McGill University in Montreal faces a campus safety crisis as Jeffrey George Ewert, 60s, sits in a law lecture hall. He is serving a life sentence for the 1984 murder of a woman and the attempted murder of a 15-year-old girl who was left paralysed. After 40 years behind bars, Canadian parole authorities granted him day parole in 2025, allowing him to live in the community under supervision. He walked into McGill’s Faculty of Law in August 2026, a move that has ignited a firestorm among students who say the administration failed to disclose his history.
The controversy exploded after students discovered Ewert’s presence without prior warning. An open letter signed by concerned students accused the university of ignoring basic safety protocols. They allege Ewert has been inappropriately physical with female students, some of whom were minors, and that his online activity displays harmful attitudes toward women. The letter demands immediate restrictions on his campus access, arguing that the risk assessment—classified as moderate-to-high in parole documents—justifies exclusion.
But not everyone agrees. A counter-petition, drafted by three law students and signed by over 100 alumni and current students, argues that banning Ewert without a formal finding of misconduct is unjust. Annica Dickens, one of the petition’s authors, stated that public discomfort does not equal proof of threat. “His past is serious, and I don’t want to minimize the harm experienced by his victims,” Dickens said. “But we also have to consider who he is today, his behaviour since then, and the safeguards that are in place.”
Ewert’s lawyer, Nora Demnati, insists McGill was fully aware of his status before admission. She describes him as a success story of rehabilitation, noting that his parole conditions include strict monitoring of his telecommunications and mandatory reporting of relationships with women. These conditions were tightened after he used a dating site without informing his case management team. Demnati argues that isolating these incidents from the full context of his supervision creates a prejudicial picture.
The university has not issued a definitive ruling on Ewert’s continued enrollment. The next step depends on the outcome of an internal review into whether adequate safeguards were communicated to the student body. Until then, Ewert remains on campus, and the tension between rehabilitation and victim safety shows no sign of cooling.