By Lilian Obeng
Over the course summer, city council voted in favour of paying public tribute to Hamilton’s LGBTQ+ community. The intersections in front of city hall and McMaster University, Summers Lane at Main Street West and Sterling Street respectively, now don brightly coloured trans and pride flags.
The decision was met with praise across the board. McMaster University specifically seized on the opportunity to integrate the new crosswalks into their overall public-relations strategy — tweets, Facebook posts and even an Instagram post. A bright, simple and public display of support for a marginalized community, such as this, is unlikely to encounter many challenges. But as a queer student who has been on this campus for upwards of three years, these crosswalks are only a bleak reminder of the actual priorities of the university’s administration.
Symbolic gestures, such as these crosswalks, can be important political statements. Given the current political climate, I would be remiss if I did not highlight the need to remain firm and resolute in our solidarity with the marginalized. However, what purpose do rainbow crosswalks serve when the university fails to ensure the safety of its LGBTQ+ community?
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl_XGqvnAcL/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
This was best illustrated by Jordan Peterson’s visit to our campus, and the university’s dismal response to staff, student and faculty outcry. In March 2017, a McMaster Students Union ratified club invited Peterson to campus to speak on ‘political correctness.’ Needless to say, the visit was marred with controversy from its planning stages all the way through to Peterson’s arrival.
Peterson rose to prominence for refusing to use his trans students correct pronouns at the University of Toronto, citing the mere act of respecting students as compelled speech and infringing on his own rights. He has since gone on to accrue a host of misogynistic and racist views. Peterson’s bigoted diatribes have earned him legions of right-wing and white supremacist support as well as personal wealth.
Needless to say, all of this information was presented multiple times to multiple levels of the university. The President’s Advisory Council on Building and Inclusive Community brought students, staff and faculty together to lucidly explain the potential threat Peterson’s visit could pose to already vulnerable people. Our concern was met with silence, and in these times, silence is complicity.
Peterson supporters — supporters that had absolutely no affiliation with McMaster or the broader Hamilton community, physically assaulted student protesters. Members of PACBIC faced weeks of harassment both in-person and online from Peterson’s fans. The university has made little to no attempt to ameliorate this situation. The only action that has been taken were the creation of guidelines for event planners — guidelines that demonstrate that the university’s understanding of the free speech debate is informed entirely by right-wing propaganda and not the social realities that are present on our campus.
The fact remains that if our struggles cannot be moulded or integrated into the existing public relations strategy of the university, our legitimate concerns fall by the wayside. Our pointed policy solutions, our calm consultations, and even our protests are either tokenized, such as with these crosswalks, or minimized and placed aside. The LGBTQ+ community deserves more than this spectacle.
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This week, McMaster unveiled its latest project — a university flag.
The university already has a logo, slogan, colours, but was always lacking the presence of a waving banner. In response to this missing element, President Deane arranged for his office to draft a design of the flag and pass it through a few university groups including media personnel from his office and the Board of Governors.
The flag went through a few stages before being finalized, and after some debate, the final product is a maroon background with the school crest and “McMaster” written beneath it in a serif font.
It’s not bad, but it isn’t great. As a university with close to 30,000 students and access to a variety of design-related resources, the flag is disappointing — even more so when you think about the time and effort that went into its creation.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m as big a fan of Microsoft Paint as the next person, but when you have a student body filled with talented individuals who could create something iconic and timeless, yet you choose to work internally and mostly independent of the students to create a lackluster product, it seems like a very myopic decision.
This new flag came about as a way to meet a certain university standard. One that many other schools live up to with a prominent and noticeable brand. McMaster has the ability to create an image for itself that entices students and represents its creative and innovative population. Instead, it chose to work without students and create an image that falls behind the progress of the school.
And while we’re on the topic of Mac’s branding not mirroring the student population, I think now is also a great time to bring up our slogan.
McMaster’s Greek motto reads, “Ta panta en Christoi synesteken,” or in English, “All things cohere in Christ.” While McMaster’s Baptist history is important, it is no longer relevant. I mean no disrespect to our Christian students and staff, but a motto that essentially translates to “Jesus powers this school” is not the most representative of our student — or staff — population. It’s another element of the university brand that could be changed, but isn’t being addressed the right way.
It’s exciting to see that the president and the university want to revamp the school’s branding to reach its full potential, but it would be nice if our potential-reeking student body could be included as part of these decisions when it could be of use.
