Campus Anti-Semitism

"Should you choose not to defer ... and the complaints are proven to be valid, the University of Windsor will have to consider its options."
"The University cannot allow student organizations to compromise the university's commitment to provide a welcoming earning and living environment to each and every student on our campus. I trust that you will be amenable to my request."
University of Windsor President Alan Wildeman

"The University will not tolerate any practices, by any member or group of its community, that target specific individuals or entities on the basis of ethnicity, nationality, religion, or any other personal characteristic. The University of Windsor in the strongest possible terms does not support actions that compromise academic freedom or the safety and security of any of our students." "The University of Windsor will be uncompromising in its commitment to continue to be a place that is welcoming and safe for all students."

Finally, a university president with a sense of responsible judgement. Universities are places of higher education, where minds eager to learn collect and expect to be exposed to useful and meaningful learning experiences. Learning to hate is not necessarily one of them, although of late that has become a reality in all too many universities across North America, inclusive of Canada's. Academia is open to all manner of discussion groups, and fully discussing situations at home and abroad should never be closed, but they should be reasonable.

Debate should have a purpose, that purpose to explore all the intricacies and details of situations, to be informed, and then discuss the issues. Not to mount a campaign meant to isolate certain students and to identify certain countries as representing human rights abusers, and to find them guilty without cause, simply because to do so has become a popular group-think identification in support of a perceived underdog. Particularly when there are grotesque distortions of reality involved.

So, good on University of Windsor President Alan Wildeman. Perhaps his example may serve to inspire other university presidents to come to their senses and realize and respect their obligations to all whom they should be serving equally and without prejudice. A referendum of a University of Windsor Students' Alliance over the weekend endorsed the joining of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, the world's perennial target, in a popularized hate-fest.

The issue, wrote Mr. Wildeman in a letter to the alliance has raised "serious questions about the operations of the UWSA", given the fact that he has received "many well-documented and detailed complaints about the processes used by the UWSA throughout the referendum". The university's administration is undertaking an investigation, and Mr. Wildeman cautions the referendum not be recognized as final until that investigation has been completed.

While the autonomy of student organizations is respected by the administration, the university expects and insists that the UWSA's actions be in accordance with "appropriate processes". Presumably, intimidation, manipulation of circumstances impacting on resulting votes must be among them. The campus Palestinian Solidarity Group conceived the referendum for the UWSA to commit to "identifying and divesting from companies that support or profit from Israeli war crimes, occupation and oppression."

Of those who voted in favour of the boycott, there was a total of 798, with 585 against, casting their nay votes, out of a total student body of 14,000 undergraduates at University of Windsor. Windsor-area Member of Parliament, Jeff Watson expressed his opinion in the House of Commons that the BDS movement is "misguided and hateful", condemning a February 27 vandalism incident at the UWSA offices as anti-Semitic.

Vandals spray painted a racist message inside a University of Windsor Student Alliance office. (Courtesy Jake DeJong)

The more things change the more they reflect the past.