National Post (National Edition)
For an unlikely champion of pipelines, Notley is sure trying. McParland
Last week, the editors of “Your Ward News” were arrested in Toronto for wilful promotion of hatred against Jews and women. Those of us involved in the ongoing fight against hate breathed a sigh of relief. For two years, these men had freely distributed anti-Semitic and misogynistic pamphlets to homes that never asked for them, including those of Holocaust survivors. It took too long to stop them, but their arrest is an important precedent in our society. It serves as a reminder that, in Canada, speech doesn’t enjoy absolute protection from the law when it crosses the line into promoting hate against identifiable groups.
Where to draw that line on university campuses is something administrators are struggling with today, but only after having allowed free speech to promote hate against one group — Jewish people — on campus for years. As a result, the efforts have been a mess of contradictions. The University of British Columbia tried to pass a policy on free speech recently that ended up denouncing those whose speech might create “a toxic environment” while maintaining that speech rights are no more important than “equality rights.” Meanwhile, at McGill University, a Jewish student was recently stripped of his position on student council simply because he privately supported pro-Israel causes.
“Freedom for me but not for thee” suits those who have the power to decide whose opinions are worth protecting — those who set the agenda, dictate culture and policy, and have an ability to pile on with sheer strength in numbers. You can find them in unions, on university faculties and student councils.
In earlier years, those same groups championed free speech on campus as a means to justify the targeting of Israel and, by extension, Jewish students. Appeal after appeal from Jewish groups registering concern about the antiSemitism being promoted by events like “Israeli Apartheid Week” and on-campus Israeli boycotts were excused by university officials offering the same standard operating procedure: it’s free speech, dummy.
The inability of universities to set red lines back then resulted in the mess they find themselves in today. A campus environment that winked at veiled anti-Semitism ended up opening the door to blatant hatred not only against Jewish students but other minorities.
For the very reason that universities refused to act against discrimination targeting Jewish students, everything now seems permissible — even Nazism. In the last few weeks alone, posters turned up at the University of Guelph with offensive material about Muslims, Jews and LGBT people, and at UBC a blackboard was found with a swastika and the message “Heil Hitler,” and just days later, on Remembrance Day, posters turned up on campus celebrating Nazis as the “true heroes” of the Second World War. Clearly Pandora’s box is open, as some people now see universities as a safe space to express racist and intolerable attitudes toward Jews and other minorities.
This road was paved by faculty and students who have discriminated against Jewish people on campuses for years. They share in the blame for their inaction against anti-Israel murals; resolutions to unfairly target Israel; invitations to radicalized speakers who incite hate against Jews; and false propaganda against Jews and Israelis. Administrators now say there is no place for hateful messages on their campuses. After allowing hateful messages against Israel and Jews to persist for so long, universities should at least own up for the part they have played in this mess.
EVERYTHING NOW SEEMS PERMISSIBLE — EVEN NAZISM. — AVI BENLOLO