A University of Regina Students’ Union spokesperson claims his organization has been dealing with harassment since announcing it would review funding for the on-campus Women’s Centre.
The funding decision remains in limbo.
“We have received racist and aggressive emails and comments after the Women’s Centre press release, due to a one-sided portrayal of the situation. This certainly did have a very negative impact on my colleagues’ and my own mental health,” said Mahad Ahmad, the president of URSU, in an email.
Since December, both organizations have made headlines after URSU claimed the Women’s Centre, along with UR Pride and Engineers Without Borders may lose it’s funding due to “compliance issues.”
In a press release posted on Dec. 13 URSU stated:
“The Women’s Centre has been largely inactive in fulfilling its purpose as outlined in its own constitution.”
URSU further claimed that the Women’s Centre had hosted no significant workshops or training sessions in the past two years, adding that while the Women’s Centre had been closed for extended periods, students seeking support have often turned to URSU for assistance.
After the initial announcement, URSU received some backlash from members of the community, who where concerned that services provided by the Women’s Centre would be cut without any student input.
As a result, URSU clarified that if the accused organizations did fail to comply, there would be a referendum during the next URSU general election, to decide if the funding would still be collected from students.
When asked about an update regarding the situation Ahmad said:
“As of now, the Women’s Centre is not in compliance with URSU.”
Jill Arnott is the executive director of the Women’s Centre. When asked if her organization intended to meet URSU expectations, she said:
“The only thing we are behind on is having an AGM, and one is forth coming this semester. We have some new board members so we will be doing some board training first. We have actually had no communication with URSU outside of the seven page document that was published in December, when all the media stuff was going on, saying that we were closed, which was not true.”
She went on to say the Women’s Centre had a good working relationship with the staff of URSU in previous years.
“The previous staff and GM where in this office. We worked on campaigns together,” said Arnott.
With no clear path to resolve the situation before the next URSU general election, it remains likely that the fate of the Women’s Centre will be left in the hands of the students who vote. When asked how she felt about the outcome of a possible vote, Arnott said:
“I’m not actually concerned about that. I think most people know that it’s a really bad look for their university, to roll back services. We have heard from students who aren’t even here yet, who have expressed concerns about attending a university that is taking services away. You pay $6 a semester as a full time student to fund the Women’s Centre. That’s less then a cup of coffee and a beer. We already pay taxes to provide services. These services are our social safety nets that keep our communities strong and healthy.”