At Memorial University of Newfoundland, the Student Code of Rights and Responsibilities is administered by the Student Life Office. The Director of Student Life reports directly to the Associate Vice-President (Academic) and Dean of Students, thereby making the Student Code their responsibility.
On October 24, 2025, Dr. Christine Arnold, then serving in the role on an interim basis, delivered a presentation during the search for the next Associate Vice-President (Academic) and Dean of Students.
Arnold’s remarks point to a troubling contradiction: the endorsement of protest tactics that could halt university operations, while insisting that students remain “respectful.” Her position raises an important question: who decides when protest crosses the line, and against whom are those rules enforced?
How can a protest that shuts down university operations be tolerated, while a silent protest involving a small sign naming the president is treated as a violation?
This approach allows the administration to label a protest as “disrespect” and arbitrarily enforce conduct rules when it wants to quash dissent.
I attended the session and asked: “Where do you stand on academic freedom, protest rights, and freedom of expression?”
Arnold responded that when she assumed the interim role, there was active protesting on campus. She said, “freedom of speech is particularly important,” adding that President Janet Morrison has said the same.
At the same time, Arnold stressed limits: “We need to ensure we’re not jeopardizing any student, faculty, or staff health. We need to ensure that we’re not infringing on their ability to do their work, and we need to ensure that it doesn’t cross any line with harassment.”
She maintained that protest must remain “respectful,” even while acknowledging that students should be able to vocalize issues they have, whether international, national, or specific to Memorial’s campus.
“As long as we do so respectfully, I think that we absolutely need to ensure that we support our students in doing that. But we do need to be sure that we respect everyone’s work environment,” Arnold said.
I asked a follow-up question: “Why must student protest always be respectful? Some of the people who are held up as heroes in society today were disrespectful to oppressive regimes. The administration imposing massive tuition hikes on students is oppressive. Respect can be weaponized to silence dissent. Why do you not acknowledge the power difference between administration and students?”
Arnold conceded that power imbalances exist: “When we look at the power differential between students and administration, I think that’s actually one of the issues we have to combat as an institution.”
Yet her position remained largely unchanged: protest can occur, but only within the arbitrary boundaries set by the administration at any given time.
“I do think, though, respect is important,” Arnold said. “We need to ensure that folks feel safe to work in their workplace.”
She said that staff must be able to continue providing services and supports to students.
“I know that there are moments where protest is needed… and I understand that sometimes that means bringing things to a halt,” she said, referencing her experience working with the Canadian Federation of Students and other student groups.
Arnold said, “There are moments when things come to a halt. But I want to be careful that students still deserve education. We still deserve support and services for them, and that no staff, faculty, or student should feel that they’re not being respected in those moments.”
That tension between endorsing disruptive protest and enforcing “respect” drew further scrutiny during the discussion.
Nat Hurley, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, openly questioned Arnold’s premise.
“Protest, by its very nature, is supposed to make people feel uncomfortable about something,” Hurley said. “So I don’t think it’s enough to say, ‘it must be respectful.’ Respectful according to whom?”
Hurley pointed to entrenched power imbalances across the university, from senior administration down to students, and suggested the creation of an independent ombudsman office that sits outside all the various interest groups to mediate what is and is not respectful, and the limits of protest.
“That might be a way to dig a little deeper into this question of, you know, how do you respectfully protest when protest is about challenging something in the status quo?” she said.
Arnold acknowledged that point, saying, “I agree wholeheartedly that it makes people uncomfortable, because sometimes protest needs to make people uncomfortable. That is the nature of protest.”
“That’s why I say that there are moments where things come to a halt. I worked at institutions where that has occurred, and that has needed to occur.”
However, she framed the boundary around perceived threats.
The university, she said, does not want anyone to feel “physically threatened or proverbially assaulted or harassed,” adding that protest should remain “diplomatic” and avoid crossing that threshold.
She referenced unspecified incidents where individuals felt physically threatened.
Memorial banned me from campus for months, only for a Supreme Court judge to conclude, “The information before the Student Code of Conduct Officer [Jennifer Browne] and the evidence as to the circumstances surrounding the Event do not suggest the Student posed a potential risk of harm to any person.”
The university also faced recent protests related to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
She said the senior administration as a whole should have a larger discussion on protest, but that a lot of the communications and pieces that come out around protests are not from the Office of the Associate Vice-President (Academic) and Dean of Students.
She said it’s not that she does not support or is not part of it, but these communications have been released by the Provost and other senior administrators as well. Arnold said she does not want to take full responsibility for something that is only part of her position.
Arnold concluded, “We sit and work collectively, coming together to try to find a path forward. But I understand there are going to be power differentials. We just would hope that we could, at this institution, change that culture a little bit. We’re never going to be perfect.”
Matt Barter is a graduate of the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty at Memorial University of Newfoundland, holding a degree in Political Science with a minor in Sociology. He enjoys reading thought-provoking articles, taking walks in nature, and volunteering in the community.
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