September 2025
At McGill University, where I am a graduate student in the physics
department, I regularly witness anti-Israel vandalism on campus. Since
the notorious encampment on McGill’s front lawn was dismantled a year ago, the
vandals and activists usually keep to the front gate (with
at least one exception), as they are denied entry by McGill’s
private security. Unfortunately, the security force doesn’t prevent
student groups from being taken over by anti-Israel ideologues.
Large student groups tend to require low participation thresholds for
quorum, which make them very easy to commandeer. Just by showing up,
tiny minorities of radicalized members can pass whatever motions they
please. In this way, institutions are bent in allegiance to certain
ideologies to which the majority of constituents may be ambivalent, or
even find repugnant. I’ve seen this happen many times—most recently to
the Student Society of McGill University (SSMU).
On April 7, 2025, McGill began the process of severing its
relationship with SSMU. McGill intends to terminate the contractual
agreement that outlined SSMU’s responsibility to, for instance, collect
fees from undergraduates so as to fund student clubs, initiatives,
insurance, etc.—basic student union offerings that are ancillary to core
university programming.
Why did McGill do this? SSMU held a strike vote in support of
“Palestinian liberation” and expressing a “desire for McGill to divest”
from “companies linked to military actions in Gaza”. The vote
passed and a strike was held spanning three days during which
masked, keffiyeh-sporting students barricaded the entrances to lecture
halls to prevent their peers from attending the courses they paid for.
McGill is nullifying their agreement with SSMU because of these blockades
and the vandalism implicitly supported by SSMU.
On the last day of the strike, protestors found their way into the
Rutherford Physics Building, where they decided to barricade doors to an
auditorium in which an eminent Jewish physics professor was lecturing.
By chance, I was walking by as they rushed in through the main entrance
to the doors, where they began to take formation. I asked them what they
were intending to do, and they were quite clear about not letting their
fellow students attend the lecture. I tried negotiating with them, but
they would not yield. I told them they had no right to prevent their
peers from attending their class but my words fell on deaf ears.
I asked them why they were doing this. They told me there’s an
“ongoing genocide” and that “undergraduate students voted for a strike.”
Does this mean the majority of undergraduate students wanted this? No,
it does not.
For a student society purportedly representing over 24,000
undergraduates, quorum for a strike vote is only 500, or about 2%. Fewer
than 700 students attended the general assembly to vote on the strike
motion—less than 3%. For the strike to take place, though, a slightly
higher threshold had to be met: an online ratification vote requiring at
least 10% of the membership to participate. They managed to achieve
this, with under 11% of the membership voting in favour and about 5%
opposed. Eighty-four percent of the membership was unresponsive.
This isn’t extraordinary. In 2023, Harvard’s graduate student
union adopted
motions to endorse BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) actions
against Israel with a whopping 12% voter turnout and a 7.2% “majority”
vote in favour. By comparison, voter turnout for US and Canadian federal
elections is regularly over 60%.
Assuming the activists read and understood the bylaws constraining
these institutions, they are savvy. They understand how they can
leverage a tiny fraction of the membership to make the entire
institution bend to their cause, thereby giving the illusion of
consensus.
A similar thing happened to a population I know better. MGAPS is the McGill Graduate
Association of Physics Students. Every physics graduate student at
McGill—and there are about 180 of us—is necessarily a member of MGAPS.
In early 2024, MGAPS published a “Statement
on Palestine.” The document calls Israel an apartheid regime, states
that Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip constitute genocide, and
proclaims that MGAPS members agree with these statements. It also says
“physics graduate students voted nearly unanimously in favour” of
publishing said statement. This is a complete lie. I was there—and most
physics graduate students were not. Indeed, less than a quarter of us
voted at all.
How can these motions pass if they’re supported by only a tiny
minority of group members? Simple. Those are the rules. Only a minority
of group members need to support the motions in order to see them
passed. One should not assume consensus among members of a named group
when it publishes a statement—even if it reads “a majority voted,” or
the vote was “near unanimous,” or “78% agree.”
I don’t doubt there are more examples of large groups ascribing a
belief to their membership when only a small fraction hold it. Reader
beware: your group may be captured. If you find you’re not part of the
supposed consensus, there isn’t one.
Regan Ross (regan.ross@mail.mcgill.ca)
is a graduate student at McGill. A version of this article appeared
in The Canadian Jewish News.
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