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Monday, January 15, 2024

Law School Founded On DEI Pillar Is Now 'Riven With Betrayal And Fear' Over October 7th And Israel-Hamas War

Toronto Star, Inside the Crisis at TMU's Law School: It Started With a Letter of Support for Palestinians. Now Students and Staff Feel Betrayed and Donors Are Pulling Out:

Continuing His LegacyIt was late October, a time when students at a promising new Toronto law school should have been focused on lectures and study groups. Instead, many were preoccupied and on edge.

The fighting in Israel and Gaza was thousands of kilometres away. But an attempt at student advocacy — a petition declaring “unequivocal solidarity with Palestine” — was threatening to unravel the mutual respect holding together the diverse campus at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Lincoln Alexander School of Law.

The school, founded in 2020 and branded as “a different kind of law school” focused on equity and inclusion, now seemed riven with betrayal and fear.

The mounting crisis was “like a snowball,” said James Noronha, president of the law students’ society. “It didn’t seem like you could catch your breath for long enough to actually deal with it.”

Students felt profoundly misunderstood. Professors were divided over whether the petition’s words were antisemitic. Prominent lawyers were outraged, condemning the petition as a dangerous justification of Hamas’s Oct. 7 deadly incursion into Israel.

The signatories are now facing online harassment and possible sanctions that could derail their legal careers before they even begin.

The law school, meanwhile, is grappling with what one major donor, who is considering cancelling a $1-million endowment, described as “an existential threat.” Four other Jewish donors told the Star they have suspended or cancelled their scholarships, which range from roughly $15,000 to $75,000, with some citing a climate they say is hostile to Jewish students. ...

At TMU’s law school, administrators are caught between some members of the Jewish community, who warn that contempt for Israel is slipping into something uglier, and those loudly protesting mass displacement and death in Gaza, who say spurious allegations of antisemitism are being used to silence their voices. For the young people that signed the petition, the experience is a harsh reminder that, in the age of social media, even a brief foray into student activism threatens to follow you for the rest of your life. ...

The Oct. 20 petition was written by the Abolitionist Organizing Collective, a student group whose Instagram profile features a picture of a Palestinian flag and lists its location as Tkaronto — the Mohawk word for the city, which is often used in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples in Canada against settler-colonialism.

Signed by more than 70 law students, the letter stated: “‘Israel’ is not a country, it is the brand of a settler colony … We stand in solidarity with Palestine and support all forms of Palestinian resistance and efforts toward liberation.”

The petitioners condemned institutions that had only denounced Hamas’s “recent war crimes” without also denouncing “the historic and ongoing war crimes committed by Israel,” and gave administrators a week to respond publicly. ...

The petition asserts that Hamas’s attack “was a direct result of Israel’s 75-year-long systemic campaign to eradicate Palestinians.” It blames “Israel’s apartheid regime” for all loss of life on both sides.

Sam, another Jewish student, felt as if the signatories were “basically telling me that the people I know who have lost their lives, it’s fine.” Sam thought about those who signed, and wondered, “What if that was me (who was killed) in Israel … Would you still feel that way?” ...

In November, TMU hired a retired judge to conduct an external review. Former Chief Justice of Nova Scotia J. Michael MacDonald will meet signatories this month to determine whether their words breached the student code of conduct, which sets expectations for how students interact and communicate.

The school’s decision to outsource the job stoked acrimony, both from those who had been pushing administrators to quickly confront what seemed to them to be clear policy violations, as well as those who believed students were now being subjected to a witch hunt.

“A new McCarthyism” is how the response to the student petition was characterized in an open letter, signed by hundreds of members of the legal community, including Sealy-Harrington, Gadea Hawkins and other TMU professors. ...

One law school instructor, who is Jewish, moved her classes online after reading the petition. In a complaint to the university, she alleged the petition violated school policies, and had caused her to “worry for my physical safety as a result of my faith.”

At least one Bay Street firm asked TMU students whether they signed the petition, and refused to grant interviews to those who did. Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General also required law students working for the province to sign an attestation confirming they weren’t among the signatories, according to a memo from the deputy minister. ...

The law school was renamed in 2021 for Lincoln Alexander, who was a lawyer and champion of racial equity. As Ontario’s lieutenant governor, he became the first Black Canadian to serve as a representative of the British monarchy in Canada.

A TMU spokesperson said “we respectfully disagree” with the claims of the signatories.

Administrators and staff have had nearly 200 meetings with students “to listen to their concerns and help them navigate the many available supports,” Karen Benner said in an email. “The university and law school categorically condemn any and all discrimination and harassment directed at our students and faculty, and have taken steps to address them.”

But the administration’s conversations with donors have been strained.

Criminal defence lawyer Brian Greenspan suspended a $50,000 scholarship. Greenspan said in a letter to the law school’s dean and the TMU president that the school’s namesake would be “appalled” by the petition.

The failure of administrators to categorically denounce the petitioners, Greenspan said, is “a derogation of the responsibility of those who support a civil society and a blemish on the legacy of Lincoln Alexander,” who believed in finding common ground. ...

Inside TMU’s Podium Building, where the Lincoln Alexander School of Law is housed, the institution’s “pillars” are spelled out in silver block letters, and embossed on floor-to-ceiling pillars. One reads: “Equity, Diversity & Inclusion.”

But there is no longer consensus on how to implement those principles. In the aftermath of Oct. 7, the school has become a microcosm of the intractable conflict that has seized progressive institutions over whose fears and feelings should get priority.

Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2024/01/law-school-founded-on-dei-pillar-riven-with-betrayal-and-fear-over-october-7th-and-israel-hamas-war.html

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