Ethan Saks | Contributor
Featured Image: After significant pleas from the York community, security services has decided to halt the constant security bulletins. | Fatema Ali
After much controversy, the university administration has decided to listen to the students by permanently halting the constant onslaught of what feels like weekly security bulletins. The decision ironically arrived in student inboxes around noon on March 23.
York’s media director, Carol Grace, says that the decision was “a long time coming,” and had been widely anticipated by students and faculty alike. “These changes are drastic but necessary,” she says.
Bulletins that will no longer be annoying students include: witness reports, police alerts, notifications of suspect detainment, and notifications of specific crimes, such as sexual assaults, and potentially dangerous suspects. Students will also no longer receive bulletins from the Toronto Police reaching out for potential witnesses regarding a crime.
Mike D’Mari, Osgoode Hall professor emeritus, agrees with these changes. “York needs to leave the robberies to the lawyers—students need to focus on their assignments,” he says.
D’Mari is not alone. Complaints have been flowing in by the thousands about the distracting email notifications. Students are wondering why they need to know about a crime that already happened—if it didn’t happen to them, what’s the problem?
But some officials believe that the university is missing the bigger picture. Constable Alessia Hawkins, spokesperson for the Toronto Police 666 Division, hopes that members of the university can eventually come to the understanding that these security bulletins are essential.
“They save lives,” she says. “They keep students informed about the area they spend a large majority of their youth in.”
Students are not convinced of Hawkins’ plea. Some of them believe that instead of sending out security bulletins about a string of sexual assaults, the police should simply do their job.
“Every time I get an email about some armed robbery it just makes me anxious,” says Kia Phillip, a third-year political science student. “Why can’t they just arrest the guy instead of telling me to watch out. Why do I have to do the policing?”
Phillip’s opinion is shared by a majority of students. They claim that the email bulletins make them nervous that there might actually be crime near the university.
“I don’t want to hear about a murder that didn’t impact me,” says Fabien Mason, a first-year criminology student, who claims to be very educated on these circumstances due to his degree choice. “If I’m not the one who got stabbed, then don’t tell me about someone who was stabbed. Let security deal with that.”
Despite outcry from the TPS, the move seems to have been embraced by students. Students can now focus less on emails, and more on assignments. “This is university, after all, not an asylum,” says Phillip. “Let the police do their job, and let students focus more on trying to get one.”
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