In Quebec as in the rest of the country, unions representing thousands of professors are calling on universities to ensure respect for the freedom of expression of their employees and their students in order to avoid the “slippages” observed in the United States and elsewhere in the world, in the context of the war between Israel and Hamas.
“McGill, McGill, you can’t hide. We accuse you of genocide! » chanted in English on Wednesday afternoon a few hundred demonstrators gathered on the grounds of the Montreal university, brandishing signs and flags of Palestine.
McGill University has found itself at the heart of a controversy in recent days due to its decision to rebuke, in emails sent to students and employees, the student association Solidarity for the Human Rights of Palestinians ( SPHR) for his controversial publications made on the sidelines of the deadly Hamas attacks perpetrated in Israel on October 7. The association notably described these attacks as “heroic against the occupation”. The university, for its part, has been criticized for taking a strong stance in favor of Israel in its recent communications sent to the student community.
In response, around 30 McGill professors, staff and librarians signed a statement in support of SPHR posted online Tuesday in which they called on the university to respect the freedom of expression of members of its community.
“We cannot expect students to just watch in silence when a genocide takes place in Palestine,” he said on Wednesday. Duty professor of Islamic history at the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University Rula Jurdi Abisaab, one of the signatories of this declaration, while the demonstrators behind her repeated slogans according to which we must “liberate Palestine”.
Associate professor in the Department of Sociology at McGill Barry Eidlin, for his part, signed this declaration because he fears a “slippage” on campus if nothing is done to remedy the tension currently reigning there. In the United States, he recalls, students currently fear for “their safety, their jobs and their status as students” because they have taken a position in favor of Palestine. In the United Kingdom, too, academics have claimed to have received threats and been subject to disciplinary proceedings for expressing solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
“At this time, our priority is maintaining respectful discourse and preserving the well-being of our university community,” McGill University said Wednesday in a brief email to Duty.
A call to order
The American Association of University Professors on Wednesday called on American universities in a statement to ensure respect for freedom of expression on their campuses and not to sanction their employees who express themselves in this context. of the war between Israel and Hamas.
“Institutional authorities should refrain from sanctioning faculty members for expressing politically controversial views and should instead defend their right, consistent with the principles of academic freedom, to do so,” the association wrote.
A similar alarm bell is starting to ring in Canada as well. In recent days, the executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, David Robinson, challenged his various member union associations across the country in a statement on academic freedom “in times of conflict”, of which The duty got a copy.
“The exercise of freedom [universitaire] implies that establishments are autonomous and free from external pressure or political interference,” recalls Mr. Robinson, who notes that the ability of community members to adhere “to extremely controversial and unpopular points of view fulfills an essential mission of universities and colleges.
The Quebec Federation of University Professors (FQPPU) is preparing to have a similar resolution adopted by its members as part of its federal council on Wednesday, we learned. The duty.
“We can expect that as the conflict progresses, tensions will become greater and greater, and the risks of slippage will be increased,” says the president of the FQPPU, Madeleine Pastinelli, who fears that universities go so far as to “put pressure on professors to silence them”. “We are never safe from that, but even more so when a conflict like this rages,” warns Mme Pastinelli.
Called to react, the office of the Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry, for its part affirmed that “the climate of tension on our university campuses is very worrying”. “We will not tolerate any form of incitement to violence and hatred, we are counting on establishments to ensure this. »