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

