NEWS
16 Obiter Dicta
Carding
» continued from cover
from 17 November 201 4. As a young racialized
person born and raised in Toronto, I have had several
negative experiences with carding practices across
the city, and am concerned about the introduction of
something similar at my school.
My questions are as follows:
1. Does this policy have a history at Osgoode, or is
this its first appearance?
2. Have complaints about a shortage of study space
been made by students or observed by staff,
during the exam period and/or otherwise?
3. Under what authority was the decision to implement the policy taken, and how were students
consulted?
4. Were alternatives considered to address the twin
needs of study space and accessibility?
5. Do you or others involved in the decision-making process hold similar or different concerns
about the policy?
My own concerns are two-fold. First, and speaking from experience, I have found that the vesting of power in one group to demand identification
from another tends to create an atmosphere of suspicion and antagonism where none previously
existed. This is all the more so when the place where
such exchanges suddenly start to occur is public, as
I understand our library to be. The danger is that a
policy of this sort, irrespective of the quality of its
enforcement, will over time erode relations of trust
between and among students and staff, creating in
their stead hostilities, hierarchies and a generalized
perception of inaccessibility. Restricted access thus
threatens to deform the nature of public space and
maim our collective experience of it. This is not the
sort of community I was hoping to enter or build as a
student at Osgoode.
Second, I worry deeply that the practice of carding, which is being used to enforce the new policy,
will ultimately play out along axes of race and class.
While I appreciate your assertion that access restrictions at Osgoode will unfold “without any perception of bias”, with respect, I don’t think such a thing
can be either promised or achieved. Discretion is
unavoidable in any enforcement scheme, and, as
we’ve learned in State and Citizen, it is also often
exercised differentially in an unequal society.
Indeed, those of us on the wrong side of race and
class can attest to this everyday reality - the myriad
subtle ways that prejudicial suspicion is conveyed
through eye-contact, hand gestures, facial expressions and general bodily comportment if not always
express speech. I have full confidence that front-line
staff at Osgoode harbour no such prejudices personally, but instructing them to enforce this policy
threatens to place a different agency from their own
at the helm of their actions. The impact on students
like myself, though rarely broadcast owing to its
habituation, is damaging.
On that note, I’d like to comment briefly on your
public email of 21 November 2014, in which you
thanked “everyone for your understanding in showing your student ID when entering the library.”
Perhaps it’s best to refrain from communicating firm
conclusions about the enthusiasm of “everyone” for
this policy after only a week has elapsed. That sort
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of message suggests not only that consent to carding is the normal, self-evident, universal reaction
of students. More iniquitously, it renders feelings of
discomfort and opposition marginal before they can
even be thought through, let alone articulated. This
foreclosing of the space for critical reflection may in
turn discourage students with alternative views to
the putative majority from coming forward, stifling
democratic deliberation in the process.
Everyone deserves a place to read, write and
think in relative tranquility, law students included
- of that I’m sure we agree. I believe that the Law
Library’s restricted-access policy, however wellintentioned, functions to undermine this principle rather than further it. Please let me know your
thoughts when you can.
Sincerely,
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