‘It’s an unreal experience to receive a legal letter from your own university for your journalism’
Marieke Glorieux-Stryckman talks to us about her experience of receiving a legal letter from her own university in Canada.
From prior experience, we know that legal letters are typically sent by individuals or organisations, but it is incredibly rare to receive a legal letter from your own university, threatening you with legal action for Access to Information (ATI) requests that you had submitted in the hope of finding out more about the institution where you study. However, this is precisely what happened to Marieke Glorieux-Stryckman when she was a second-year journalism student at the university.
In her role as news editor of her student newspaper, Ms. Glorieux-Stryckman had submitted six ATI requests in September 2023 to Concordia to try and gather information on the Concordia’s shuttle, reports about increased tuition, information about the home countries of Concordia’s international students, professional emails produced by Concordia spokesperson Vannina Maestracci, and decisions sent out following previous ATI requests filed to Concordia. She explained why she submitted the ATI’s:
“I was in my second year at The Concordian and I was still new to journalism and to the university. But I felt that student reporters had a duty to help the rest of the student body better understand how their university functioned — and I was also curious to understand it myself. Universities are such big machines that have a huge impact on our society, through research and through training the next generations of leaders. Since most of us don’t spend more than a few years there, we don’t give them much thought, and I worry that this allows universities to function in a less transparent way.”
Concordia had 20 days and a built in 10 day buffer to respond to the ATI’s. However, the response never came and, instead, Glorieux-Stryckman and her co-editor Emma Megelas received an email containing a cease-and-desist marked: “UNIVERSITÉ CONCORDIA c. MARIEKE GLORIEUX-STRYCKMAN et EMMA MEGELAS”, informing her that the ATI was a “means of pressuring the University” and that the requests were “abusive and made in bad faith.” The letter was sent by Fasken, one of Canada’s largest law firms. When the email came with the letter, needless to say it was a surprise to Ms. Glorieux-Stryckman:
“I knew enough to understand the significance of a document like that letter, but I didn’t know enough to really know what it meant. My first thought was, ‘Oh no, we’re getting sued.’ I panicked. Obviously, that wasn’t the case, but it was a scary thing to think that I was getting into a legal faceoff with my own university.”
Ms. Glorieux-Stryckman admitted to feeling ‘shame and fear’ and was wondering if she could talk about the letter or not:
“At first, I was really worried that I had done something wrong and reckless. I wasn’t sure what something like this meant for my reputation or my career, and I was scared the story would spread if I spoke about it. I also had no idea what the legal procedure was — was I even allowed to speak about this? It took a while before I spoke to some of my journalism professors and mentors about it. Once I did, I realized I should’ve done it sooner. The support and encouragement I got from the journalism community gave me the energy I needed to push back and defend my right to access that information.”
This support also extended to lawyers who offered Ms. Glorieux-Stryckman advice on what to do next at no-cost, with Glorieux-Stryckman stating that the media law community were incredibly helpful and this helped ease her fears. The student newspaper could not afford legal fees and Ms. Glorieux-Stryckman entered mediation. The entire process, while rather short, with the letter being sent in October 2023 and mediation taking place in February 2024, still had an impact on her time at the university:
“It really changed my relationship with the university. And that was a really weird feeling, because at the time, school was a huge part of my life, between my studies, the student paper, and my social life. It wasn’t something I could escape. I think university is the time where you start to diversify your life away from school, and that shift for me was really hurried along by wanting to get away from the institution that had sent me a cease-and-desist.”
The conflict was resolved in mediation and Ms. Glorieux-Stryckman hopes that, in the future, student journalists don’t have to go through what she went through, stating that students should be able to submit ATI’s without the fear of repercussions. She also emphasised the importance of speaking out about legal threats:
“The biggest thing for me throughout that entire process was that I didn’t want this to become the university’s playbook. “Student journalist asked questions we didn’t like? Let’s send them a legal letter, they’ll back off.” That’s why it was important for me to write about it and to talk about our experience as widely as possible. To make sure that if anyone else went through what I had gone through, they’d know they’re not alone, and they can push back.”
Despite this experience, it did not deter Ms. Glorieux-Stryckman from continuing with her investigations. Following mediation, an investigation exploring the transparency in Canadian universities was launched and she has gone on to win awards and is now working for Montreal daily newspaper Le Devoir as a daily news reporter and web desk editor. While the experience was difficult and stressful, Ms. Glorieux-Stryckman emphasises the importance of not giving up undertaking public interest journalism:
“Looking back, I can really point to that experience as a turning point in my career. It strengthened my resolve to ask important questions, especially questions that institutions and powerful people don’t want to answer. Not everyone has the resources to do that, or even knows how to get the answers they need. I think it’s my responsibility as a journalist to ask those questions and get those answers.”
Marieke’s advice to student journalists
“Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Make sure you have a strong support system and mentors who can guide you as you’re learning how to ask those questions in a way that’s appropriate — and legal! Don’t be afraid to stand your ground. That’s how you get the best stories.”
“This situation also helped me realize that you’re not always facing off against a cartoonish evil institution. Odds are, you’re actually emailing an overwork access-to-information officer who’s also corresponding with a ton of journalists and non-journalists. This isn’t an excuse, and not giving resources for access-to-information doesn’t absolve public entities of their responsibilities to transparency. But remember who you’re speaking to — another human being who’s probably trying the best they can to help you.”