30 | AUGUST 22 • 2024 J
N
I
n May 2024, pro-Palestinian
students and other supporters
established a small encampment
on the grounds of the University
of Windsor. About two dozen
students and non-students erected
tents on university property. This
followed several rallies and protests
against Israel and the war in Gaza
with demands that the University
of Windsor should sever ties with
companies that provide arms to
Israel.
The University of Windsor
encampment was hardly surprising
— dozens of American universities
as well as their counterparts in
Canada have experienced similar
protests since October 2023. These
were typically much larger and, in
some cases, participants shouted
slogans or held signs that were
openly hostile to Israelis, Zionists
and Jews.
Campus Jewish organizations
mounted counter-protests and legal
challenges, claiming that universities
had an obligation to ensure their safe
access to campus buildings without
threats or harassment.
But Jewish students at the
University of Windsor, Ontario,
do not have the numbers to mount
significant counter-protests. The
Jewish student population at the
University of Windsor in Ontario is
estimated at about 30 to 35 among a
total student body of 17,500. There
is no on-campus Hillel, but there is a
Jewish Student Association.
According to Stephen Cheifetz,
president of the Windsor Jewish
Federation and Community Centre,
“Jewish students have had a small
but vibrant and long history at the
University of Windsor, and we want
to preserve that.”
Most Jewish students are enrolled
at the university’s law school. The
exact number of Jewish students isn’t
known partly because some Jewish
students “keep their heads down”
and avoid identifying themselves
as Jewish, according to Justin
Hebert, president
of the University of
Windsor Jewish Law
Students Association.
“They don’t want to
wear a Jewish star
on the outside of
their shirts out of
fear of hostility or
harassment,” he says.
After the Hamas attack in October,
Hebert said that some professors
endorsed the Hamas attack as an
“act of resistance before the blood
had even dried in the kibbutzim.
They justified the barbarity of these
attacks as being a valid form of
resistance.”
He adds that one professor alluded
that “Zionists were not welcome
in his class, which was met with
applause from students.” A panel
about freedom of speech on campus
became an anti-Zionist event.
“Micro-aggressions became major
acts,” he says.
Hebert says that some protesters
staged a “die-in” at the law school
to simulate dead Palestinians while
the dean and professors stood by
silently. He says that the University
of Windsor is a “progressive,
social justice-oriented university
and somehow the administration
has allowed the glorification and
justification of terror to become
embedded within that culture.”
As in the United States, some
Canadian university administrators
champion or defend free speech
rights and ignore or downplay the
impact of hate speech and threats to
Israeli and Jewish students.
According to Cheifetz, who is a
lawyer, most Canadian universities
that experienced pro-Palestinian
encampments obtained court
injunctions to remove them. While
Canada permits free speech and
peaceful public protest, he explains
that there are limitations concerning
private property.
However, University of Windsor
administrators took a different
path to remove the encampment
— signing separate agreements
on July 10 with the University of
Windsor Student Alliance and the
Windsor Liberation Zone Team.
The two groups agreed to remove
the encampments in exchange for
a long list of demands including
review of university investments,
expanded scholarship and research
opportunities for Palestinian
students and professors, and
increased mental health services for
students affected by the war in Gaza.
The agreement with the
Liberation Zone Team calls for the
university’s “first-ever anti-racism
policy” to “focus on identity-based
oppression, including anti-Arab
racism, anti-Palestinian racism and
Islamophobia.”
The agreements were signed
by the university president, vice
president for finance and operations,
and representatives of the two
student organizations. Dr. Robert
Gordon, university president and
vice chancellor, whose contract was
renewed in March 2024, is on a
30-day medical leave.
According to Dan Brotman,
Capitulation at the
University of Windsor
University of Windsor signs agreements with pro-Palestinian
students to remove encampment.
SHARI S. COHEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
OUR COMMUNITY
Justin Hebert
Dan Brotman
University
of Windsor