of the People’s University for Palestine
- Welcoming a residential school denier to hold an event on campus, in direct contradiction to commitments to Indigenization and Decolonization outlined in the 2022-2023 Strategic Plan