Observers should pay no heed to the non-confidence motion brought by York University’s faculty association on March 19 against their university president, provost and board chair, for it is only another reminder that Canadian university governance is sorely in need of reform.

The motion was a response to a decision by the university’s leadership in late February to suspend admission to 18 programs identified as unviable. The university is reportedly in serious financial trouble and must act to prevent a crisis, but these recent program cutbacks have been met with outrage from individuals and groups at York and some other universities. One York research group, the Critical Trafficking and Sex Work Studies Research Cluster, denounced the suspension for taking place “in a time when transphobia, anti-Black racism, queerphobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semetism, Sinophobia, Xenophobia, whorephobia, and misogyny are on the rise.” Now, four university senators are trying to take the university to court over the suspension.