What happened since Ruth Marshall’s post

On September 11, U of T placed Associate Professor Ruth Marshall on leave and announced it would close the Jackman Humanities Building (JHB) for two days. 

Multiple news outlets reported that the decision was related to Marshall’s X post which they described was about Charlie Kirk’s shooting. Marshall disputed this characterization, noting that she was responding to a user who called videos of children killed in Gaza “propaganda.”

Students and faculty spoke to The Varsity over concerns about U of T’s lack of communication on Marshall, adding to the ongoing campus discussions of free speech on Israel and Palestine.

What happened?

Communication with students

Students enrolled in Marshall’s courses have been kept in the dark, only receiving short explanations for their classes being abruptly cancelled.

On September 11, the Department of Political Science sent a one-sentence email to students in Marshall’s course JPR459 — Fanaticism: A Political History, announcing that the third upcoming lecture had been cancelled. 

A fourth-year political science student in JPR459, who requested to only appear under the name Dean, visited the department the following Monday. An undergraduate assistant told Dean that the department was looking for a new instructor for the course and called the situation “unprecedented” without explaining why the lecture was cancelled. 

On September 15, the last day to enroll in courses, Dean spoke with another student also enrolled in Marshall’s class. “[They were] trying to figure out whether or not to drop the course and find a replacement.” 

“The university went about [informing students] in a very convoluted way, and I didn’t know if I was going to have to switch classes,” said Rebecca Paikin in an interview with The Varsity. Paikin is a third-year political science student enrolled in another course that Marshall was teaching: JPR364 — Religion and Politics in the Nation State.

On September 18, the Department of Political Science sent an email to JPR459 students confirming that the course would continue with Joseph Dattilo as the instructor. The email stated that questions related to the course should be directed to Dattilo, who now teaches both JPR459 and JPR364. 

Dean described the university’s lack of communication with students in Marshall’s classes as both frustrating and confusing. Paikin echoed, “[The communication] should have been more open and honest.” 

Marshall’s faculty page on the Department of Political Science notes that she is “currently on leave.” Marshall is cross-appointed at the Department for the Study of Religion (DSR) and the Department of Political Science. U of T declined to comment on whether Marshall would be on leave for the remainder of the academic year. 

Communication with faculty

On September 11, DSR Chair Professor Pamela Klassen emailed the department, instructing staff, faculty, and graduate students to work from home while the JHB was closed. Members of the UTSG Department of Political Science also received a message from their chair, Professor Ryan Balot, explaining that the department office in Sidney Smith would be closed on September 12. Both messages repeated U of T’s media statement. 

DSR Associate Professor Nada Moumtaz told The Varsity that Klassen explained in a department meeting how U of T had closed the building because department staff had received threats. Klassen did not respond to The Varsity in time for publication.

In an email to The Varsity, TPS Media Relations Officer Shannon Eames confirmed that they received a report of online threats against DSR faculty. Eames declined to comment further, as the TPS’s investigation is ongoing. 

Moumtaz said, however, that U of T’s public statement “call[ing] the tweet ‘concerning’ ” makes it look like the university is addressing not Marshall’s safety but “the safety of others from her.”

When asked why the university had reopened JHB before TPS finished the investigation, a U of T spokesperson stated that “Students were not in immediate danger.”

What is protected speech?

Political science Professor Melissa S. Williams said that if the university placed Marshall on leave for disciplinary reasons, it would raise a lot of concerns among her colleagues — “especially because her post was falsely represented as a response to [Kirk’s] murder.”

Minister Quinn’s X post described Marshall’s remarks as “violent rhetoric,” while Toronto Sun columnist Warmington’s article on Marshall ran with the subheading, “[Marshall] has been placed on leave by university after creepy comments on the assassination murder of Charlie Kirk.” Warmington wrote, “Would you feel safe sending your child to the University of Toronto when one of its professors brags that ‘shooting’ someone is ‘too good’ for them?”

U of T’s Statement on Freedom of Speech affirms that students, faculty, and staff have “the right to examine, question, investigate, speculate, and comment on any issue without reference to prescribed doctrine.” U of T’s social media guidelines acknowledge that faculty are increasingly engaging online and recommend they remain “aware of personal legal risks associated with postings about an identifiable individual or group that could be considered defamatory, harassing, discriminatory or otherwise illegal.” 

Canada’s Criminal Code s.319 places limits on speech that incites hatred in public places against identifiable groups, such as those defined by race, ethnicity, religion, or gender identity. 

Leslie Green — University of Oxford and Queen’s University Faculty of Law Professor Emeritus — told The Varsity that Marshall’s X post falls within her rights to freedom of expression. “It is not an incitement to violence, and it is not hate speech,” he wrote. “Neo-fascists are not an ‘identifiable group’ in the meaning of the Criminal Code (s.318).”

However, UTSC Department of Political Science Associate Professor Renan Levine expressed concern in an interview with The Varsity that Marshall’s defence for her post was not only that her speech was figurative, but that she “was not calling conservatives fascist, [she] was calling Zionists fascists.” He added, “Even with the figurative speech, I’m not sure this makes it any better.” 

Levine described the post that Marshall responded to, which called graphic videos from Gaza propaganda, as a “pro-Israel comment that suggested that the [original post’s] analogy wasn’t fair.”

According to Levine, Marshall’s recent post aligns with her previous anti-Israel rhetoric online. Before her X account was made private following recent events, Marshall had reposted a post that referred to pro-Israel protesters on U of T campus as “fascists.” She called Canary Mission, a website that doxxes pro-Palestine supporters, a “fascist watchlist” in response to a post flagging a U of T student for participating in the pro-Palestine encampment at U of T. 

Paikin, still enrolled in JPR364, is the Vice-President of Social Events at the Hillel Student Board at U of T. She told The Varsity that she found Marshall’s X post “absurdly disturbing as someone who does not agree with her in several areas, and that doesn’t make me evil… I’m willing to listen to her.”

“The context… obviously is important, but [Marshall’s] statement alone is really scary,” Paikin said. “If you are going to share your opinion and you expect it to be received openly, honestly, and be respected… you need to do the same thing to the other side.”

Paikin said, being a Zionist “doesn’t mean we condone evil… doesn’t mean that we believe in torture, doesn’t mean that we believe in genocide. These are not the same things.”

Free speech at U of T on Israel and Palestine

Marshall has been a vocal advocate for faculty freedom of speech, particularly speech advocating for Palestine. In January, Marshall wrote to The Varsity that she sees a clear “double standard” from U of T in the ways it disciplines faculty for social media posts related to Israel and Palestine. Students and faculty have also raised similar concerns since her recent controversy.

In February, Marshall also told The Varsity that U of T’s draft “Guide to Law and Policy regarding Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Discrimination at the University of Toronto” was unclear on whether and when the university would judge the use of terms like ‘Zionism’ as antisemitic.

“This poses a direct challenge to the academic freedom of the many faculty who teach and write about Israel and Palestine, or those who make their views about [Israel’s] genocide known on social media,” Marshall wrote. 

A United Nations Commission of Inquiry in Geneva recently concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, incited by top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In an X post, Israel’s foreign ministry denounced the report as “distorted and false.” 

Informed by consultation on the draft guide, U of T recognizes that actions directed at community members because they are Jewish, Israeli, or identify as Zionist can be harassment and violate law or policy. U of T’s website on addressing antisemitism reads that such actions are still problematic when “the word ‘Jewish’ or ‘Israeli’ is replaced with the word ‘Zionist.’

U of T clarifies that, “This is distinct from criticisms of the government of Israel and its policies.”

Assistant Professor Beverly Bain in UTM’s Department of Historical Studies, co-founder of Scholar Strike Canada, said to The Varsity, “I feel like there is a form of retribution happening here by the university, that [it is] quick to apply punitive measures to those of us who have spoken up for Palestine.”

PhD student Sara Rasikh echoed Bain’s concerns. Rasikh, who was a spokesperson for UofT Occupy for Palestine when the student group set up an encampment in King’s College Circle in May 2024, told The Varsity, “The differential treatment of [Marshall] compared to faculty who have made Islamophobic or discriminatory remarks exposes [U of T’s] structural inconsistency.” 

Rasikh added that she believes this treatment “penalizes advocacy and reinforces broader hierarchies of power” in the university.

When U of T filed an injunction to remove the student encampment, one of its objections to the encampment was that it was associated with antisemitic language and slogans. Ontario Superior Court Justice Marcus Koehnen, who presided over the case, ruled that the school did not have sufficient proof to show that the encampment was antisemitic. 

Koehnen examined language from the protests, including “from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free,” “glory to the martyrs,” and the word “intifada.” He ruled that automatic conclusions that the phrases are antisemitic were not justified, and that students in the encampment were also subject to hateful and violent speech. Counter protesters referring to encampment members as Nazis was one of the examples Koehnen deemed “hateful, violent, and intimidating” to student protesters. 

In a June 2024 Governing Council meeting, Ramy Elitzur — accounting professor at the Rotman School of Management — criticized the encampment by saying that U of T is where Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) initiatives “became IED: improvised explosive device… the preferable weapons of terrorists.” Elitzur also compared Jewish protesters at the encampment to Jewish people who served in Nazi Germany’s military. 

When asked at the time about Elitzur’s comments, a university spokesperson told The Varsity that U of T has a “high threshold” for speech and expression, including “speech and imagery that are uncomfortable and offensive to some.” 

Elitzur did not respond to The Varsity in time for publication. 

In November 2024, some faculty members said that they were called into their respective deans’ offices over posts in support of Palestine. When asked about why the administration called in its faculty, a U of T spokesperson told The Varsity that, “We want to be as forthright as possible, but for reasons of confidentiality and people’s privacy, we are not sharing more details.”

Input from advocacy groups 

On September 26, Scholar Strike Canada published a statement expressing concern about Marshall’s suspension: “academics, students and staff on all Canadian university campuses must refuse to have our speech and academic freedom suppressed,” the statement reads.

“The swiftness by which Professor Marshall was sent home seems retaliatory on the part of University of Toronto as she has been a visible pro-Palestinian supporter on the university campus.”

The statement was co-signed by Occupy UofT, Toronto Students for Palestine, and the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) Caucus at U of T Graduate Students’ Union.

The U of T chapter for Faculty for Palestine also wrote to The Varsity that, “Faculty members and librarians are, firstly, individuals with Charter Rights, and secondly, educators with academic freedom… Support for Palestine is not an excuse for the administration’s abrogation of our rights and freedoms. These efforts at silencing us will fail.”

When asked to comment on faculty claiming that Marshall’s social media posts or her leave threatens academic freedom, a U of T Media Relations spokesperson directed The Varsity to the Statement on Freedom of Speech, quoting, “The purpose of the university also depends upon an environment of tolerance and mutual respect.” 

The spokesperson also directed faculty experiencing digital harassment, hate, or threats to university resources. 

Marshall told The Varsity that confidentiality provisions prevent her or her lawyer from commenting.