On July 18, the Hill Times ran an opinion piece written by Naved Bakali, a professor of anti-racism studies at the University of Windsor who has previously denied Israel’s right to exist, co-authored by Jillian Rogin, his colleague at Windsor’s school of law. In their piece entitled: “Political interference in University of Windsor’s autonomy will have a steep cost,” Bakali and Rogin recounted the University of Windsor’s handling of their campus’ anti-Israel encampments, claiming that “Unlike other institutions, where confrontations often involved campus police, riot squads, or even lawsuits…Windsor achieved a peaceful resolution through genuine dialogue and good-faith negotiations.”
They went on to argue that objections to the agreement by Member of Parliament (MP) Anthony Housefather, the recently appointed special adviser on Jewish community relations and antisemitism for the federal government, are not only an “abuse of power”, but “threaten the sanctity of academic freedom.” Both these claims are absurd, through and through.
First, the suggestion that Housefather’s objection to the agreement is an “abuse of power” given to him under his new position as special adviser is ridiculous. His entire mandate is to confront and object to instances of antisemitism and anti-Jewish sentiment. It’s unclear how Bakali and Rogin felt his objection to being outside of that remit, rather it seems they just don’t like the agreement being characterised as “anti-Jewish” (their words).
University of Windsor’s Agreement With Anti-Israel Hate Mobs Is Anti-Jewish
But the agreement is, arguably,anti-Jewish, whether they like it or not. The phrasing of the agreement frames Israel as an illegal, settler colonial state, effectively erasing Jewish history and indigeneity to the land. The rewriting of Jewish history, and the capitulation to the anti-Jewish BDS movement (which seeks to boycott, divest and sanction any organization or individual from, or indeed supportive of, the Jewish state) is seen by most within the Jewish community as deeply troubling and antisemitic at its core. If the majority of Jewish Canadians – or, more importantly, Jewish students at Windsor – feel the agreement to be ‘anti-Jewish,’ Housefather should have an obligation to oppose it.
Bakali and Rogin, instead, attempted to lecture the Jewish community as to what is or is not antisemitism. They even went so far as to parrot the long-standing trope that Jews are ‘weaponizing’ antisemitism in order to silence their critics. Imagine someone suggesting that any other group was ‘weaponizing’ racism against them in order to sneakily manipulate the system. The reality is that if they were discussing anyone other than Jews, Bakali and Rogin would be universally condemned for attempting to define another group’s understanding and definition of racism against themselves.
70% of Canadians Oppose Anti-Israel Campus Encampments
Indeed, quite aside from whether Jews object to the encampments, the majority of Canadians do as well, with fully 70 percent saying that the correct way to deal with them is for the police to dismantle and remove them. How, then, can one suggest that Housefather is ‘abusing his power’ in objecting to Windsor’s handling of their encampment, when the vast majority of Canadians seem to as well? As an elected official, this is the opposite of an abuse of power, and is in fact a simple representation of his constituent’s wishes and core beliefs.
Turning to the allegation that his interference threatens academic freedom, one ought to be concerned that Bakali and Rogin, ostensibly academics themselves, don’t seem to understand what the term ‘academic freedom’ means. It does not provide carte blanche for anyone affiliated with an academic institution to engage in whatever blanket forms of racism or hatred they want, free of consequence from all quarters of public life.
Instead, academic freedom is the idea that one cannot be fired or sanctioned by the university or have one’s career impacted (having nothing to do with community or governmental organizations) because of one’s choice of research direction. There are, of course, understandable limits to this, and almost every academic institution in the world has clauses that allow dismissal of professors who engage in outwardly hateful, racist or abusive language or actions. The fact that Bakali and Rogin think that the university as an institution is somehow covered under their nebulous idea of academic freedom, and that this should mean that the government cannot (and should not) make sure that the university is providing a safe and inclusive environment for all students is baffling.
True inclusivity does not mean taking rights and safety from one group in order for another to feel represented. If the anti-Israel faction at Windsor requires Jewish students to be marginalized, dehumanized, silenced and erased, then the work is not finished, and any agreement penned needs to be scrapped. Individuals like Bakali and Rogin who throw around accusations of ‘weaponized antisemitism’ in an effort to silence Jewish voices is a move further away from true inclusivity, not closer.
