Scholar Strike Canada originated as a labour action in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, to protest anti-Black, anti-Indigneous, racist and colonial police brutality in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere.  Over 3,000 University workers signed our solidarity statement and took part in historic labour action that took place on September 9 - 10, 2020.  For those two days, we paused our teaching and all administrative duties.  Through Sept 9 - 10, 2020, Scholar Strike Canada hosted public digital teach-ins on state-sanctioned violence as part of the systemic violence that materially disenfranchises Black, Indigenous and racialized people, and is a contemporary function of slavery, carcerality and colonialism in the world today.  Speakers included: Courtney Skye, El Jones, Desmond Cole, Eve Tuck, Rinaldo Walcott, Andrea Davis, Erica Violet Lee, Chris Ramsaroop and many others.   Our live-streamed public digital teach-ins garnered over 60,000K views in 48 hrs.  

Watch all of our teach-ins here on our Scholar Strike Canada YouTube Channel. 

 

           Scholar Strike originated in the U.S from a tweet by Dr. Anthea Butler who, inspired by the striking WNBA and NBA players, put out a call for a similar labour action from academics. The Canadian action is aligned with the one in the U.S., in its call for racial justice, an end to anti-Black police violence and it adds a specific focus on anti-Indigenous, colonial violence. 

 

 

           The List of Demands that we called for in September 2020 remain relevant right now:

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List of Demands

Statements of solidarity, while important, are not enough.  We must commit ourselves as scholars, artists, writers, poets, designers and researchers to actively ending all forms of racist, carceral, institutional and systemic forms of violence.
 

• We must support the demands for defunding the police and redistributing those resources to Black, Indigenous, racialized, queer and trans communities for the creation of sustainable and healthy communities. 

• We must support demands to remove campus police.  All agreements between policing institutions and universities must be rescinded.

• We must address the historic and current underrepresentation of Black and Indigenous faculty (full and part-time) in all Canadian institutions and press University Administrations to prioritize the urgency of these faculty hires.

• We commit to supporting meaningful efforts to recruit, admit, retain and mentor Black, Indigenous and racialized undergraduate and graduate students.

• We must support the campaign by CUPE 3261 to stop the University of Toronto from contracting out caretaking services thereby relinquishing its responsibility to safeguard secure and suitable paying jobs and health and safety of workers

• We must advocate for the creation, expansion, and maintenance of mental health and health care resources for students at our universities.

• We must support the demand for affordable education, sustainable jobs and housing for students and cultural professionals across all the universities. 

 

           Through our historical political action we saw something extraordinary come together.  We know there is a hunger for political conversations and action in this moment of change. We want to continue the momentum and be part of that change with you.  

 

           We are both community activists who also work in academia. We have decided to continue programming and co-hosting teach-ins featuring activists, academics & artists on our channel and would like to invite you to stay connected. We know now is the time to grow, connect and mobilize our activist/academic communities across Canada through actions, teach-ins and social media. 

           We will also use our website, youtube channel and newsletter update you on upcoming teach-ins and spread the news of actions & events. 

In Solidarity,

Min Sook & Beverly