John Ivison: Disturbing new details about why TMU redacted the report into its institutional campus antisemitism - National Post
Anti-Israel protesters hold a rally against Toronto Metropolitan University on April 30, 2024. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National PostArticle contentEarlier this month, I wrote that universities across the country are finally getting together to address the epidemic of antisemitism that has broken out on campuses across the country.
I referred to a review of antisemitic incidents at Toronto Metropolitan University undertaken by retired justice Mary Lou Benotto and delivered to TMU last August. At the time, I said pages from the report were redacted on privacy grounds (several students were charged after the protests under review).
But I was wrong. The pages that were redacted were taken out to remove Benotto’s conclusion, stated clearly, that the university’s own codes of conduct were breached — a finding that would have forced TMU to take action that it apparently did not want to take.
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The review concluded that the absence of clear enforcement, combined with ambiguity around free expression and protest, contributed to escalating tensions and the perception that disruption carried few consequences.
The review was a damning indictment of TMU’s policies, but the absence of a clear conclusion of code-of-conduct breaches (at least in the published version) allowed the university administration enough wiggle room to kick the issue down the road.
Upon receipt, TMU announced it was appointing former Ontario premier Bob Rae to chair an implementation task force to consider the Benotto review and report back next spring.
By the time Rae delivers his findings, TMU president Mohamed Lachemi, an Algerian-Canadian engineer who was appointed in 2016, will have retired. The clean-up will be someone else’s problem — the current provost and vice-president, Roberta Iannacito-Provenzano, is set to take over next year.
It’s almost satirical in a Yes, Minister fashion: if you want to discredit an unwelcome report, you say you are waiting for the results of a wider, more detailed review which is still in preparation (and if there isn’t one pending, you commission one).
Prominent labour lawyer Howard Levitt in his Financial Post column called it “an investigation into an investigation”: the appointment of a task force that includes a number of TMU faculty members and others who have expressed public opposition to one of the key Benotto recommendations — namely adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism.
A child could see through the university administration’s machinations. The report is exhaustive in listing the relevant university codes and guidelines, including the Student Code For Non-Academic Conduct, which recognizes freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, provided those occur lawfully, without harassment, discrimination, intimidation or violence. The review meticulously details examples of members of the Students for Justice in Palestine organization engaging in intimidation and violence, in breach of that code, but Benotto’s subsequent conclusions have been redacted.
