<i>The following is an email sent to Mohamed Lachemi, President and Vice-Chancellor of Ryerson University.</i>

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Dear Mr. Lachemi:

I am writing to express concern about a recent incident of physical assault by a Ryerson University employee against one of your students as well as a member of the public (presumably carried out in the name of your institution, and therefore in your name personally in the absence of your condemnation), and to pose some pointed but vital questions on this matter.

(Because you are President and Vice-Chancellor of Ryerson University, and because accountability starts at the top, “you” and “Ryerson University” shall be considered interchangeable for the purposes of this text, and thus where one is used, the other shall be implied. In accepting the office of “President and Vice-Chancellor”, you do not get to separate yourself from the actions of your employees when you choose to stay silent. Such is the burden of leadership.)

Here are the facts as I understand them:

(1) On October 1, 2018, there was a pro-life demonstration in a location abutting your campus. At this demonstration, a Ryerson University employee named Gabriela Skwarko physically assaulted two demonstration participants, one a student (Blaise Alleyne), and the other a member of the public (Katie Somers). (Ms. Skwarko is also a member of the “Ryerson Reproductive Justice Collective”, hereafter referred to as “RRJC”. I’ll get back to that topic further down.) Ms. Skwarko is also shown removing a personal item from Ms. Somers’ backpack and smashing it on the ground. This incident was captured on a smartphone by another demonstration participant, and is readily available on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhJwLizPuag

As you can see from this video, Ms. Skwarko’s attacks on Mr. Alleyne and Ms. Somers were completely unprovoked, unless you consider a violent sense of political entitlement to be adequate provocation for such behaviour. (Given the current political climate in Canada in general, and on university campuses in particular, I make no assumptions about what is considered “adequate provocation” where unpopular political and social positions are concerned.)

(2) Up until shortly after the incident in question, Ms. Skwarko’s online profile for her position as an assistant at Ryerson’s Social Innovation Office contained the following passage:

><i>“She believes that social innovation is best achieved through a diverse plan of action, whether it be through protests or conferences, there is always an outlet for voices to be heard.”</i>

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(3) And then, shortly after the incident in question, her profile was drastically altered to excise any references to “protests”. Why? Was it because it would create the appearance that Ms. Skwarko was merely carrying out her duties for the Ryerson Social Innovation Office (and on behalf of a student organization sanctioned by you) by staging her violent counter-protest at the Oct. 1 pro-life demonstration, and thus be a source of liability to the university? (I’ll leave aside the ridiculousness and hypocrisy of Ms. Skwarko’s assertion that “there is always an outlet for voices to be heard”, which remains in her current profile text.)

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(4) Your institution has a <i>[Workplace Civility and Respect Policy](https://www.ryerson.ca/policies/policy-list/workplace-civility-respect-policy/)</i> that would appear to forbid the kind of violence and intimidation in which Ms. Skwarko engaged against one of your students and a member of the public. Do you deem Ms. Skwarko to have been in violation of this policy, or is the policy contingent upon the politics of the person being assaulted? (Again, I make no assumptions about who you do or do not consider exempt from violence and intimidation at the hands of your employees.)

(5) RRJC is known for its tactics of bullying, intimidation, and destruction of private property, as evidenced by these two widely-available videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQHpZmQYlf8&t=219s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXbH76ZTfBk

In short, I am gravely concerned by what appears to be an utter lack of response to and/or acknowledgment on your part of the incident in question, let alone any sort of apology from you to those who were victimized by your employee. As such, please answer the following questions:

(1) As President and Vice-Chancellor of Ryerson University, do you or do you not condemn physical assault, bullying, and intimidation of any of your students or members of the public, as well as destruction of their personal property, at the hands of Ryerson University employees, as per the documented acts carried out by Gabriela Skwarko?

(2) By modifying Ms. Skwarko’s online employee profile to remove references to the protest-related aspects of her employment with you, are you or are you not personally complicit in covering up the fact that her actions were on your personal behalf as her employer?

(3) As President and Vice-Chancellor of Ryerson University, do you or do you not condemn physical assault, bullying, and intimidation of any of your students or members of the public, as well as destruction of their personal property, at the hands of RRJC or other officially-sanctioned student organizations, as per the video documentation on YouTube?

(4) As President and Vice-Chancellor of Ryerson University, is it apparent to you that RRJC considers itself a vigilante organization? After all, their very cause, “reproductive justice”, implies by default that their thug-like tactics are aimed at correcting what they imagine to be an actual “injustice”. And because they naïvely believe they are fighting an “injustice” (whatever it actually is), they feel morally-emboldened to take any means necessary to achieve their goals. (Oxford Dictionary defines "terrorism" as "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims", but I'll leave to others to speculate on whether the actions of Ms. Skwarko and her RRJC peers constitute terrorism.)

(5) Given the import of the above question, as President and Vice-Chancellor of Ryerson University, do you approve of vigilantism carried out in the name of an organization sanctioned by you, and therefore carried out on your personal behalf in the absence of condemnation by you?

(6) As President and Vice-Chancellor of Ryerson University, do you rank your own students (as well as members of the public) according to the degree to which they are entitled to protection from violence, bullying, intimidation, and destruction of personal property at the hands of your employees as well as student organizations sanctioned by you? (On the face of it, it would appear that Ryerson University sees itself as a cooing wet nurse to anyone with pro-choice or other progressive beliefs, and conversely sees itself as a violent thug towards those with pro-life or more conservative beliefs.)

(7) As President and Vice-Chancellor of Ryerson University, do you provide prospective students and their families with adequate disclosure regarding the very real expectation of violence, intimidation, and destruction of personal property at the hands of your employees and student organizations sanctioned by you, and that you personally consent to such abuse by not taking adequate measures to ensure the safety of all?

It is my sincere hope that you can provide some sort of reassuring answers to the above questions, or at least correction to any of my assertions. Given the importance of your role at Ryerson University, I fail to see how one should expect anything less of you.

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
James Deagle