re: Consent is Sexy takes a different approach to gender-based violence and CUSA purg es CFS materials from service

centres The Womens Resource Center (WRC) collective of the Student Federation of the Univ ersity of Ottawa (SFUO) are service providers who work to combat sexual and gend ered violence on our campus on a daily basis, and who work to provide resources that are student-specific. We were dismayed, confused and frustrated to hear tha t the CUSA executive had decided to forcibly (with the threat of disciplinary ac tion for non-compliant employees) remove resources from student service centres, as well as from community groups tabling during the resource fair last week. Additionally, we were informed that resources the WRC at uOttawa had made and gi ven to CUSAs Womyns Centre were also thrown out because they contained SFUO logos which state that the SFUO is Local 41 of the Canadian Federation of Students. We are at a loss to understand how resources related to sex positivity, consent, a nd anti-sexual violence, which were made specifically for the Consent is Sexy ca mpaign, are a threat to the CUSA executive and students at Carleton. Using . The paign both a campaign like Consent is Sexy as a platform to trash the CFS is shameful argument that the Consent is Sexy campaign is solely a Carleton-specific cam is both inaccurate, and fails to recognize the intent behind the work that campuses have been collaborating on for the past few years.

The Consent is Sexy campaign is intentionally a collaborative cross-campus campa ign because we (the planning committee) recognize the importance of creating dia logue around issues of sexual and gendered violence that occur on our campuses s o that these issues are not viewed in isolation. The campaign aims to create and share resources between the two campuses, yet the CUSA executive seems to think it is within its right to make this difficult to impossible. Banning CFS materials (including the No Means No campaign and the Challenge Homo phobia and Transphobia campaign), as well as other community materials, from CUS A service centres, serves to demonstrate how far removed the CUSA executive is f rom addressing equity issues at Carleton. If the CUSA executive cares about equi ty issues on their campus, they would understand that it is important to provide students access to a variety of resources that validate and reflect their exper iences. Moreover, if their intent is truly to create resources for Carleton stud ents, then materials should have been created rather than leaving students witho ut any access to resources at all. Limiting students access to resources is a show of petty politics at the expense of CUSAs members and is counter-intuitive to the work, and the very existence, of equity-seeking student service centres that exist on university campuses. This move to purge resources appears to have nothing to do with what students want, a nd everything to do with the single-minded pursuit of disassociating CUSA from t he CFS, at any cost. In solidarity, The Womens Resource Centre Collective Kate Hudson, SFUO VP Student Affairs Dave Eaton, SFUO Services Coordinator