Ford creating two student classes on campus

Campus life will never be the same.

Thanks to the meddling and manipulating of Doug Ford’s Tories, traditional student activities have been politicized and ostracized as never before. The impact of this punitive government intrusion may be felt for years to come.

This month, college and university students face a fleeting choice with enduring consequences. They must decide whether or not to financially support campus activities that were long seen as staples of student life:

Campus radio stations. Student councils. Clubs for LGBTQ or other minority students. Student newspapers. Debating clubs. Support for disabled students. Marching bands. Child care. International student clubs.

All of them are now being cut loose by government order. Stable funding that goes back decades is suddenly up for grabs as the Tories force every college and university to blow up the way student fees have been paid in the past.

Why are the Progressive Conservatives doing this? Because they can.

Now, post-secondary students are using online opt-out portals to decide the fate of optional student programs. At the University of Toronto, they will see a brief 150-character summary — about the length of a tweet — describing each of about two dozen extracurricular activities before rendering their verdict. Thumbs up or down. Meanwhile, campus groups must twiddle their thumbs for the next few weeks waiting to hear how students voted with their wallets, leaving their budgets on hold well into the semester.

It is the modern equivalent of a Tinder swipe to the left or right. And it is animated by the right-wing animus of our premier toward campus politics he perceives as annoyingly left-leaning.

“I think we all know what kind of crazy Marxist nonsense student unions get up to,” Ford explained in a PC fundraising appeal earlier this year. “So, we fixed that. Student union fees are now opt-in.”

Not just student unions, but most of the extracurricular pursuits that traditionally bring students together are now cynically being used to divide them against one another. Activities that create a sense of cohesion outside class are now being cut loose; clubs that fostered student spirit and built a sense of community on campus are being undermined and sabotaged by a deliberate government policy that is hostile to collective engagement.

It has a certain superficial appeal for those who believe in individual choice. But how far do you go down that road?

Shall we apply the same principle to labour unions, which have secured the hard-won right to represent all members in a workplace by negotiating collective agreements and collecting compulsory union dues for their efforts? Shall we allow dissident members to opt out of their union dues, on the grounds that they are antiunion or dislike their leadership’s political pronouncements?

Or better yet, let us apply Ford’s reverse-onus to his own government by forcing him to raise funds for each non-essential activity on a policy-by-policy basis.

For example, if our premier wishes to continue his peculiarly partisan $30-million propaganda crusade against a federal carbon levy, he should be forced to collect funds from taxpayers who opt in — rather than siphoning off funds from the treasury over our objections.

Of course not, for there is a point at which we should all contribute to collective action — whether it is building transit lines or building campus spirit. The problem with opting out is that it fosters the unfairness of the free rider — the student or worker who benefits from the collective action of his union (better student services, or higher wages), without sacrificing in any way.

This is precisely why collective contributions have long been mandated on campus as in the workplace. Is this an insidious initial ploy by the Tories, who have flirted with anti-union policies in the past?

It’s hard to know where our premier’s hostility to student government emanates from, given that he dropped out of college after only a few short months on campus. Perhaps his minister of education, Stephen Lecce, can explain exactly what “crazy Marxist nonsense” Ford was referring to.

After all, Lecce once served as president of Western University’s student council. Does Lecce now support the inevitable cuts to the council budget he once presided over?

This is not an abstract debate. For student newspapers — traditionally a community bulletin board — it is now do or die, which is why campus editors across the province have banded together to stave off future closings.

At U of T, students will be able to opt out of the $2.87 cost of supporting their campus paper, the Varsity. Most of these fees amount to a rounding error for most students — $1 for a student refugee program at Western, $12 for the campus radio station.

For those who do opt out, there will be a ban on their entry into study rooms run by student unions, and a bar on running for student council or applying for campus jobs. The effect will be to create two classes of students on campus — those who engage in extracurricular activities and those who exempt themselves. In other words, a wedge. Announcing their plan to make fees voluntary, the Tories said this would “empower” students. It will only emasculate student life.

Campus fees will cost less for some. But all students will pay a higher price.

It’s hard to know where our premier’s hostility to student government emanates from