"When a new law school in Toronto opened its doors in September, 2020, its brochure promised an unapologetically “progressive” legal education.
Ryerson Law, as it was then called, embraced diversity, equity and inclusion. Technology would be central... At its core, this new school – soon to be renamed the Lincoln Alexander School of Law at Toronto Metropolitan University – promised to change the status quo...
Amidst the immediate outpouring of international support for Israel, student activists at Lincoln Alexander worried that a history of Palestinian suffering was being overlooked.
Given the school’s founding principles, they urged their administration to speak out – and break with the conventional wisdom that universities should keep quiet on political matters...
By Sunday – 48 hours after its creation – screenshots of the petition had gone viral on social media, inciting waves of vitriol against Lincoln Alexander and its students. Signatories were doxxed and told they would never get jobs...
Donors dropped funding. Law firms that offered student placements withdrew from the program. And the school’s dean and TMU’s president were inundated with irate messages accusing TMU of enabling antisemitism.
Among the students, those who weren’t involved were furious that their degree and job prospects might be tainted. Some Jewish students felt ostracized. The signatories believed their administration had abandoned them to online harassment...
Activism in a law school presents a unique challenge for both students and administrators, who inhabit two worlds: the academic one, where free speech and academic inquiry are paramount, and the legal one, where there are professional consequences for speech that could tarnish a firm’s reputation with clients...
After Oct. 7, R and many of her classmates felt that their law school should publicly support Palestinians. The students were told the university doesn’t make political statements, but they pushed back: If Lincoln Alexander meant all the things it had said in its marketing, it had a duty to speak up.
Meanwhile, Jewish students and faculty were also pressuring the administration to release a statement condemning Hamas and expressing solidarity with the Jewish people. They relied on the same argument – that Lincoln Alexander’s commitment to equity meant it had to be vocal...
Jewish students reported that the conversation could be one-sided and made them uncomfortable. Complaints were also filed about Jewish professors for a variety of reasons...
Throughout this fraught period, students were glued to social media, taking note – and often screenshots – of what their classmates and professors were liking, posting and resharing...
As for the controversial “‘Israel’ is not a country” line – it’s not, said several signatories. And neither is Canada.
“We are all people who critique Canada for violent settler colonialism,” said C, who signed anonymously. She, like others, regularly participates in Indigenous-led blockades. “I am not picking on Israel for being a colonial state. I am a settler living in a colonial state. To treat Israel differently just because they’re Jewish is the definition of discrimination.”...
A first-year signee said they read the petition and knew it was inflammatory, but they wanted to show support for Palestinians. Classmates were urging each other to show their solidarity. They didn’t think about how it might impact the school or their Jewish peers.
The petition landed in the middle of the summer-position hiring process...
One senior partner in a management role, who is not being named because he was not authorized to comment publicly, said the feeling was that hiring Lincoln Alexander students would invite unnecessary risk, both in terms of upsetting current partners and potentially creating tension with clients: “No one is going to say this on the record, but of course every name on that letter is on a list now.”...
Signees told The Globe they felt betrayed. As they dealt with being doxxed, their own school had labelled them as antisemitic, emboldening the people who were sending them threats...
“The fact that they started off with Israel is not a real country – they’re totally invalidating the Jewish experience. And the fact that they were saying ‘all’ resistance is justified in the context of Oct. 7 – you’re saying it’s okay to murder innocent Israelis for their cause,” she said. “I know there are two sides to this and people are getting hurt on both sides. And I know not everyone is going to have the same views, but Hamas is a terrorist organization.”...
For people such as lawyer Adam Wagman, whose firm Howie, Sacks & Henry cancelled a $75,000 donation to TMU because of the petition, Prof. Sealy-Harrington’s views on antisemitism are frustrating.
He said that in the past several years, the wider culture has gained a better grasp of concepts such as anti-racism and micro-aggressions, and the idea that the impact of an action on a marginalized group – not the offender’s intentions – is the most important. So why do non-Jews get to tell him, a Jewish man, what constitutes antisemitism?
“Israel is existential for Jews – period. When there was no Israel, there was nowhere for Jews to go. And as a result, almost 40 per cent of Jews on the face of the Earth were killed,” Mr. Wagman said. “This happened during my parents’ lifetime … When you question the right of Israel to exist, you question my right to be safe.”...
“Any student who signed that letter committed professional suicide,” he said. “They will never be hired by the government. They will never be a judge or gain any prominence in law.”
As to whether there is a path forward for those who want to make amends, Prof. Rosenthal says it’s important to remember that the signees are not teenagers. They are training to be lawyers, a profession where judgment is crucial...
Lincoln Alexander tried to host its own sessions in an effort to start
rebuilding the community. The school launched a series of “listening
circles” facilitated by Raja Khouri and Jeffrey Wilkinson, the authors
of The Wall Between: What Jews and Palestinians Don’t Want to Know About Each Other. None of the signatories who spoke to The Globe attended."
Weird. I thought the point of signing a petition was to let everyone know where you stood on a cause.
Nowadays "doxxing" means having your name on a petition released, because if you sign an aggressive petition to try to bully and blackmail others and your name is released, you are being "harmed", and if people criticise you, this is "harassment".
Moral of the story - institutions engage in politicisation at their own risk.
When you slam the country you live in, but don't put your money where your mouth is and are complicit in the "violence" you decry.
I like how saying Israel should not exist and must be destroyed is "criticising" Israel.
