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There is nothing quite like walking along the water’s edge of Lake Ontario. We are so lucky it is so close to our campus!  Thanks to @iriszz1 for the sunny capture.  #queensu #beautiful #kingstonontario #canada #kingstonontariocanada #history #ontario #canada150 #queensuniversity #ygk  #explorecanada #beautifulday #photography #sky #discoveron #blueskies #cloudstagram #beautifulsky #clouds #nature #beautifulnature #latergram #lakeontario

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URGENT. The oldest activist organization at Queen’s University, Levana, is being pushed out of their space in the Grey House by the student government (the AMS) based on a clerical error. Levana was formed to advocate for the first women to attend Queen’s, but has since become an organization staffed by and advocating for LGBTQ students, students of colour, low-income students, disabled students, and other marginalized students at a school that is known for its conservative, heteronormative, classist, racist culture.

The Grey House has always historically been an activist space; aside from being Levana’s space, it was the home of OPIRG (a crucial leftist organization in Ontario that fights for marginalized students, performs community research, and funds and supports other activist groups), the birthplace of the Sexual Health Resource Centre, the original site of the Education on Queer Issues Project, the ongoing home for Queen’s Pride, and in general, a space where marginalized students have been able to come to be together and feel supported and affirmed at a predominantly white, upper class school.

Over the last few years, the AMS has been systematically removing every equity seeking organization from the Grey House and replacing them with politically “neutral” organizations, mainly Queen’s First Aid, who now take up more rooms than all remaining activist organizations combined. Of course, that isn’t difficult when there are only two organizations left, including Levana. EQUIP was moved to a room in a different building; the SHRC was moved, then lost their funding from the AMS and had to find new sources of revenue; OPIRG was removed from campus entirely and now has to pay for office space in the city. Our space is being taken from us more and more every year and soon there will be nothing left.

I don’t know how I would have survived my four years as a Queen’s student without having the Grey House as a place of refuge. Many of my friends have expressed similar sentiments. The ability to go to the Grey House after class, drink some of the free tea kept by Levana and OPIRG in the shared kitchen, and sit down in one of the offices or in the main meeting space to talk with one of the organizers or with friends was crucial; it provided one of the only consistently positive spaces on campus that I ever had. Existing on campus has always been a hostile, exhausting experience, but in the Grey House there was respite.

The Grey House is Levana’s home. It is the home to every student who does not feel welcome or safe on campus. It is the home and birthplace to so many crucial and impactful organizations that still operate on and off campus. To take Levana out of this space on the basis of a clerical error is to disregard all that history and work as less important than a bureaucratic mistake. It is an insult to all the students of colour, trans and queer students, poor students, disabled students, women, and otherwise marginalized people at Queen’s who depend on Levana’s service and support.

I do not believe for a moment that this effort to remove Levana is coincidental; this year Levana played a crucial role in supporting student activists of colour as we called for racial justice in the aftermath of multiple racist incidents on campus. As someone who has been there every step of the way, I can say with confidence that without Levana providing supplies, space, and support, nothing we achieved would have been possible. Levana is going to continue that work next year to ensure that promises by the administration are honoured and the needs of students and faculty of colour are met. If their space is taken away, their ability to fight for justice will be impaired. Please don’t let that happen. Sign this petition, share it with everyone you know, and call the school and the AMS out on this bullshit.