Student protestor speaks out about unfair suspension

Sara Kishawi (pictured) speaks to the crowd during the removal of the encampment on August 18, 2024. Photo: Joe Pugh / CHLY 101.7fm

For 110 days, the Palestine Solidarity Encampment stood in the centre of Vancouver Island University. Protesters took part in sit-ins, created posters and chalk messages around the campus, and held literary readings. This was until the encampment was ordered to be taken down by the BC Supreme Court.

Now, six months later, two of those student protesters are wondering why they have been suspended from the school for their efforts with the encampment.

“I'm an alumni of this university, yet now it just comes with a bit of an embarrassment,” Sara Kishawi said. “Like, ‘Yeah, I’m an alumni of this university that also sued me for standing up for human rights.” 

On October 4, 2024, Sara Kishawi and another student received letters from the university saying they have both been suspended from Vancouver Island University (VIU) following an investigation into their protesting on campus.

Kishawi was suspended for two years. Although she’s already graduated, for seven years, she can’t access her transcripts, stopping her from applying for further education. The other student was suspended for one year. CHLY won’t name the other student due to concerns of further harassment.

During the encampment, Kishawi took on the role of the spokesperson, speaking for the encampment at meetings with the university, as well as to the media.

But she said neither she nor the other student did anything worse than the others who took part in the encampment and can’t understand why out of the roughly 30 people who took part in the encampment, only they were punished.

“It's difficult to not think that this is a targeted investigation and suspension of Palestinian students,” Kishawi said. “They targeted the spokesperson for the encampment. To me, that says you either want to send a warning to all other students to not protest, basically, or to not exercise their freedom of expression.”

Kishawi could not go into a lot of detail about the investigation that led to the suspension due to it being confidential for those not involved.

About a month into the encampment, Deborah Saucier, the university’s President and Vice-Chancellor, posted a letter to the VIU website that said although the university does not tolerate activities that result in an unsafe environment on campus, “members of our community will not be punished for participating in the encampment.”

While Kishawi claims their demonstrations on campus were peaceful. According to a post made by the university on May 10, the campus Starbucks had to be closed temporarily after complaints about the encampment’s posters and chalk messages near the coffee shop.

An Instagram post from the Palestine Solidarity Encampment about the closing of the Starbucks included a photo of one their chalk messages placed outside the entrance to the Starbucks that read “Starbucks supports genocide. For a six-dollar coffee, you too can kill a child.”

On August 15, when the Supreme Court of B.C. granted Vancouver Island University an injunction to remove the encampment, VIU sent out an email with the court order naming Kishawi and her co-defendants in full.

Everybody received it, and from the way VIU described it, you would think that you were reading about this case against a bunch of hooligans who basically vandalized University, breaking and entering and all that stuff,” Kishawi said.

Now, she said, there are concerns for her safety.

She said she has been doxed several times, with anonymous people posting her and her family’s personal information online. She said the other students listed in the case have been victims of repeated harassment targeting the group and spreading false information about them. 

“Even to this day, people on Facebook or social media comment about knowing who I am and how ‘I'm sued by the university.’ Then they would list allegations that don’t even make any sense,” Kishawi said.

“[I] was surprised that the university went ahead with it because it seemed like they'd gotten what they wanted, which was the encampment to not be able to be there,” Noah Ross said.

Noah Ross is a lawyer who represented the encampment protesters and later Kishawi during her appeal against the university. He said that the case against Kishawi is part of a growing trend in Canada. Universities have long used suspensions to punish academic misconduct. Not so much for non-academic misconduct, such as protests.  

“They're kind of new, at least in terms of the institutions in this part of the world,” Ross said. “They're a relatively new creation, and there isn't a lot of jurisprudence or precedent of these cases being and what sort of standards apply to them.”

Ross said the university can set up whatever sort of sanctions they want for student activity.

“They set up their own, what they call a decision matrix, which is a way of calculating how serious the misconduct was and then determining a sanction for it. They're doing that kind of on their own, without a lot of oversight,” Ross said. “They're also asserting that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms doesn't apply, so that, basically, universities are saying they effectively have a very free hand in terms of discipline in students.”

“If [the Charter] doesn't apply, then the university is more of a privatized space where you're getting education from a corporation. Then that would be a way we could go as a society.”

CHLY reached out to VIU for comment and was told the university doesn't comment on individual student investigations.

However, CHLY was sent a statement saying that “VIU strictly adheres to established policies and processes to address any concerns or complaints and ensures that all concerns are addressed through a fair and transparent process, in alignment with university policies and the Student Code of Conduct.”

It also states that the university is committed to a safe and supportive environment for all members of the university community.

Kishawi and the other student suspended by the university are now awaiting the results of their appeal, which should be released very shortly.

Kishawi said that despite the harassment and suspension, she has no regrets about her protesting efforts.

“When we stand up against that, it's honestly, not only do you not regret it, it's the greatest honor, it's the very least that we could do,” Kishawi said. “And the university, how they're acting, how they're reacting to these protests, and especially VIU, I mean, that speaks more about them than us.”

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.