TORONTO (Feb. 5, 2021) – The University of Toronto Graduate Students Union (UTGSU) has been ordered to end its support for the antisemitic boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement.
On Thursday, in a historical decision, the Complaint and Resolution Council for Student Societies (CRCSS) found that the UTGSU’s BDS Caucus had engaged in discrimination based on nationality, in violation of the school’s anti-discrimination policy.
The Council agreed that clauses within the BDS Caucus Policy were inconsistent with “open, accessible and democratic principles” and with the university’s “commitment to freedom of speech and expression.”
It also found that student members should be “provided the opportunity to opt-out” of fees and made a series of recommendations to be implemented within one year, including:
- The BDS Caucus must revise its bylaws so they do not engage in discrimination based on nationality;
- Fees collected from student members must be refundable; and
- The UTGSU must alter its anti-discrimination policy to align with the Ontario Human Rights Code.
The successful complaint against the UTGSU was brought by U of T graduate student Chaim Katz, a Hasbara Fellowships Canada alumnus.
“The findings of the CRCSS affirm what human rights experts and Jewish organizations have been saying for years: that BDS directly leads to the targeting and harassment of Jewish students on campus,” said Daniel Koren, Executive Director of Hasbara Fellowships Canada. “This is an important precedent in ending support for the toxic and antisemitic BDS movement on university campuses.”
Over the past few years, BDS has led to anti-Jewish hatred at U of T on several occasions, such as the infamous kosher food scandal, when a pro-BDS group invited a former PFLP terrorist to speak on campus, and when a Hasbara Fellow was slammed as a Zionist “agent” by a pro-BDS U of T professor.
More recently, in response to a Hasbara Canada event at U of T Scarborough, the school’s student union (SCSU) passed a motion calling on student leaders to boycott organizations that support Israel. Gabriela Rosenblum, a Hasbara Fellow at U of T, said then that the motion was “an assault on her Jewish identity.”
“Refraining from engaging with Israeli organizations and participating in Israeli-themed events will lead to further discrimination of Jewish students and shuts down dialogue. We want to build an accepting environment on campus while this encourages the opposite,” Rosenblum said.
