While student groups at Ryerson and York and U of T’s OPIRG were all prepared to send busloads of students to a rally on Friday against McMaster’s ban on the phrase “Israeli Apartheid,” few actually showed up.
Joey Coleman, a McMaster student and writer for Maclean’s magazine, said that the buses that drove students in from nearby universities were mostly empty. And many thought that was as it should be.
“I think this was a McMaster matter, I don’t think it was necessary to involve students from outside,” said David Levine, the president of Israel on Campus at McMaster.
McMaster Student Union’s president Ryan Moran spoke briefly at the rally, stating the union was in favour of calm, respectful debate but not actions that would incite anger.
The controversy began when the university’s copy centre refused to photocopy a poster with the words “Israeli Apartheid Week” on it. The poster was was changed and resubmitted, still with the offending phrase, and the copy center passed it on to the university’s Human Rights and Equity Services Office.
The HRO banned the phrase “Israeli Apartheid,” citing concerns that it would make students feel uncomfortable. Both the MSU and McMaster University decided to support that decision.
The ban did not prevent Israeli Apartheid events from taking place, nor did it mean that club funding would be taken away from the McMaster chapter of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights.
While the York Federation of Students may have sent buses to support free speech, on the Thursday before they had decided to shut down a student debate on abortion.
In a press release published by Students for Bioethical Awareness, student group president Margaret Fung stated, “I was told in a meeting by members of the York Federation of Students that debating abortion is comparable to debating whether a man should be allowed to beat his wife. They said that there is freedom of speech to a limit, and that abortion is not an issue to debate.”
According to the SBA’s press release, this meeting included YFS executive director Jeremy Salter, VP operations and secretary of the executive committee Fuad Abdi, and president of the York Debating Society Amir Mohareb. The document also notes Salter making statements echoing those recently published regarding the Canadian Federation of Student’s views on pro-life groups as comparing them to the Ku Klux Klan. YFS is currently a member of CFS, Local 68.
With files from Allison Martell and Joey Coleman
