Boston University Medical Campus officials canceled a meeting to discuss the Biosafety Level 4 laboratory after issues were raised over who would speak for the opposition, event organizers said Monday.
College of Arts and Sciences freshman Maura Jacob, who led her group – the BU Society for Peace and Justice – through months of planning for the forum, said BUMC officials told her the event would be “indefinitely postponed” after she informed them there would not be a student speaker at the forum.
“Upon speaking with [the BUMC spokeswoman], she told me she was dismayed that we had not followed through with the ideas for a student speaker,” Jacob said.
BUMC Media Relations Manager Gina DiGravio did not comment on specifically why the event was cancelled, but she said BUMC has brought the issue to the public numerous times and will continue to do so regardless of the cancellation of Monday’s meeting.
“We have had more than 60 meetings and spoken with over 100 Boston residents,” she said. “We have garnered support and will continue our community outreach.”
But Jacob’s struggles with the event started months prior to the cancellation when some administrators – specifically Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore – began to help the group work to organize the forum. Students sent a petition directly to Elmore and held a meeting with Elmore’s assistant and BUMC spokespeople Ellen Berlin and Carla Richards, but Jacob said the meeting did not clarify specifics for the forum at that point.
“Upon leaving the meeting, I was under the impression that we would have another meeting because nothing had been said that was permanent,” she said.
After a couple of months of what she said was failed communication with Richards’ office and several alterations in the date and time by BUMC officials because they were looking for experts to speak, Jacob said she was frustrated because “it was difficult to get a faculty member to speak because of the time changes.”
Instead of the student speaker, Jacob’s group had originally intended for School of Public Health professor David Ozonoff to speak on behalf of the opposition but, because of time conflicts and rescheduling, he was unable to do so.
“It is past time for us in public health to protest this, even in the circumstance where our institutions stand to benefit,” Ozonoff said. “I very much wish I could support this facility. But I have reluctantly concluded I cannot.”
In search of the scientific perspective from Ozonoff that the Society for Peace and Justice officials said they needed to legitimize their argument, they then turned to Council of Responsible Genetics Director of Communication Brandon Keim and Alternatives For Community and Environment representative Claire Allen.
It was after Jacob told BUMC officials that Keim and Allen would be speaking that she was told the event was cancelled. The cancellation also comes after a private meeting between city councilors and BUMC members was held on March 31, according to Chinese-English newspaper Sampan.
Jacob said she was disappointed with the event’s cancellation because it “would have been an opportunity for the community to ask questions.”
“My concern is that most of the BU community does not have an opinion,” she said. “This issue does not just concern South Boston – it concerns all of Boston and it is a student issue because of the money that could be going toward other projects.”
Despite the cancellation of the event, Jacob’s group will continue its community outreach in hopes of getting their message across before the April 22 city council decision on the planned BUMC facility.
Jacob said the group will reinstate its distribution of materials to admissions tours as 50 MBTA ads boasting their opinion travel the orange and red lines.
“I don’t want to be scared away,” she said. “Nothing changes unless you stick through it.”