Sacrifice and Silence Neoliberalism, Right-Wing Populism, and the Repression of Pro-Palestinian Student Movements at Alberta Universities
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This paper explores the intersection of neoliberalism and right-wing populism in the repression of pro-Palestinian student activism at universities, with a focus on the University of Alberta. Since October 2023, students across Canada have mobilized to demand their universities divest from companies complicit in the genocide of Palestinians, disclose financial holdings, defend the right to protest, and condemn the genocide. In response, university administrations, influenced by neoliberal policies and right-wing populist ideologies, have increasingly securitized campuses and relied on police violence to silence dissent. By framing peaceful activism as a threat, institutions sacrifice students’ democratic rights to protect economic interests. This paper explores how the United Conservative Party (UCP) government has influenced the suppression of pro-Palestinian student activism by promoting a right-wing populist narrative that Others pro-Palestinian students and alienates them from the greater campus community. Additionally, this paper criticizes the role of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives for failing to support genuine systemic change. Ultimately, universities have become complicit in upholding oppressive structures, where dissent is criminalized to protect the neoliberal order.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.027 | 0.039 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.010 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".