Context Isn’t Care: A Reflection on McGill University Sport Program Cuts

I’ve been sitting with the McGill program cuts and the range of conversations they’ve sparked, and I keep noticing this tension between “this was a complex decision” and the very real impact on the student-athletes who are living it.

I can hold both. I don’t doubt that these decisions are difficult, layered, and shaped by institutional pressures most of us never see. But what feels important to name is that complexity doesn’t soften the loss — it just explains the system.

For many student-athletes, sport isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s community, identity, regulation, structure, and often the reason they’re able to stay engaged in school at all. So when programs disappear, it’s not just a team that’s lost — it’s part of how they survive, belong, and move through their education.

I’m also wrestling with the idea that academic cuts and sport cuts get positioned as separate categories of harm. For a lot of athletes, these things are inseparable. Their sport is what allows them access to education, stability, and opportunity in the first place.

Complexity deserves acknowledgement — but student-athletes deserve the loudest voice in the room. And I think the real work now is keeping student-athletes at the centre of this conversation — not just as an afterthought, but as the voices that matter most.