MUN student questions freedom of speech on campus after staff remove tuition protest posters

A Memorial University student says his freedom of speech was violated after staff took down posters that he put up around campus calling for the resignation of university president Vianne Timmons.

Matt Barter, who's in his fourth year of political science and sociology, said he put up the posters to protest MUN's decision to increase tuition for new students beginning in fall 2022. 

"It's an issue that the president doesn't want to talk about," he said in an interview with CBC News.

In July, MUN announced that it would more than double undergraduate tuition for new students from Newfoundland and Labrador. The university is also nearly doubling tuition for new international students and students from other parts of Canada.

The increases came after the provincial government announced it would phase out the $68 million it gives to the university each year to retain the tuition freeze that had been in place since 1999.

"[This] is as big of a challenge as this university has ever faced. Everything is on the table," Timmons told reporters in July after announcing the increase. 

The university says undergraduate tuition will still be the most affordable in Atlantic Canada.