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A round of public furor has centered on Toronto’s Ryerson University after two journalism students were barred from an on-campus meeting because they were not “racialized.”

First-year journalism students Julia Knope and Trevor Hewitt were attempting to attend a meeting hosted by the Racialised Students’ Collective when they were asked to leave by a group organizer.

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“She asked them if they had been marginalized or racialized, and when they both responded ‘no,’ that’s when she said the meeting was only for those who felt they had been,” said Anne McNeilly, an associate professor at the Ryerson School of Journalism.

Ms. Knope and Mr. Hewitt, who are both visibly white, had been attempting to attend the gathering as part of a assignment by Ms. McNeilly to sit in on a public meeting.

“It seemed really ironic to me that the meeting was about racialization and they were prohibiting certain people from entering,” said Ms. Knope in comments to the Ryersonian.