ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – The chair of the board of regents at Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador has been asked to take privacy training after he forwarded an alumnus’s pro-Palestinian campaign email to her father.
Becky Winsor says she isn’t sure what Glenn Barnes was hoping to achieve when he forwarded the email at 3:44 a.m. on June 22, which demanded Memorial University divest from “weapons manufacturing companies implicated in the genocide in Gaza.”
Winsor is 35, has two kids and three degrees from Memorial University, and she says Barnes violated her privacy, insulted her and annoyed her father.
Emails shared with The Canadian Press show Winsor’s father wrote back to Barnes recommending he approach the alumnus with any concerns.
Barnes replied saying he had received more than 100 such emails and was telling parents he knows “just what their kids are doing.”
The university issued a statement on Friday saying its information access and privacy office investigated and found there was an “unauthorized disclosure” of a third-party email by a board member, and recommended privacy training for the member.
The statement says the matter has been reported to the province’s information and privacy commissioner, and Barnes says in an email that he will not be making any public comments.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 30, 2024.
