The anti-semitic boycott of U of T
As campus life remains in limbo during this third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, a bizarre spectacle is unfolding at one of Canada’s largest and most prestigious universities: some professors, backed by a national umbrella group, are calling for an academic boycott of their own school.
In late April, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) voted to censure the University of Toronto, urging academics not to accept jobs or speaking engagements there. The ostensible justification for this radical step was the university’s decision not to hire international law scholar Valentina Azarova, who’s based in Germany and was the preferred candidate of the U of T’s hiring committee, as the director of the faculty of law’s International Human Rights Program.
Needless to say, a hiring decision by a university, even a questionable one, would not normally prompt a nationwide campaign to boycott the institution. The catch is that the CAUT is alleging that Azarova was cheated out of a position that basically had her name on it, after Tax
Court of Canada Judge David Spiro, whose family has given millions of dollars to the school over the years, allegedly contacted the law school to complain about Azarova’s criticism of Israel.
In doing so, they glossed over a number of salient facts, the most pertinent one being that respected former Supreme Court justice Thomas Cromwell has conducted an independent review of the hiring process and concluded that Spiro’s outreach was not a factor in Azarova not being hired.
In response, a University of Windsor law professor all but accused the dean of lying and Cromwell of eating it up — a shocking breach of decorum by a legal educator. A U of T law professor blamed the entire saga on “external influence” and “the nexus between money, power and influence” of a prominent Canadian Jewish group, which perhaps unintentionally tells us what this boycott is really about.
The petulant professors also seem to have forgotten that the job posting required applicants to be “licensed to practice” law, preferably in Ontario, which Azarova was not; and that there were numerous legal barriers preventing Azarova from legally working in Canada by the school’s targeted start date.
The CAUT and its supporters are also burying the lede by describing Azarova as an “Israel critic.” In fact, Azarova’s published work demonstrates a morbid obsession with the Jewish state, which the law school’s search committee appears to have knowingly misrepresented to the dean.
The search committee lauded her work on “supply chain and corporate accountability,” while failing to note that, as per her own 2016 CV, all of her work on that topic was aimed at Israel, which constitutes less than one per cent of the world’s economy. Nor did they flag Azarova’s prior work for al-haq, an organization affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is designated as a terrorist organization in Canada.
The Azarova Affair is not a story about a university unjustly persecuting a lonely pro-palestinian scholar, but rather the exact opposite. It is the story how, when a university unexpectedly defied the wishes of the anti-israel academic mob, they grabbed their pitchforks and decided to burn their own ivory tower down, consequences be damned.
Many of the professors leading the charge — not to mention Azarova herself — are veterans of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, which calls for the boycott of Israeli universities, businesses and even athletes and artists. One of them, U of T history Prof. Jens Hanssen, went a step further in 2018 when he boycotted a Jewish student, who he accused of being an Israeli agent. For professional boycotters such as these, blacklisting one’s own employer must come naturally.
It must be said that the CAUT itself does not have a great record when it comes to anti-semitism. Back in 2016, it took the side of Anthony Hall, a University of Lethbridge professor who was suspended after he produced Holocaust-denial videos in co-operation with German neo-nazis and taught students that Israel was responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks.
In fact, in a private letter obtained and publicized by an anti-semitic American website, the CAUT even threatened to censure the University of Lethbridge over Hall’s suspension — just as it has now done on Azarova’s behalf.
The irony of this whole situation is that Azarova really does know what it feels like to be arbitrarily denied an opportunity due to one’s academic work — albeit as a perpetrator, rather than a victim. In 2018, she attempted to prevent Prof. Eugene Kontorovich from speaking at an international legal conference for daring to present a view of international law on the Israeli-palestinian conflict that was different from her own.
As a group that represents Canadian Jews, B’nai Brith Canada understands the true meaning of the CAUT’S boycott of U of T. It means that any academic institution that’s perceived as taking any step, no matter how small, to staunch the ongoing marginalization, and even persecution, of Jews in academia will face a tidal wave of anger from the self-proclaimed guardians of the academe.
Although Hamas’ attacks against Israel have been mounting in recent days and is weighing heavily on our minds, we could not let the Azarova-u of T controversy pass without this important commentary. We urge the University of Toronto, and all right-thinking Canadians, to stand in defence of intellectual diversity, openness and mutual respect at our places of higher education, before it’s too late — for all of us.
THEY DECIDED TO BURN THEIR OWN IVORY TOWER DOWN.