Wasn't this after Fiona hijacked the meeting at White Spire and got half the First Enchanters killed?
And, you know, wrecked any chance of real reform that Justinia wanted to implement?
Wasn't this after the templars decided to place blanket restrictions on EVERY circle in Thedas and turn them into literal prisons because one of the knight commanders was a insane bigot who either tried to commit or actually commited genocide on a group of innocent mages for something they didn't do and the mages were rightly angry about this.
Considering how even after the templars decided to kill the mages the vote at the end of Asunder was still split 50/50 pretty much proves that had Fiona's original vote gone through, it likely would have failed as the only reason the other fraternities supported independence was because they had enough of the templars screwing them over.
Not to mention Lambert pretty much gloats how he finally has an excuse to kill mages, pretty much proving he was just a bigot looking for an excuse like Meredith.