The McGill encampment is still standing. Past Montreal student protests help explain why

It's been one week since pro-Palestinian students and protesters set up camp on McGill University's lawn. Since then, McGill called on police for help, but police said no crime was being committed. Then, a Quebec judge rejected a request for an injunction that would have forced the protesters to leave.

With mass arrests and dismantling of similar encampments in the United States, many are wondering how and when the McGill encampment will end.

Student occupations aren't new at Montreal's English institutions, McGill and Concordia University. Two famous instances include the 1969 Sir George Williams affair, also known as the computer riots, and the occupation of McGill's administration building during tuition protests a decade ago. In both cases, riot police engaged in a violent crackdown on students.

Those crackdowns led to reputational hits and public apologies for the universities — and, after the tuition strike, millions of dollars in payouts by the city. So a look at what happened could shed light on whether history will repeat itself — or if these institutions will continue with a more cautious approach.

The computer riots started in response to racism experienced by West Indian students at the hands of a white biology professor, Perry Anderson.

A group of students occupied Sir George Williams University's computer room, which, at the time, included computers about the size of refrigerators. The occupation lasted more than two weeks and ended with riot police storming the building and arresting 97 people. Some were given prison sentences ranging from two weeks to three years. Others were fined.

Those familiar with the story remember the images of punch cards fluttering to the street below, a giant smashed computer and smoke billowing from the ninth floor of what is now Concordia's Hall Building.

In a retrospective piece written on the event's 50th anniversary, Rodney John, one of the protesters, recalled how the university failed to negotiate with the students.

"We were fighting a battle we could not win," he wrote. "The university had no mechanism for dealing with the issues we handed them and, as we were minorities, their position was that we had no rights that they were obliged to respect."

Photos of riot police on campus created a stir and shifted the university's reputation. Five years later, it merged with Loyola College and rebranded as Concordia University. In 2022, Concordia officially apologized for its role in the institutional racism that triggered the riots.

That wasn't the last time riot police would end up on a Montreal university campus in response to an occupation.

In the fall of 2011, the seeds of the movement that would become Maple Spring were planted. The government had announced major tuition hikes, triggering mass protests across the province.

A day of action was planned for Nov. 10, with a large protest that ended at McGill's downtown campus. A group of 14 students then ran into the fifth floor of the James Administration Building, barricading themselves in as protesters continued to chant outside.

Though the students inside the building were able to negotiate with the university's deputy provost and leave peacefully, police were called to campus. Backup was called and 100 officers in riot gear swept the campus, pepper-spraying and arresting protesters.