A former medical school dean at the University of Toronto has returned his honorary degree in protest at its handling of the anti-Israel protest encampment.
“It’s symbolic. To me it’s a mark of great distinction. I was very proud to get the honorary degree. The fact I’m willing to give it back to signify my discomfort with the university indicates how much my discomfort is,” said Arnold Aberman, a professor emeritus and former dean of the University of Toronto’s faculty of medicine, in an interview Monday.
He said he was “profoundly disappointed” that there was no clear statement from the administration that “what’s going on is unacceptable.”
In particular, he pointed to the enforced exclusion of “Zionists” from the encampment on the school’s central lawn, a term Aberman said seemed to simply mean “Jews.”
“You saw the signs, anti-Zionist signs, denying entry,” he said. “There’s no right to stop people.”
When the school obtained a legal injunction against the protest after several weeks, and the encampment broke up in advance of a court ordered deadline, Aberman said it was “too late.”
“It’s never too late to do the right thing,” he said. “I think they should have done it earlier.”
Aberman received his honorary Doctor of Laws in the summer of 2015, in recognition of outstanding service to the university.
Born in Montreal, he trained there and in California before becoming an intensivist and later physician-in-chief at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital. He served as dean of the University of Toronto’s faculty of medicine, and in the administration promoting relations with health-care institutions. He was also a key creator of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University in Sudbury.
His Order of Canada citation says he “contributed to the advancement of medicine for more than 30 years.”
I no longer wish to have the distinction of holding a University of Toronto honorary degree
Aberman’s letter this week to U of T President Meric Gertler criticized the “failure of the school to protect its Jewish and non-Jewish students.”
“The participation of many faculty members in the encampment in defiance of university policy coupled with the lack of consequences has been, in my view, shameful,” he wrote. “I am profoundly disappointed in my university.”
“I no longer wish to have the distinction of holding a University of Toronto honorary degree,” Aberman wrote.
He said Gertler replied to set up a meeting to discuss the matter, which has not yet taken place.
“I do not take this action lightly since I know that since the first honorary degree was granted by the University of Toronto in 1850, an honorary degree granted by it has never been returned,” Aberman’s letter reads.
He said his understanding that he is the only person ever to return an honorary degree is based on his review of the school’s documentation of past degrees.
The school did not immediately have a comment on his returning the degree.
Aberman said he was moved by a recently published online list of students and faculty identified at the encampment protest by an activist group.
“I consider them antisemites,” he said.