A grave moral failure of which administrators have yet to answer for.
In a country where multiculturalism has a reverent following and criticism of protected minorities has essentially been criminalized as “hate speech,” it is more than ironic that on some Canadian campuses radical students have taken it upon themselves to target one group, Jewish students, with a hatred that is nominally forbidden for any others.
On March 4th, for example, yet another troubling event was scheduled to be held at the University of Toronto, this time a panel discussion tellingly entitled, “Liberated Students in a Colonised [sic] Campus: Reflections on the Palestinian Experience at the University of Toronto,” sadly co-sponsored by the University’s Institute of Islamic Studies, Department of History, and Centre for the Study of the United States.
As B’nai Brith Canada noted in a condemnatory statement, the marketing materials for the event included a drawing of some individuals, one of which was Ghassan Kanafani, a murderous figure that, as B’nai Brith pointed out, is “a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist entity in Canada. Kanafani forged connections between the PFLP and other far-left terrorist groups, including the Japanese Red Army . . . .”
“The University of Toronto has an antisemitism problem,” said Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer of B’nai Brith Canada. “It is morally grotesque that the University is advertising an event using the sympathetic portrayal of a terrorist whose group has been responsible for so many murders, airplane hijackings and suicide bombings targeting innocent civilians.”
This is not the first time in recent history that B’nai Brith has felt compelled to critique the anti-Israel, often anti-Semitic goings-on at the University of Toronto, and the organization’s frustration is exacerbated by the fact that its prior pleadings for administrative actions to correct the toxic atmosphere at U of Toronto have largely gone unanswered.
In June of 2020, for example, B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights, together with two U of Toronto professors, Stuart Kamenetsky and Howard Tenenbaum, produced a lengthy and substantive report, “Confronting Antisemitism at the University of Toronto: A Path Forward,” written for the University’s president, Meric Gertler. That report, which fastidiously reviewed a long list of anti-Israel events and their effect on Jewish students, went largely ignored by the university’s administration, troubling in light of the many bigoted events cataloged in the report.
At this particular university, as one example, the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (UTGSU) is the only student union in Canada with a committee dedicated to promoting the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and in 2019 outrageously rejected Hillel’s request to recognize the “Kosher Forward” campaign to have kosher food offered on campus since, as the Union decided in their grotesquely anti-Semitic way, Hillel is pro-Israel and therefore kosher food should not be allowed. In doing so, the B’nai Brith report noted, “the UTGSU openly discriminated against Jewish student rights, despite its mandate to represent all university students, and faced no consequences for doing so.”
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I’m surprised and more than a little shocked that the U of T has a festering anti-semitism in its midst! As a former student, it’s hard to believe that the University that I knew and loved was now dealing with anti-semitism in its quarters! I have no ideas as to how this could have happened, but I’m certainly shocked to realize that nothing is being done to prevent this unacceptable behaviour!
I hope to hear something much more palatable the next I connect with the U of T!
I beg to disagree about the lack of a cause of action. The B’Nai Brith report refers to open discrimination against Jewish students and their request to serve Kosher food on the campus of the University of Toronto.
Section 1 of the Ontario Human Rights Code reads: Every person has a right to equal treatment with respect to services, goods and facilities, without discrimination because of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status or disability.
Since the University also accepts Federal funds for research, attention should be paid to Section 15 (1) of the Charter; to wit, Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
It may be that action would have to begin before the Ontario Human Rights Commission before going to court. It should, nevertheless, be done.
There was no suggestion that this was solely a legal issue. Any one reading the articles on this site, as well as other sites, is, I agree, acutely aware of the necessity of not seeing this as solely a legal matter.
The point was that presenting well argued, factually unanswerable reports has no effect whatsoever. Going the legal route does make people sit up and take notice because of the possibility of the grant of damages. And that course of action should have occurred.
There’s no point in going to court because there’s no cause of action. More importantly this is not a legal problem and anyone who reads these pages understands the issue is well beyond U of T.
There is nothing ironic about the activity of these student radicals; it is open bigotry. What is more disturbing is the action of B’nai Brith Canada. Presenting well researched factual reports to university administrators means nothing. What that group should be doing is taking the administrators and the student union officials to court. This is nothing less than a struggle for power and the perpetrators should be treated accordingly. Too much talk and not enough action.