Over 43,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military since the start of Israel’s ongoing attacks in Gaza started on October 7, 2023, following Hamas’ attack on Israel. 

Since then, some faculty members have been called into their respective deans’ offices for posts in support of Palestine. The Varsity spoke to three U of T professors to find out why some faculty are being called in. 

Faculty’s reaction to call-ins

A U of T professor — who requested to speak anonymously due to fear of retaliation — told The Varsity that they had been called in by a vice-dean, for retweeting an Instagram post by student coalition Tkarón:to Students in Solidarity with Palestine. 

“Naturally, it was an Instagram post that I retweeted and I just added some words to that post to say that the cracks are starting to reveal themselves,” said the professor. “And by that, I meant that there were many connections that the institution at the University of Toronto has with Israeli institutions, and [there’s] also work that is conducted by U of T faculty and students on illegally occupied land.”

The retweeted post spotlighted U of T’s Archaeology Center’s projects in Israel. The center’s website used to have an “Archaeology of Israel” page that was later removed. The page talked about “[building] connections between archaeologists at the University of Toronto and those across Israel” and highlighted field schools and residence opportunities for students and faculty in Israel. 

“The University of Toronto is in a unique position to make a significant contribution to the archaeology of Israel—and enshrine a legacy for enduring activity and partnership. Several leading faculty members have a long record of research in both Israel and the Arab world,” said the center’s “Archaeology of Israel” page in 2017. 

Although the page was removed, U of T still has the Archaeology in Israel Trust to which people can make donations “to support activities in and related to archaeology in Israel.”

The anonymous professor claimed that the vice-dean told them that their post made an individual feel unsafe and that person had raised a complaint to Heather Boon, vice-provost faculty and academic life at UTSG. The administration never disclosed the person who made the complaint to the professor, but they later discovered that the individual was outside their department. 

The professor noted that the post wasn’t directed at a specific individual or group. “[It] was about an institutional affiliation between a program here at U of T and an Israeli institution,” they said. “There was nothing individualized, but that person made it about themselves.”

Even though the professor said the vice-dean was “sympathetic” toward him, they were initially “very angry” about how the administration contacted him. “The email from my vice-dean wasn’t, ‘Can we talk about this at some point in the future?’ It was, ‘Meet me today. I need to speak to you now,’” they explained. “It was very much like being called into the principal’s office if you’ve done something wrong… It was intimidating.”

And yet, they said the incident hadn’t changed their behaviour online. “My anger, my frustration, even my fear, is nothing compared to what Israel is doing to Palestine, to Palestinians, to Lebanon, to Lebanese, ” they said.

The Varsity reached out to the university to understand why the administration called in its faculty. A U of T spokesperson stated, “We want to be as forthright as possible, but for reasons of confidentiality and people’s privacy, we are not sharing more details.”

Palestine exception and threats to academic freedom 

The anonymous professor mentioned they weren’t the only faculty member contacted by the university administration because of their social media posts. “People continued to be called in for even retweets,” they said.

Beverly Bain — an assistant professor in the history department at UTM — added that overall, many of U of T’s faculty have been doxxed and threatened for speaking out in support of Palestine. 

In an interview with The Varsity, she mentioned faculty members receiving a letter from a dean right after October 7, 2023, “stating that we need to be really careful about how we speak, and be careful that we are not using inflammatory language, and that our language is not anti-semitic, and all sorts of accusations.” 

The anonymous professor expressed their concern about threats to academic freedom regarding Israel’s war on Gaza. “[This] is why people call it the Palestine exception, because only when we start addressing the history and the politics of Zionism and its connections to a country called Israel, is when we get called in,” they said. 

“I’ve seen people say I shouldn’t talk about this, I shouldn’t write about this. I shouldn’t send an email in support of Palestine, or I shouldn’t send an email addressing the genocide,” they added. “Using the word genocide is something that people refrain from in conversations within the department, especially formal conversations.”

Bain added that those “most impacted by the [university’s actions] are Black people, Brown people, and Indigenous people on campus.” Even though she has not been called into the deans’ office, Bain said she knows that “other faculty members who are particularly racialized and Black… have been called into their deans’ offices in different departments and have been told to be silent.” 

Ruth Marshall — an associate professor in the department for the study of religion at UTSG and a member of the University of Toronto Faculty Association (UTFA) — said she felt “outraged” that deans and vice-deans called her colleagues in for their social media posts. 

On October 4, Marshall posted about it on X, writing that, “Deans have ZERO business calling you in for the political content of your social media. If you must go, take your union rep/lawyer.”

Even though Marshall has not been called in, she said that, “If you’re called into a meeting with the Dean, you have a right to know in advance what the meeting is about, the nature of the complaint and the complainant, and if there [are] any disciplinary risks attendant on it.”

According to Marshall, this procedure is outlined in the Memorandum of Agreement between UTFA and the Administration. Article 7 of the document states that “[complaints] must be presented… after the grounds for the grievance were known or ought reasonably to have been known by the faculty member or librarian.”

Finally, Marshall said that the tone of a recent call-in email from a dean that a colleague shared with her is “accusatory and hostile, and appears designed to create the impression of an offence where none exists.”

The Varsity reached out to the university to inquire if U of T has a specific policy regarding complaints against faculty members. The university spokesperson said that the university has “processes in place to address complaints from members of our community about other members of our community, and the university sends an annual communication, which is unrelated to specific world events or behaviours, to remind faculty members, librarians and staff of their rights and responsibilities.”

The spokesperson added that “The university has a high threshold for speech and expression for its faculty members that enables the fullest range of debate and dissent on our campuses, within the limits of university policies and applicable laws.”