Memorial University senior administration has attempted to assassinate the character of student activist and journalist Matt Barter. Their narrative has been that it is about “behaviour” and not activism, protest, and journalism.

In a statement from December of 2021, the university wrote that it does not comment on individual cases, but it can share general information about the Student Code of Conduct process, such as how perceived risk is needed for interim measures:

“For interim measures to be applied there has to be escalation, past patterns of behaviour and a perceived risk to the safety of individuals.”

“The freedom to express oneself does not protect behaviour that becomes harassing or intimidating. Behaviour that crosses that line takes itself into the realm of actionable conduct.”

In a March 11, 2022 email, Communications Manager David Sorensen wrote to a journalist that “this matter really has nothing to do with Mr. Barter’s right to protest, but rather the behaviour he exhibits toward other people in the university community.”

In an email my lawyer Kyle Rees on March 25, 2022, Memorial General Counsel Scott Worsfold stated, “This behaviour is clearly not about protest and activism. The investigator found that activism and protest were indeed not the issue but rather his targeting, aggressive and harassing behaviour toward individuals… So again, activism is not the issue here – it is a purely behavioural issue which falls squarely within the code.”

I feel insulted by the position the General Counsel has taken and the words he has used to describe my work. In my opinion, it is a blatant attempt to smear me.

I believe Chief Risk Officer Greg McDougall has also used language meant to demean and smear me. McDougall’s December 8 complaint letter is loaded with terms like “intimidation,” “harassment,” “aggression,” “volatile,” and “unpredictable.”

I spent the last seven years of my life involved in student activism and protest on campus and have now written over 200 articles on my website including on topics like administrative bloat and the conditions of campus infrastructure. With the cessation of the print edition of the student newspaper The Muse, I am filling an important gap on information on administrative spending.

My silent protest was the textbook definition of protest. Both Jim Turk, director of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Centre for Free Expression and Cara Zwibel, Director of Fundamental Freedoms at Canadian Civil Liberties Association have supported this position. These two civil liberties experts agree that my Charter rights have been violated. More importantly, members of the public have strongly supported me, including with generous donations to my legal fund.

For Memorial University to reduce my work to a “purely behavioural issue” is demeaning. I have no choice but to take Memorial University to court to try my best to reverse all that has been done to me by the university.

Importantly, General Counsel Scott Worsfold mentions an investigation onto my protest. As part of the Student Code of Conduct process, Memorial University indeed hired lawyer Kimberley Horwood to conduct an investigation. The process cost the university over $9,000 but it wasn’t without fault. My lawyer argued both parties should agree on an investigator to avoid potential issues. Unfortunately, this reasonable request was denied. As we feared, the report produced by Ms. Horwood came with what we perceive as critical flaws.

Matt Barter is a fourth-year student in the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty at Memorial University of Newfoundland, majoring in Political Science with a minor in Sociology. He enjoys reading thought-provoking articles, walks in nature, and volunteering in the community.

Canadian Civil Liberties Association Director of Fundamental Freedoms Cara Zwibel said in an article in ricochet that Memorial University’s interim sanctions against Barter (me) have been “extreme” and that there’s a “decent argument” Memorial has violated my Charter rights.

Zwibel said that universities’ weaponization of student conduct policies to silence dissent represents a serious attack on free expression.

Zwibel disagreed with Chief Risk Officer Greg McDougall’s and President Vianne Timmons’ framing of the issue. She said what she sees in the investigator’s report about my behaviour “doesn’t jump out […] as being intimidating or threatening.”

While my actions may have been “annoying and irritating, and frustrating for someone in the administration who feels like they’re constantly being criticized,” she saif, “I think that’s sort of what the job is about.”

If the university has a case against me based on a pattern of behaviour that amounts to harassment, and my protest was “the straw that broke the camel’s back… this doesn’t seem like a particularly strong case to me” said Zqibel.

Zwibel stated that while the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects freedom of expression “in very broad terms,” any form of expression involving violence is treated differently. “Once you start to say this is violence, or this makes me unsafe, there’s just no application here,” she explained.

“And you see elements of that in [Barter’s] case, where it seems that some of the university administration is saying, we’re all for protest but that’s not what this is — it’s something different. And that line between intimidation and when acts are experienced as threatening to people, there’s a really subjective element to it. And I think it’s a problem here.”

Zwibel stated, “I was surprised this was a hill that the university would choose to die on.”

“It may have been experienced by people at the particular event as intimidating or threatening in some ways, but it seems like a relatively low key way of protesting.”

“And certainly there seems to be some suggestion [that] this wasn’t the right time or the right place, and it wasn’t relevant. That’s not really how protest works; the individual or the cause that you’re protesting against doesn’t get to tell you where and when you can make your case.”

“There are questions around the extent to which the Charter applies to universities, and whether they’re part of government in this context,” sayd Zwibel. “I think in this context there’s probably a decent argument that the Charter is directly engaged, but […] certainly there were some procedural fairness issues that came up here, and the fact that he was subjected to some sanctions before there was any investigation.

“If he had come onto campus with a knife or some other egregious act, I could understand that step being taken, but this is not that,” Zwibel said, adding that my partial ban from campus and having to submit to surveillance are “fairly extreme sanctions.”

Zwibel warned that it is not just the code itself that needs to be revisited, but the implementation process as well.

“It seems to me that maybe there should be a different process in place when the complainant is a member of the administration. I think I had always thought of these codes of conduct as a way to protect students from other students, but there’s a different power dynamic at play when you have a member of the administration involved.”

She warned that any time the code is invoked, the university is sending a message, and that targeting student protestors could have a “chilling effect” on freedom of expression at universities.

Matt Barter is a fourth-year student in the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty at Memorial University of Newfoundland, majoring in Political Science with a minor in Sociology. He enjoys reading thought-provoking articles, walks in nature, and volunteering in the community.

Jim Turk, director of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Centre for Free Expression, told Ricochet in April 2022 that “no university should be attempting to restrict basic expressive freedom rights that citizens have in Canada, and students shouldn’t have to hire a lawyer and go to court to have their expressive freedom rights upheld.”

Turk reviewed the investigator’s report and said that “the whole thing is loaded against him in ways that are inappropriate,” and that Memorial’s treatment of me could deter students from participating in protest at a formative time and place in their lives for political and civic engagement.

Turk stated that universities’ weaponization of student conduct policies to silence dissent represents a serious attack on free expression.

Turk also stated that my protest action in December is “exactly” what silent protest is. “Freedom of expression is about the right to express yourself and being able to hear what you want to hear,” he said.

Regarding myself, Turk said, “He was expressing himself but he was not preventing the audience from hearing what was going on in any way. So it seems to me that’s precisely within the bounds of what the code of conduct allows.”

“Effective protest always makes people feel uncomfortable. It’s when that protest crosses the line and inflicts bodily harm on them or prevents people from speaking or people from hearing that it crosses the line at the university. But he did none of those things” Turk said.

McDougall told Horwood that my actions “crossed a line” when I “slapped something on the podium while Timmons was talking,” and when I “violated her personal space, contrary to COVID protocols [and] took a selfie while doing it, the purpose of which could only be to humiliate, intimidate, or try to show domination over, Timmons.”

Turk called this allegation “bullshit,” and stated that activists always document their protests. My lawyer Kyle Rees also questioned the credibility of McDougall’s claim and asked in his letter to Browne, “Has there ever been a protest where people did not take pictures? Protests that were not documented? How would we know about political struggle but for those who document same?”

Turk said that he does not see any evidence in the investigation that my protest represents discrimination against women. “Targeting her, a case of one, is not a way of proving a general implication that he’s some sort of misogynist,” Turk said.

Turk also said that Timmons’ allegation that my protest against her is personal does not hold up to scrutiny as I have repeatedly criticized the university administration’s fiscal policies, including tuition fee increases, under Timmons’ leadership and also under the leadership of former President Gary Kachanoski.

“Is he ever attacking her except in relation to her role in pushing this policy?” Turk asked. “Personal attacks, it seems to me, would be saying she’s a terrible mother […] or she’s a violent person — not going after her because she’s the president of the university or because of the policy that the university is pursuing.”

Turk disputed Horwood’s conclusion that my protest “was only conducted for the purpose of tormenting or otherwise harassing Timmons.”

“I take it that if Timmons called for a reduction in student fees, Matt would be praising her,” he said. “I mean, that’s the test. If it’s personal, he’ll attack her no matter what she does. But if he’s attacking her because of her policy position, that ipso facto doesn’t make it a personal attack, I don’t think.”

Turk said that universities’ creation and use of codes of conduct to silence dissent is a generational battle with flashpoints in other provinces.

“The test of a student code of conduct, for me, is: is it consistent with the fundamental values reflected in our Charter with regard to freedom of expression?” said Turk. “And stopping people from protesting when it’s not violent or not stopping events from happening would be inconsistent with our Charter protections for freedom of assembly, for freedom of expression.”

Turk said that “one of the purposes of the university is to help people become more effective, engaged citizens in a democratic society, which means modeling the kind of behaviour and values that we have as a society.”

“Our Charter claims one of the fundamental freedoms in Canada is freedom of expression, so you certainly wouldn’t want a university being a model for more repression of freedom of expression than is a general citizen’s right on a street corner in the town in which the university is located,” said Turk.

Matt Barter is a fourth-year student in the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty at Memorial University of Newfoundland, majoring in Political Science with a minor in Sociology. He enjoys reading thought-provoking articles, walks in nature, and volunteering in the community.

Memorial University hired an investigator, Lawyer Kimberley Horwood, as part of the Student Code of Conduct complaint by the Chief Risk Officer Greg McDougall against student activist Matt Barter. She was paid $9,113.75 by the university just to conduct an investigation, according to a recently obtained ATIPP request.

This is just one of the expenses MUN has had in this investigation. It is noteworthy that employees paid by the university have been involved in this case, too. MUN has lawyers and other professionals on its payroll who have taken part in my case.

I have long published examples of what I see as administrative bloat at the university. In my opinion, the case against me is yet another example of this kind of spending. It’s not hard to imagine how $9,000 could have been better spent to benefit the university community. Even accounting for the over 100% increase in tuition coming into place this year, $9,000 would be enough to pay for 15 courses. Instead of investigating me, couldn’t MUN have been spent this money giving a scholarship to a disadvantaged student?

Unfortunately, I cannot afford to spent money like MUN does, which is why I have started a GoFundMe fundraiser to raise the funds I need to bring MUN to court. You can contribute here.

View ATIPP below:

Download ATIPP file below:

Matt Barter is a fourth-year student in the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty at Memorial University of Newfoundland, majoring in Political Science with a minor in Sociology. He enjoys reading thought-provoking articles, walks in nature, and volunteering in the community.

A recently obtained ATIPP request reveals the revenue and expenses of Memorial University’s Reimagining Leadership 2022 conference. Download ATIPP file below:

Matt Barter is a fourth-year student in the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty at Memorial University of Newfoundland, majoring in Political Science with a minor in Sociology. He enjoys reading thought-provoking articles, walks in nature, and volunteering in the community.

Former Provost and Vice President (Academic) Noreen Golfman has spoke out against the complaint and sanctions by Memorial University against student protestor Matt Barter (me) in an article in The Independent. She was herself a subject of my past protests and felt annoyed but not harassed or intimidated.

Golfman states, “I think this is a real overreach here.”

Golfman also disputed Memorial’s characterization of me as deliberately targeting women.

Furthermore, she states “I just don’t buy it.” Golfman explained that she never once felt my protests against her as a senior administrator were personal or that they had a sexist or misogynistic element. “I just never felt that” Golfman said.

She also noted that much of my and the Memorial student union’s attention at the time was focused on the salaries of senior administrators, including then-President Gary Kachanoski.

Regarding myself, Golfman states, “He was a kind of equal opportunity activist as far as I was concerned.”

A few years ago, during a public budget consultation, Golfman said that she would meet with me to discuss concerns I had about the university’s fiscal management but when I went to her office to request the meeting, I was told that she would not meet with me.

Regarding my participation in the budget consultation, Golfman states, “I knew where he was coming from, but I didn’t personally feel threatened by him. It was for me more annoyance and frustration.”

Golfman said that when she arrived at her office the next morning, she shared her frustration with some of her staff about my participation during the consultation. She said that when I arrived at her office unannounced to request the meeting that she was already in another meeting.

Regarding her office staff, Golfman states that my “unconventional route of just showing up and demanding to see me then […] I think that kind of freaked them out.”

“I think they were thrown off guard or unnerved by him just showing up, which is kind of not the way that they’re used to” states Golfman.

Golfman said she was contacted by the investigator Kimberley Horwood and asked if she would be willing to be interviewed. Golfman responded that she would but was then never summoned for an interview.

Golfman said she agrees that protests are intended to make people uncomfortable.

Matt Barter is a fourth-year student in the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty at Memorial University of Newfoundland, majoring in Political Science with a minor in Sociology. He enjoys reading thought-provoking articles, walks in nature, and volunteering in the community.

SUPPORT MATT BARTER’S FIGHT AGAINST UNFAIR MUN. DONATE NOW!

Last December, Memorial University decided to implement the draconian measure of banning me from campus for my silent protest of the president’s tuition fee increase and out of control spending. I was banned from campus and subjected to a months-long bureaucratic nightmare. MUN had lawyers, communications specialists, and other administrative staff on their payroll to fight their case against me. I was forced to hire a lawyer at my own expense to have a sliver of a chance of fighting their accusations

In my opinion, the whole Student Code of Conduct process was conducted unfairly for some very fundamental reasons: the whole thing was run in secret. The process was basically done without a dispassionate arbiter assuring both parties were treated fairly and equally or an impartial jury to decide guilt. It goes fundamentally against the concept of due process. I did not have a chance to call witnesses to give testimony and there was no oversight over who was called to talk with the investigator, who was hired by MUN.

I do not believe the investigator conducted a fair examination of what happened, and I have written extensively on this subject. However, what is even more shocking is that, despite all the flaws I see in the process, the investigator herself suggested that I be sanctioned in ways that are way less severe than what MUN eventually decided to go with. And it gets worse: MUN considered my public comments defending myself as an aggravating factor.

That’s on top of the fact that the entire process, a three-month ordeal, was already a severe punishment in and of itself. Throughout this time, I was treated like a dangerous offender, having to report to CEP in advance of attending class, made to walk with a CEP escort while on campus for my classes, and threatened with legal action and removal from campus by the RNC as a trespasser if I dared set one foot on MUN property for any reason other than a few exceptions like going to class. MUN seems to be very keen on punishing me severely.

All my appeals have been exhausted. I never truly believed I would get a fair chance of winning the case internally at MUN, but I still believe in the courts of this province. Therefore, I have filed a lawsuit against MUN. Unfortunately, this lawsuit is expected to cost in excess of $10,000, which is way more than I can afford. So, this is why I am asking for your help.

And this case is not just about me!

Are you dissatisfied with how things are going at MUN? My situation is a microcosm of many of the troubling changes that have been happening in the past few years. Protests used to be broadly allowed, but I believe the era of censorship and erosion of the right to peaceful protest has begun. Freedom of expression is under serious threat at Memorial University.

Memorial is the only university in this province. Do you want your children going to a school where they could be banned for taking part in protest? Donating to my legal defense fund is an investment in the future of fundamental rights at Memorial University.

I have had support from students, faculty, and staff members at Memorial University, along with the people from the wider community, including the MUN Students’ Union, the MUN Faculty Association and news outlets.

If I lose this case, what are we teaching present and future MUN students? Are we teaching them that they should shut up and do as they are told?

Up until now, I had been hesitant to ask for money from others to fund my legal fees in my case. However, it is my only option as the costs of a judicial review are more than I can afford. I am not giving up because this case matters — whatever happens to me will set a precedent. But I can’t go into this next phase without your help. Whether I can properly continue my cause for due process and freedom depends on your financial generosity.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/matt-barters-legal-defense-fund

Donations are also accepted in the form of cheque and by e-Transfer.

Matt Barter is a fourth-year student in the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty at Memorial University of Newfoundland, majoring in Political Science with a minor in Sociology. He enjoys reading thought-provoking articles, walks in nature, and volunteering in the community.

A recently obtained ATIPP revels the list of media calls to and from Marketing and Communications for the 2020-21 year. See ATIPP file below:

Download ATIPP file below:

Matt Barter is a fourth-year student in the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty at Memorial University of Newfoundland, majoring in Political Science with a minor in Sociology. He enjoys reading thought-provoking articles, walks in nature, and volunteering in the community.

A recently obtained ATIPP reveals grade distributions at Memorial University by letter grade, for every undergraduate/graduate class and instructor for the 2020-2021 academic year.

Download ATIPP file below:

Matt Barter is a fourth-year student in the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty at Memorial University of Newfoundland, majoring in Political Science with a minor in Sociology. He enjoys reading thought-provoking articles, walks in nature, and volunteering in the community.

A recently obtained ATIPP request reveals the Business faculty council meeting minutes for the 2021/2022 academic year. See file below:

Download ATIPP file below:

Matt Barter is a fourth-year student in the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty at Memorial University of Newfoundland, majoring in Political Science with a minor in Sociology. He enjoys reading thought-provoking articles, walks in nature, and volunteering in the community.