In February, the University of Toronto’s (U of T) student-run judicial council delivered a significant blow to UT’s Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. U of T has a long history of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel conduct and is associated with the birth of Israel Apartheid Week, which is a week-long series of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel events and speakers on University campuses throughout the world. U of T’s Complaint and Resolution Council for Student Societies (CRCSS) ruled that the Toronto Graduate Student’s Union (UTGSU) BDS Committee violated the graduate student union’s Anti-Discrimination Policy by discriminating based upon nationality. The CRCSS panel informed the UTGSU that they must cease their use of compulsory membership fees in advancing the mission of the anti-Israel BDS campaign. The UTGSU is the only Canadian student union that imposes mandatory fees on all its members. Members were previously obligated to support the BDS Caucus in furthering their mission of harming the Jewish State, even if this violates their deeply held beliefs. The CRCSS Panel issued five recommendations that the BDS Caucus is obligated to comply with. These include allowing members to obtain a refund of the BDS Caucus student fee, adapting their Anti-Discrimination Policy to line up with the Ontario Human Rights Code, and altering their policies and regulations in order to prohibit boycotts or discrimination based on nationality. The UTGSU must indicate how they plan on applying these recommendations to their existing policy by March 1st and be fully administered within one year, or they risk denial of access to their mandatory student fees. The ruling follows a complaint filed by UT graduate student Chaim Katz, backed by B’nai Brith Canada. This ruling is a major victory for U of T Jewish students and an important first step in eradicating an environment of anti-Semitism and ensuring that Jewish students feel safe and accepted within their institution.
Tuesday, November 15, 2016 ushered in two significant failures of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. The first blow came from an overwhelming defeat of a divestment resolution at the University of Michigan, which we blogged about earlier this week. This was the fifth failed divestment resolution in the past eleven years at Michigan. The second defeat emerged from the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) at the University of Toronto. The GSU’s General Counsel voted against converting the “BDS Ad Hoc Committee” into a permanent organization committee, with another wide margin of 34 against, 17 in favor, and 11 abstentions. The “BDS Ad Hoc Committee” was initially created in 2013, specifically to carry out the goals of a divestment resolution, which called on the U of Toronto to “divest from companies benefiting from violations of international law and human rights abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” This 2012 resolution passed; however, the process by which it passed was deemed to be “unfair and procedurally irregular” by several Jewish students. The procedural irregularities included the fact that graduate students were given no advance notice of the motion and were therefore unable to be adequately represented at the annual meeting. This week’s successful effort to deny permanent status to this “BDS Ad Hoc Committee” was spearheaded by several students who worked to educate their peers on the problematic existence of the ad hoc committee and what the committee actually stood for. By defeating this motion, graduate students at the University of Toronto are making strides in changing the attitude of their peers, who are no longer willing to support motions and committees which advocate for discrimination against Jewish and Israeli individuals.