This year, students at Brock University have come together to form a Revolutionary Communist Party club on campus. We’ve been working over the past several months to attain official club status, in order to give a voice to all of the BrockU students who want to fight capitalism and oppression. 

But on April 14th, the Brock University Students' Union denied the ratification of our club, claiming that our ideology “infringes on the rights and privileges of others.” This is ridiculous. How does discussing socialism on campus infringe on anyone's rights? It’s a far greater infringement of rights to deny us the opportunity to organize because you don’t like what we have to say.  

The truth is, the RCP has always been a consistent defender of democracy, freedom of speech and expression, and an opponent of all oppression. As communists we oppose the capitalist system precisely because it restricts peoples’ rights and freedoms, and the prospective members of the BrockU Revolutionary Communist Party have done nothing to break from this tradition.

BUSU stated that “the proposed ideology conflicts with the requirement under Policy 500 to uphold and respect individual rights and privileges.” But we ask: what about our rights and privileges? BUSU is supposed to fight for the rights of students to associate how they wish, but instead they’ve become a body that restricts free speech on campus. 

Students should enjoy freedom of political association on campus – regardless of their ideology. The Revolutionary Communist Party calls on BUSU to end all political repression, allow for the free organization of political clubs on campus, and to pass the ratification of the BrockU Revolutionary Communist Party club.