With a vote of 72 per cent in favour, the AMS will be making a recommendation to the University Council to impeach Rector Nick Day following a March 22 and 23 Special Student Vote. 28 per cent voted in opposition to Day’s removal from office.
Only AMS members were eligible to vote in the Special AMS Student Vote. 3,803 students voted out of an eligible 14,244. The motion to call the vote was passed at the March 10 AMS Assembly. This occurred after over 2,000 signatures were collected, calling for the question of Day’s removal to be brought to assembly.
The signatures were collected in opposition to a public letter Day wrote to Michael Ignatieff, criticizing his condemnation of Israeli Apartheid Week.
Rob Lee, AMS chief electoral officer, said that the AMS facilitated the vote, but did not market it.
“We’re not calling the referendum, we’re just announcing it,” Lee, Sci ’11, said, adding that the vote was advertised to students through Facebook, Twitter and the AMS website.
263 more students voted in this referendum than in the AMS executive elections in February. Lee said he felt this was due to the greater degree of controversy and grassroots involvement within the campaigns compared to those during the time of the AMS elections.
“The fact that one gets more than the other gives an interesting commentary,” Lee said. “Obviously there was a lot of controversy associated with this Special Student Vote.” Lee was unable to comment about whether or not the University Council would be meeting before the scheduled date of May 7 to discuss the AMS’s recommendation to remove Day as rector.
Day declined to comment about his thoughts on the results of the vote, but said that he will be making a statement later in the week. “Everybody should read the original letter and educate themselves on [Israeli Apartheid Week] and all other legitimate and safe academic events,” Day, MA’ 12 said. Day learned of the results during a final event for Kingston’s Israeli Apartheid week.
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