“How can I trust you again?” Couple’s therapy for brands and their communities - Part 1
If cancel culture taught us anything, we hate being lied to.
The fashion industry, with its shadow reputation of doing more harm than good in the world, has seen more shoppers require brands to “do better” before dollars leave their hands and fabric touches their bodies. In the last three years, a brand’s reputation — what the entire organization does to maintain the values they claim to support — has gotten more valuable and fragile.
Keep reading to learn how this school learned to make amends the hard way.
When Trust Cracks
Canada’s fashion fairy godmother and Toronto Metropolitan University (née Ryerson)
In May 2021, Mrs. Suzanne Rogers muddied her couture reputation as Canada’s fashion fairy godmother, after posting a family picture with former President Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago on her Instagram account. The bad timing (COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement had not yet left our minds or feeds) and bad optics landed Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) squarely in students’ disgust, as their fashion programs depend on Mrs. Rogers as a generous patroness.
According to the Eye Opener, the independent student newspaper of TMU, the Suzanne Rogers Fashion Institute (SRFI) opened with a $1 million donation from The Edward and Suzanne Rogers Foundation in 2016, which was regifted in November 2020.
At the time, the Rogers family has donated almost $34 million to various programs at TMU.
Mrs. Rogers with her family and past President Donald Trump in a now deleted Instagram post in 2021. Image credit: The Eye Opener via Canadaland.
A first statement was posted to TMU’s fashion social media account pointing out that such a photo didn’t mesh with the “low income, Black, brown, Indigenous, trans, queer, and/or part of other systemically marginalized communities,” that were students of TMU’s fashion program(s) or Canada’s larger fashion community. The impassioned statement was deleted shortly after being posted, replaced with one authorized by TMU:
TMU’s authorized response to criticisms of Mrs. Rogers’ Instagram post with former President Donald Trump.
Image credit: The Eye Opener
The recent breach in trust re-opened a decades-old rift between TMU and student activists, its name.
Egerton Ryerson and Indigenous Residential Schools
Before Toronto Metropolitan University became the official new name, it was established in 1948 as the Ryerson Institute of Technology, named after Adolphus Egerton Ryerson, a prominent contributor to the design of the public school system and teacher's college in Canada West.
Ryerson was also responsible for establishing the structure of residential schools.
He supported the practice of educating Indigenous students separately and converting them to Christianity, in order to assimilate them into Euro-Canadian culture.
According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, in 1847, Ryerson wrote a report recommending that Indigenous students “continue to be educated in separate, agriculturally based boarding schools with religious and English language instruction. The schools would train students to be farmers and provide an education on par with common schools.”
A man of religion himself, Ryerson also recommended that students be educated by religious leaders.
While he did not invent residential schools as a concept, his contributions would lay the groundwork for centuries of trauma and cultural erasure to thousands of Indigenous children, their families, and communities.
Egerton Ryerson. Image credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia via the Public Archives of Ontario/S-2641.
Mrs. Rogers’ ill-timed photo-op was one of a few fuel sources added to the fire that had the university change its name, one of 22 acts of reconciliation recommended by the university's Standing Strong (Mash Koh Wee Kah Pooh Win) Task Force.
According to a web article posted on CBC, after unmarked graves had been discovered on residential school grounds in 2021, students pulled down the statue of Egerton Ryerson that stood on campus. The next day, hundreds of faculty and professors signed a petition demanding the school’s name be changed.
Ryerson University became Toronto Metropolitan University in April 2022.
A stone-faced Egerton Ryerson stays down after un-marked graves were discovered on residential school grounds in 2021. Image credit: Evan Mitsui/CBC
So What Now?
As with most things, time cleans up the most cancel-able offenses by moving on — changed behaviour after an apology (or statements made on a million-dollar patroness’s behalf from a $11.5 billion family) is ideal, not guaranteed.
TMU’s relationship repair came in the middle of a reckoning that shook ivory towers worldwide, whether any changes would be made under less dramatic circumstances is difficult to see.
For Part 2 of this post series, come back on Thursday! We’ll discuss how GORP-core’s champion of sustainability and environmentalism — Patagonia, might be undoing their reputation by working with the same factories that produces clothes for Primark.
Article References
Suzanne Rogers
Jonas, S. (2021, May 4). Controversy erupts for Suzanne Rogers after philanthropist posts photo with Trump. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-philanthropist-suzanne-rogers-ryerson-university-slammed-1.6011239
Ryerson accused of ‘silencing’ fashion school following retracted statement on Suzanne Rogers photo with Trump | The Eyeopener. (2021, May 3). https://theeyeopener.com/2021/05/ryerson-accused-of-silencing-fashion-school-following-retracted-statement-on-suzanne-rogers-photo-with-trump/#
Ryerson and TMU name change
Semple, N. (2022). Egerton Ryerson. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/egerton-ryerson
Toronto university changes name amid controversy over Canadian educator’s legacy. (2022, April 27). CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ryerson-toronto-metropolitan-university-1.6431360
