Thread by @Heidi__Matthews

On October 17, @JillDunlop1, Ontario's Minister of Colleges and Universities in @fordnation's government, launched a targeted attack against me, other professors, and students who have engaged in public speech supportive of Palestinians and critical of Israel's war on Gaza. 🧵

In a speech in the provincial legislature, Dunlop made the absurd and unsubstantiated claim that I "attempted to justify and diminish the murder of Israeli children by Hamas". She called me an anti-Semite. She said that students were justified in feeling unsafe in my classroom.

She implied, if not directly demanded, that my university engage in formal disciplinary measures against me. You can find the speech here:

This kind of political interference is (almost) unprecedented.hansardindex.ontla.on.ca/hansardeissue/…

The last time an intellectual was named on the floor in Ontario was in the late 1940s, when Jewish physicist and Einstein collaborator Leopold Infeld was falsely accused of passing nuclear secrets to Russia, resulting in harassment of him and his family.

Dunlop's actions deploy this same cynical McCarthyite tactic to suppress political and academic speech critical of Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine and disproportionate, criminal war in Gaza (and, increasingly, the West Bank).

Instead of increasing student safety, Dunlop's actions have inflamed anti-Palestinian racism, deepened divisions in political discourse & effectively put a target on the back of students & faculty alike. Targeting individuals for protected speech is abhorrent & must be resisted.

The Executive of my union, the Osgoode Hall Faculty Association, has published a statement calling on the @OsgoodeNews & @YorkUniversity administrations to defend academic freedom, university autonomy and freedom of expression of staff and students by publicly denouncing Dunlop's

... statements and demanding an immediate retraction and public apology.

@CAUT_ACPPU has also called for an immediate apology from Dunlop: osgoodefaculty.ca/issues/
caut.ca/latest/2023/10…

.@CAUT_ACPPU Statement on Academic Freedom in Times of Conflict notes that universities must "resist external pressures to censor members of the academic community, including any attempt by governments... to target academic staff & students for exercising their expressive rights"

It further states "that college and university administrators have 'a positive obligation to protect academic freedom' and should take decisive action to defend academic staff from such harassment." caut.ca/latest/2023/11…

.@CAUT_ACPPU has also issued a memo on academic freedom in times of conflict to the presidents & administrative officers of local, federated & prov associations file:///Users/hcm/Downloads/CAUT%20Memo%20re%20Academic%20Freedom%20in%20Times%20of%20Conflict%20(2023%2010%2020)-1.pdf

Dunlop's personal targeting of myself, other professors and students is an egregious authoritarian tactic. Join me in resisting this kind of political suppression of pro-Palestinian speech at every opportunity. Justice and freedom depend on the protection of robust debate.

See also @OCUFA's Statement on campus safety and academic freedom during international conflicts:

and @utfaculty's Statement in Defence of Academic Freedom: ocufa.on.ca/blog-posts/cam…
utfa.org/content/utfa-s…

The link to the CAUT memo above doesn't work. See here: mcgill.ca/maut/files/mau…