Eve Aboualy, former student and one of the PSA founders talks about her removal from the SAMU Mayoral Forum and how her supposedly trespassing is due to vague words and lack of clarity.

Eve Aboualy, a recent MacEwan graduate and co-founder of the Palestinian Student Alliance (PSA), was removed from SAMU’s Mayoral Forum event in September due to her allegedly trespassing on school grounds. 

A video captured outside of the event shows an exchange between Aboualy and a MacEwan security guard. The guard states that Aboualy matches the description of someone who currently trespassed on MacEwan school grounds and asks for Aboualy’s name. The guard then glances at his phone before confirming Aboualy was indeed trespassing. 

In an interview with the Griff, Aboualy states she was on campus for an hour or two prior to the event and didn’t think security was talking about her. According to Aboualy, she never received a trespass notice from MacEwan before the incident at the forum. 

“Even in the student misconduct letters that we received,” Aboualy says, “we read through them afterwards, and [it] doesn’t say anything about not being on campus grounds. It’s never said that before.”  

“It says that I’m banned from non-mandatory MacEwan events or campus events. And there’s a couple issues with that, right?” 

Originally reported in the Progress Report, MacEwan first implemented a ban on Aboualy and other members of the PSA back in June, forcing her to miss convocation. 

“Even in the student misconduct letters that we received, we read through them afterwards, and [it] doesn’t say anything about not being on campus grounds. It’s never said that before.” 

— Eve Aboualy, Former MacEwan student and co-founder of the Palestinian Student Alliance

On convocation day, Aboualy and other PSA members went to MacEwan’s student misconduct office to talk to staff about their ban from non-mandatory MacEwan events. Aboualy says she asked if SAMU events were also included in the ban, but the staff didn’t know. 

Aboualy and the other members assumed the ban didn’t include SAMU events because of its independence from MacEwan. She says she thought the ban didn’t apply to the mayoral forum, since it was open to the general public, and it took place in the SAMU building. 

The Griff reached out to MacEwan for comment and received an email response from Maureen Powers-Lomas, MacEwan vice-president (finance and administration) and CFO. Powers-Lomas wrote, “security services wanted to ensure the participants in the event and the audience could take part in a meaningful forum.”

“Based on the security plan that was developed in advance, it was decided that the individual needed to be removed and that was done with discretion and at a time chosen to minimize disruption.”

“As is our practice after a security event on campus, MacEwan will review its protocols and explore areas for continuous improvement.”