The University of Toronto governing council is being accused by a doctors’ advocacy group of abandoning Jews on campus.
Doctors Against Racism and Antisemitism (DARA), an organization of health care professionals, is alleging that the university’s governing council recently turned down a motion aimed at condemning antisemitism on campus.
The basis of the motion was a call on the university administration to implement strategies to effectively protect Jewish students, faculty and staff.
DARA says on Nov. 7 that the council’s chair, Anna Kennedy, and vice chair, Sandra Hanington, refused to allow a vote on whether to add the antisemitism motion to the meeting agenda. It alleges council leaders quashed the opportunity to even consider the antisemitism motion.
DARA says in a statement released on Nov. 21 that U of T “has a long and sordid history of failing to protect Jewish learners, faculty and staff. Antisemitism on campus has skyrocketed” since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
At the Nov. 7 meeting, council member Dr. Rob Cooper made a statement to the governing body, shared with the National Post, urging the university to show support and provide protection for Jewish people on campus.
The meeting, he noted, was set against an anti-Israel encampment at U of T that was disbanded in early July.
“Encampments and intimidation are not a reasonable exercise of free speech,” said Cooper. He went on to say that the university has “failed” Jewish students. “Imagine the trauma inflicted on Jewish, students, faculty and staff who were subjected to weeks of threats, intimidation, exclusion, and harassment. Shouts that Hitler should have got all you guys, go back to Poland and actual physical assaults.”
The governing council needed “to make a statement condemning antisemitism,” he urged council members. He restated a motion from the previous meeting: “The Governing Council of the University of Toronto condemns the acts of antisemitism at the encampment as well as ongoing antisemitism on its campuses. We advise the administration to implement strategies to effectively protect students, faculty and staff from this form of discrimination.”
The university’s ombudsperson Bruce Kidd reported during the meeting about personal safety concerns on campus, according to the U of T student newspaper, The Varsity. In particular, he noted: “The types of complaints we received were similar to those of past years, with one concerning addition…A spike in concerns about personal safety and discrimination following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the Israeli response, the resulting war, and the ensuing protests, including the encampment at King’s College Circle.”
However, the motion was not considered, according to DARA spokesperson Philip Berger, also a U of T Associate Professor Emeritus, but not a council member.
- statements on antisemitism by U of T leaders that stand alone as with other forms of discrimination;
- ensuring faculty responsible for large numbers of students not post messages which bring them into collision with any ethnic community;
- affirm that political slogans enunciated by some U of T faculty and students are antisemitic, e.g.,the declaration “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”;
- affirm that over 90% of Jewish Canadians support the existence of Israel as a Jewish state and any that do not should be disqualified as experts on antisemitism for any U of T purpose.
However, notes DARA, the Governing Council “has been silent. Worse, the Council is now deliberately excluding Jews from the safeguards extended to all other ethnic groups at the university.”
As a result, DARA is calling on the Ontario government to appoint a supervisor in place of the university’s governing council “until a properly functioning Council is constituted.”
The National Post has asked the university for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
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