Hundreds protest against McGill team name
Hundreds of students came out in the pouring rain Wednesday afternoon to protest the McGill Redmen name.
Around since the late 1920s, the moniker for the university’s varsity men’s teams has sparked renewed debate of late for being insulting to Indigenous people.
“This name has got to change,” said protester Jennifer Chan, vice-president external affairs of the Political Science Students Association. “It’s just not right for a school this influential in Canada to have the name Redmen, which is inherently a slur, regardless of what people are saying its roots are.
“If Indigenous students on campus are saying it’s creating an unsafe space and doesn’t make them feel included, that’s the voice we need to be listening to. By ignoring it, we’re perpetuating neocolonialism. We need to be doing better.”
Defenders of the Redmen name have noted that it was originally coined as a reference to the team colours, and founder James McGill’s Celtic heritage.
McGill political science professor Hudson Meadwell was a member of the school’s Provost’s Task Force on Indigenous Studies and Education, submitted in June 2017, which recommended the changing of the Redmen name.
In a letter to the Montreal Gazette on Wednesday, Meadwell explained that the task force’s research showed the term Redmen “was widely regarded as egregiously offensive, derogatory and demeaning.”
To dismiss protesters as politically correct is “intellectually lazy,” he said, adding: “It is hard to see how the university can credibly claim to be serious about enhancing Indigenous education and studies while retaining this offensive language.”
Following the protest on Wednesday, organizer Tomas Jirousek was enthusiastic about the turnout.
“I’m so happy to see the solidarity coming from all aspects of the university — staff, professors and all types of students on campus that are supporting this initiative,” said the McGill rowing team member, who is also commissioner of Indigenous Affairs at the Students’ Society of McGill University and chair of the school’s Indigenous Affairs Committee.
Jirousek will moderate the panel Understanding Cultural Appropriation, Thursday at 11 a.m. in the second-floor ballroom of Carrefour Sherbrooke, 475 Sherbrooke St. W.
“It’s empowering as an Indigenous student to see all these people working together,” he said. “I’m excited to see where we can take this.”
Cassia Nasralla was on the McGill rowing team last year, where she befriended Jirousek.
“As an ex-varsity athlete, this is hitting very close to home,” she said. “Last year, I would be hearing (Jirousek) talk about how the name was so offensive and that he wished he could change it.
“I said, ‘If ever you do, I will always stand with you and do whatever I can to help.’ That’s why I’m here today — to show solidarity with this movement and to make a statement to McGill and the administration to say, ‘This is offensive. It’s not OK. We need to change the name.’ ”
McGill has said it will not make any decision on the matter until it receives the report from the Provost’s Working Group on Principles of Commemoration and Renaming, expected on Dec. 6.