Homecoming, Redux

Queen's University suffered a serious blow to its reputation last week, as the otherwise peaceful and successful Homecoming Weekend was marred by a violent and destructive street party. By the end of the night, a car had been overturned and set on fire, a fire truck was pelted with beer bottles, and ambulances were blocked from reaching people in need. A long-standing and celebrated event became fodder for the evening news.

When an event of this magnitude takes place, the immediate reaction is to look for someone to blame. For many of the residents of Kingston, the blame lies with the students. In a letter to the Queen's Journal, a Kingston police officer admonished, "I hope the two girls with the deep lacerations to their faces who we rendered aid to on William east of Aberdeen are OK. I’m sure the scars they will now have for life will serve as a reminder of how good a time your traditional Aberdeen street party was." To these residents, the party on Aberdeen is considered an extension of Queen's Homecoming, and therefore the guilt and responsibility for these events must lie with those attending the school.

According to some students, however, the blame lies with the Kingston police and the authoritarian methods used during the period prior to Homecoming. As one student wrote in the Queen's Journal, "The fact that the car was destroyed in the face of such a police presence only a few feet north and south of the car seems to further illustrate the point that Homecoming was more of a protest than a party." To these students, the riot was a natural reaction to an unjustified oppression of students by the authorities.

Others blame the presence of individuals from outside of Queen's University, lured by the promise of a massive street party. As the Kingston-Whig Standard acknowledged, "Those arrested included a mix of Kingston residents and out-of-towners who came for the party." The Queen's Journal stated that approximately one-third of the students they interviewed at the party were not Queen's Students. While these people may acknowledge that students were responsible for part of the destruction, it is those not from outside of Queen's who were responsible for the worst acts of violence.

For those who thought that Homecoming could never be cancelled, they may be in for a rude awakening. Senator Hugh Segal has already called for Homecoming to be limited to students and alumni for next year. What will happen then, if the riots continue? What will happen when Kingston police are forced to resort to the use of tear gas, Tasers, and water cannons to restore order to a crowd that outnumbers them 50 to 1? How long will Queen's allow an event to go on, when the presence of its students on national media does irreparable damage to the school's reputation? When asked of the future of Homecoming, Patrick Dean (Queen's Academic Vice President) stated that, "Every aspect of our culture and traditions is going to be looked at critically to assess the role that it may play in the fostering of this kind of behaviour."

Once the dust finally settles, there will be more than enough blame to go around for everyone. Regardless of who is at fault, the time has come for students to take responsibility for Homecoming. This responsibility starts, first and foremost, by admitting that the events that took place on Saturday were in poor taste and had no place at a celebration for the students and Alumni of Queen's University. This means no longer attempting to glorify the "party" and draw parallels to other "protests against authority."

Queen's University is in Canada, and Canada is a free society. If you feel that the attention visited upon you by the Kingston police force is unwarranted, then there are a number of ways to express your concerns. Start by asking the officer for his or her name and badge number. With this information, you are then welcome to file a complaint with the police station, the local media, the Mayor's office, your Member of Provincial Parliament, and your Member of Parliament. This is the premise of a democratic and free society.

What you are not entitled to do is to pelt the officer with beer bottles, punch them, hurl racial slurs, flip over a car, or attempt to set said car on fire. This is not a protest. This is mob mentality at it's worst, and it should not be tolerated in a free society.

Students must take an active role in determining how best to return Homecoming to its rightful place as a peaceful celebration. Perhaps it is a matter of licensing and cordoning off Aberdeen street, while limiting attendance to students and Alumni. Maybe it will require an even larger concert to draw attention away from Aberdeen. Or maybe, just maybe, all that's required is for people to realize the consequences of their actions.

Homecoming is one of the events that defines Queen's as a university. The presence of Queen's Alumni from around the world signifies the strength of the bond that is shared by all Queen's students, current and former. To allow the situation to continue is more than dangerous or neglectful, it is also very disrespectful to the Alumni who travel vast distances to come to Kingston and remember what it was like to be a student, decades after they graduated.

No one has the right to take Homecoming away from the Alumni and future students of Queen's University. Yet, if students fail to act and the street parties continue to escalate, that's exactly what's going to happen. Then, there will be no more parties, crazy Alumni parades, football games and cheering crowds, breakfasts with pancakes made with beer, or graduates of the class of 1935 dropping in to say 'Hello'. Four years later and few students, if any, will even know that there ever was a Homecoming.