The Decibel - Tensions over Israel-Hamas war and free speech on campus

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

On Tuesday, a walkout and rally at York University’s campus in Toronto saw 200 faculty and staff protesting the administration’s decision to suspend three employees, including one professor. The employees were charged for their alleged involvement in defacing an Indigo bookstore. It’s the latest incident involving a Canadian university where the Israel-Hamas war has created conflict on campus.The Globe’s post-secondary education reporter Joe Friesen is on the show to explain why university campuses are a flashpoint of spillover tensions from the Israel-Hamas war and why it’s testing how free speech is handled at universities.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

University campuses across Canada have become a flashpoint for tensions surrounding the Israel-Hamas war. On Tuesday, about 200 students and staff staged a walkout and rally at Toronto's York University in response to the school's suspension of three employees who were charged for their alleged involvement in defacing an Indigo bookstore. And earlier this month, clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel groups at Concordia University led to at least two security guards and one student being injured. The Globe's post-secondary education reporter, Joe Friesen, has been following what's going on. Today, he'll help us understand why the Israel-Hamas war is creating tensions on campus and how it's testing the way free speech is handled at universities. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. mail. Joe, thank you so much for speaking with me today. Pleasure to be here. Thank you. So you

were recently at this protest at York University. Can you explain what was going on there? Why were people protesting? So the protest was about these three York faculty members who had been suspended after they were charged in connection with an act of vandalism at the Indigo stores in downtown Toronto. The store had been postered and some paint splattered. And last week, Toronto police made 11 arrests in connection with that case. One of the people arrested is a former chair of sociology at York University, Leslie Wood. And the protest was calling for her and for the other people arrested to be reinstated. So there were lots of chance of reinstate them now and a feeling that York had overstepped in suspending them from their positions at the university.

And why was the Indigo bookstore defaced? Like, can you explain a little bit of that so we can kind of understand the context here? Israeli soldiers, which has made her a target for some of these protests. Now, she's also a Jewish business owner. And I think that caused a lot of concern in some parts of the community that Jewish businesses were being targeted as a result of these protests related to the war between Israel and Hamas taking place in Gaza. So that was the reason, I think, for the targeting of her business. And then some of the things that were put on the posters were very specific to that. Yeah. And this is why the police call this situation hate motivated. They think this is the reason behind it, essentially. That's right. Yeah. The police did call the charges hate motivated, although the charges is mischief. And I think that they're also charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable offense.

Okay, so this is the reason why people were protesting at York this week, Joe. But this is not the first incident since October 7th at York University. Can we back up a little bit and talk about what else happened there? I'm specifically thinking about the statements from the student unions. Yeah, so the student unions got in a lot of hot water with the university administration and with people all around the province and the country for a statement they put out after the October 7th Hamas attacks. What they're accused of doing is downplaying the Israeli casualties and describing the attacks as an act of resistance. The statement referred to so-called Israel, which I think caused a lot of people,

particularly in the York administration, to view the statements really negatively. And so what the university did was it condemned the statements, it called on the union to retract them, and it called for the executives of the student union who signed the statement to resign. And none of those things have happened yet. The union has not backed down.

But it's certainly set up a scenario where there's a lot of friction between the university and its student leadership right now. Why is it that York is seeing so many incidents of conflict on campus? I guess what's unique about the situation here? Yeah, it's interesting that York is such a center for this conflict, but it has been for a long time. Historically, this particular conflict in the Middle East has played out on the York campus maybe more than other universities. In part, I think it's because there are significant communities with close connections to the war. So both Jewish student groups and Palestinian students and Arab students

who maybe have a closer connection than some. And I think over time, those historical events are remembered as significant political moments in the university's history. And so they maybe take on greater resonance. So you alluded to something that this is, you know, this is not the first time we're seeing these kind of incidents. Can you explain what you mean by that, Joe? The incidents at York go back at least 15 years. You know, at various other points in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, when things have been hot, you've seen events play out on the York campus that sort of echo what's going on politically elsewhere. So it was about three or four years ago, maybe more than that now,

when students invited a former IDF soldier to York for a speech on campus. And that event was disrupted. There were protests and it escalated into scuffles. Police had to get involved. And that was certainly a bit of a black eye for the campus. IDF, of course, being Israel Defense Force soldier. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So a former Israeli soldier was invited to campus, and then that met with a lot of opposition. And in other years, there have been events where students have been in sort of face-to-face confrontations. There have been protests connected to a mural on campus

that depicts what many people believe to be a Palestinian teenager with what appears to be a rock held behind his back, sort of facing toward what people assume to be an Israeli bulldozer. And some donors have been upset about the presence of that mural. Students have complained about it. Other students have defended it. And that mural still remains in the student center to this day and still is somewhat of a source of consternation for some people. So there have been lots of events at York over the years where this conflict has bubbled up. And so that's York University, which is kind of just north of Toronto. And Concordia in Montreal

is also another campus that we're really seeing kind of these rising tensions happening there. Why is that? Why Concordia as well? Well, I think like York, Concordia, which is in Montreal, has a similar collection of diaspora populations that are connected to this conflict. So significant Jewish population, significant Palestinian and Arab population. And also like York, there have been a lot of moments historically where this conflict has really bubbled up on its campus. So the most famous probably on an incident on a Canadian campus was in 2002 when Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to speak at Concordia. He was invited and he was not Prime Minister of Israel at the time. He was

not in power, although he's since returned to power. But the protests were really intense and there were clashes on the streets of Montreal, broken glass. The speech never went ahead, despite Netanyahu's determination to give the talk. So it was one of the first moments of a big campus cancellation, which has become an issue in recent years. And it ended up being the subject of an NFB documentary. So the conflict has long roots at that university, too. Yeah. So we've been focused here on New York and Concordia. But of course, these aren't the only campuses where there's tensions around the Israel-Hamas war right now. What have we seen at other universities, Joe? Well, similarly, there have been protests

elsewhere, walkouts. There have been lots of statements issued by student groups that have drawn the ire of one side or the other. At Toronto Metropolitan University, for example, the law students put out a statement that had many people very upset. At the University of Toronto Mississauga, another student group has come under fire. And the leadership of that group had their names read into the record at the Ontario legislature by the Minister of Colleges and Universities. It was condemning what they had said and calling on them to retract their statement. UBC, where someone had put up stickers declaring basically support for Hamas, which I think frightened a lot of people in the community.

Although it later turned out that the stickers had been put up by someone who had been a contractor with Hillel, the Jewish campus group. And it's hard to tell exactly what happened there, but it's something certainly unusual. So all across the country, this issue is bubbling up on campuses. There's no question that it's one of those conflicts that just seems to draw the attention of the world. Is this something that we're seeing in other countries as well, Joe? Like in the States, are there similar things happening? Well, in the States, definitely there have been lots of protests on campus

and in some cases that has actually resulted in confrontations. And the part that I think is getting a lot of attention is the way that statements being issued by some of these student groups are drawing a lot of attention from people in business and other parts of government, maybe in a way that wasn't the case in earlier kinds of conflicts. You know, now with social media, I think any student group can get a wide reach very quickly through Twitter or through Instagram. And when they make statements that people in public life or in business disagree with, those people come after them. And we've seen that in the United States where some business leaders have said that anyone signing on to statements that condemn Israel

or in any way try to shift blame for what's occurred to Israel following the Hamas attacks. You know, people are saying we will not hire these students. Then they want to create sort of lists of the students' names to ensure that that doesn't happen. I mean, so from what you're saying, it sounds like the stakes of protesting today are, you know, kind of different than they would have been a generation or two ago, right? Like these are things that are getting a lot of attention. They're written down. They're in, you know, the record of the Ontario would have been a generation or two ago, right? Like, these are things that are getting a lot of attention. They're written down. They're in, you know, the record of the Ontario legislature, as you mentioned as well. So, I mean, I guess,

do you see the consequences of speaking up for students on campuses as something different than it was, you know, 20, 30 years ago? Yeah, I think that's a really big change. And the way that social media allows people to make statements quickly, they can get really wide dissemination. You know, with a few retweets, all of a sudden you could, you know, having millions of people see what you have said in their feeds. And if what you've said is intemperate or it's a little off the mark, you'd be facing consequences that, in a way, you know, once upon a time, if you gave a speech through a megaphone on campus, well, a few people heard it. But half an hour later, could anyone remember exactly what you had said?

Maybe not. Whereas now it's right there in black and white and forever. We'll be back after this message. Okay, so Joe, we've talked a lot about what specifically has happened, but let's talk about kind of the bigger picture here about university campuses and what we're seeing here. So, like, I guess why is it campuses where we see these kind of protests? Why campuses, universities, colleges? Why is it this forum?

I think campuses are a place where young people are kind of finding their way in the world and they're taking their first steps as political actors so they're they're young they're bright they're engaged and they want to go you know start to have an impact in the world that's what happens at universities i think and and so you know political protest is one of the ways that that um takes shape there's a million groups that they can join their student governments there governments. There's various activist networks that they can get connected to. So people's lives start to change at this stage when they're 18 to 25 years old. And the university is kind of a testing ground where they're trying out new ideas. They're debating things. They're still young people, so they often will take really strong positions that really, really, you know, push the boundaries, maybe they wouldn't do if they were a little bit older.

But I think this has been the way for decades on North American campuses, that this is sort of the place where young people find their political feet. And I know you've spoken to university students recently, especially in the light of the recent tensions. What have they told you about the situation on campuses right now? Interestingly, it's a mix. So some people will say that they're feeling tense and afraid because they don't want these tensions that they're seeing

leading to violence in other parts of the world spilling into violence at home. And other people will say, you know what, this is Canada. I don't feel in any way threatened by violence, but I really want to be sure to get my point across politically. So at some of these protests, there have been counter protests, and I've interviewed both sides, and particularly talking to the counter protesters who are often putting themselves in harm's way. They're bringing themselves face to face with people who are very angry with the position that they represent. You know, they have said it's important from their perspective to be there, to fly the flag, in this case of Israel, and to stand up and oppose what they see coming from the

other side, often a pro-Palestinian side. So it can be tense, it can be difficult, but that's how the system should work, that this is what political debate is like, even in tense times. So I think for the most part, we've seen things on campuses stay within the bounds of decorum. I mean, I guess a lot of this comes down to free speech, it sounds like, really. So maybe we can dissect this a little bit, Joe. Like when it comes to free speech, can you explain the role of the university here? Well, the university has a really important role in nurturing free expression. It's the place in society where people should be allowed to test their ideas, to challenge one another,

and that's how new thinking is shaped. Certainly that's been the role of the university for decades, is to convene that kind of debate. So I think in many ways it's a good sign that these debates are still occurring on campuses and there is still a clash of ideas. If not, you know, we don't want to see anything more than that, but that these ideas be debated and tested is a good thing. But I guess, how does a university go about deciding which forms of

speech are acceptable? Because there's also a lot of talk about universities being a safe space for students and for ideas. So how do they decide what's acceptable and what's prohibited? That's a tough one. So in Ontario, for example, a lot of the universities, in fact, all universities were required to adopt a statement on free expression in line with the principles outlined by the University of Chicago in a statement they put out about 10 years ago. Free expression under the University of Chicago principles should be allowed its sort of greatest possible width or breadth or depth within the limits of safety. So you don't want anybody to encourage violence. You don't want anyone promoting hatred against a particular group. But those are sort of the limits of the law already. Universities, I think, have a responsibility to

ensure that their student populations feel safe as well as are physically safe. And that's where things get a bit tricky because that's when a student group, for example, makes a statement that makes Jewish students uncomfortable. Universities, in some cases in Canada, have stepped in to say, you're going too far here as they have at York or at McGill where recently the students passed a referendum against what they called the genocide in Palestine and in both of those cases the university has said that those statements go too far and are run counter to the constitution that governs the student unions. And so that's created an issue for student unions where the university is now potentially going to come after their funding. Wow. Yeah, because so it sounds like so there are this kind of set of guiding rules,

these principles from the University of Chicago that a lot of institutions in Canada have adopted. But it does seem a little subjective still or open to interpretation, depending on the situation. Yeah, it's definitely open to interpretation. And I think it was very difficult for these administrations to handle in a way that satisfies everyone. But I think on the whole, the guiding principles of the university are sort of widely accepted and do provide a map for these administrations. The statements that the universities were encouraged to adopt, I think, the Chicago Statements and this movement to protect speech on campus, came at a time when many of the threats to free speech on campus were preventing speakers from the political right from finding a platform. And today you might say it's speakers from the political left, or maybe that's not the right term to use, but it's essentially the people who are supporting the Palestinian cause who seem to be running into more of the issues related to the kinds of speech that they're making on campus.

I guess just to end here, Joe, this seems like it's a, you know, this is a really big issue right now on campuses. And when we're seeing this current conflict, the Israel-Hamas war kind of play out in these spaces, I guess, how do you see it maybe shaping the conversation around free speech on campus and what we can say and do and what we can't? Well, I think it's really important that at a time like this, when emotions are really high and when tensions are running at the level that they are, that people hold the principles of free expression tightly and ensure that speech is not shut down. I think that's hard to do in tough times, easy to do when conflict is at a minimum. As we move forward, I think universities will,

just through their own internal mechanisms, have checks and balances that come into play. And I think there are many people who are committed to ensuring that expression remains as free as possible on university campuses. But we'll have to see. Certainly, there are many particular instances where there are challenges going on right now that will have to play out. You know, the student challenges at York, at McGill. I'll be very interested to see how those are resolved. Joe, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Thank you. That's it for today.

I'm Mainika Raman-Wells. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer. And Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you next week.