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A security guard has been terminated after they were recorded denying a woman entry to a St. Clair College building for wearing a keffiyeh — a checkered black-and-white scarf that has become a symbol of Palestinian identity and solidarity.
The 22-second video shared on social media reportedly recorded sometime last week by the woman appears to capture a male security guard telling her to leave the St. Clair College Centre for the Arts located in downtown Windsor.
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A woman is heard on the recording asking the security guard, whose face is blurred out, if she is being denied entry because she is wearing the keffiyeh.
The guard responds by saying, “The scarf? I know what it means. You’re not allowed in here.”
The woman asks: “I can’t check if my friend is in the bathroom because I’m wearing a keffiyeh?”
“Right,” he said, before telling her to close the door.
The incident occurred after hours according to a statement issued by a St. Clair College spokesperson on Wednesday, shortly after the video was posted online around 4 p.m.
St. Clair College also apologized online roughly an hour later, and shared the same statement with the Windsor Star.
“It does not represent the values or policies of St. Clair College,” John Fairley, vice-president of communications and community relations for the college, said in an emailed statement.
“Once we learned about the incident, we immediately addressed our concerns to Paladin Security, who immediately addressed the situation with the employee and resolved the issue.”
A spokesperson for Paladin Security told the Star in an emailed statement Thursday that the company immediately contacted the affected individual to apologize after the incident was brought to their attention.
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“We do not condone this behaviour,” said Paladin Security’s communications manager Christina Heydanus.
“We immediately took steps to address this issue, including terminating the individual employee.
“Paladin holds diversity and respect as core values and will continue to work to ensure similar incidents do not occur in the future.”
Jana Alrifai, co-organizer of the encampment on the University of Windsor Campus, which has entered its 13th day, considers the scene captured by the video “simple anti-Palestinian racism.”
She told the Star this is not an isolated incident, however, and that similar instances are happening elsewhere.
“It is not unique to this one situation,” she said. “This one just happened to be on camera. Palestinian racism is alive and well.
“People who are Palestinian, or who are supporting Palestine, and who are wearing the keffiyeh, are being harassed and discriminated against.”
She describes the keffiyeh as an “integral part of what it means to be a Palestinian and to be in support of the Palestinian people.”
“The fundamental idea that a keffiyeh is contentious is itself anti-Palestinian racism, because the keffiyeh is a symbol of Palestinian culture and heritage, and in some ways, resistance and resilience against continued occupation.”
Fairley told the Star that St. Clair College does not have a policy against anyone wearing a keffiyeh.
“We have people who on a daily basis wear their headscarves,” he said, including both employees and students.
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Alrifai feels more needs to be done to combat discrimination.
“We can’t just fire somebody for what they’ve done,” she said. “We have to make sure that this doesn’t happen in the first place.”
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