Editing Anne Cools (section)

=== Racism ===
In February 1969, Cools participated in a 13 day long [[civil disobedience]] [[Sir George Williams affair|sit-in]] at [[Sir George Williams University]] (later [[Concordia University (Montreal)|Concordia University]]), where over 400 students occupied the computer center to protest the school's inadequate handling of complaints of [[racism]] against a professor. When the [[riot-police]] stormed the building, some floors were set on fire, computers were destroyed and computer cards and paper rained down from the 9th floor onto the street below, where there was a counter-demonstration chanting "let the niggers burn". While Cools was nowhere near the 9th floor, she was one of 97 students arrested, and unlike most of them, Cools refused to plead guilty to be set free, instead, she served two months in jail. About the affair, she has said "it took me a long time to recover... it shocked me to my core". In 1981, she was granted the pardon by the National Parole Board of Canada.<ref name=":0" />