GUELPH, ONT. (Thursday November 13) – We are outraged that the Central Student Association (CSA) advanced motions directly targeting Jewish and pro-Israel students at the University of Guelph. This is part of a long-standing campaign to target and marginalize, SSI, and Jewish, Israeli, and pro-Israel students at Guelph, in an attempt to silence and erase their perspectives on campus. That campaign has taken the form of documented harassment, intimidation and threats of violence, and when those tactics fail, it shifts to procedural maneuvers disguised as good faith. These motions, aimed at condemning last week’s CSA-approved event hosted by Students Supporting Israel (SSI), are a continuation of this pattern of targeting, and represent a dangerous escalation of harassment, double standards, and institutional discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students on our campus.
By entertaining these motions, the CSA has chosen to single out and vilify Jewish and Israeli students for expressing their identity and connection to Israel, while legitimizing the very hostility that makes Jewish life on campus unsafe. Condemning an event that met every standard of policy and procedure, as specified by the CSA itself in a public statement on November 5th, is a direct assault on freedom of expression and academic freedom, and disregard for CSA standards and policies when pressured by hateful groups. It tells Jewish students that their narratives, history, and identity are unacceptable on campus, and that free speech is selectively applied, based on which groups advocate the loudest, even when that advocacy is rooted in silencing minority groups based on hatred and bigotry. In the day leading up to this week’s CSA’s Board of Directors meeting, hateful posters appeared across campus accusing SSI of “supporting genocide” and calling on students to disrupt their event. These posters violated university posting policies by inciting disruption of a registered campus event, and promoting false, hostile, and inflammatory rhetoric against an identifiable group. Rather than denouncing them, the CSA approved the posters retroactively, after they had already been distributed, thereby legitimizing harassment and intimidation of Jewish students, and the disruption of a CSA sanctioned event. This brings the reputation and credibility of the CSA into question.
At the protest against SSI’s event, demonstrators shouted: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab” (in Arabic), “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” and “long, live, the intifada” These are not calls for peace. They are calls for violence, for the destruction of Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, and for the erasure of Jewish identity. The CSA’s willingness to echo the demands of those who promote such rhetoric while claiming to champion inclusion and be the representative body of students is profoundly hypocritical and dangerous.
We call on the CSA to:
- Recognize these motions for what they are: part of a broader campaign to target, delegitimize, and silence Jewish, Israeli, and pro-Israel students. The motions should be withdrawn, and the CSA must affirm that all students and student groups that comply with CSA and university policy, including Jewish, Israeli, pro-Israel students, and SSI, have the right to organize, express themselves and participate fully in campus life without harassment and exclusion.
- Condemn the hateful posters, rhetoric, and false claims that have targeted SSI, as well as Jewish and Israeli students, and hold those responsible accountable under the appropriate policies.
- Uphold the principles of fairness and freedom of speech that apply to every other campus group without double standards or selective enforcement, to ensure all student voices and opinions are properly represented in meetings.
Jewish students are part of the University of Guelph community. We are proud, diverse, and unapologetic in our Jewish and Zionist identities. We will not be intimidated, silenced, or excluded from campus life.
