Review backs TMU law students

Judge says pro-Palestinian open letter was 'flawed,' but didn't breach university's conduct code

- JANET HURLEY

Michael Forbes, Toronto Metropolitan University's assistant vice-president of university relations, said the school accepts the review's findings into an open letter signed by law students. No other action will be taken against the signatories, he said.

Law students at Toronto Metropolitan University who last fall signed a letter of “unequivocal support” for Palestine and “all forms of Palestinian resistance,” triggering a massive backlash including calls for their expulsion, did not breach the school’s code of conduct, according to the findings of an external review.

“While the letter was understandably troubling and offensive to many, the students’ participation in the letter, when placed in its appropriate context, was nonetheless a valid exercise of student expression and therefore protected under the university’s statement on freedom of speech,” retired Chief Justice of Nova Scotia J. Michael MacDonald concluded in his 200-page report released Friday.

The report noted that free speech must be highly protected and is fundamental in a university setting where students must be given a wide latitude to have critical discussions, to learn, to express dissenting views and make mistakes.

MacDonald was appointed by TMU to conduct an independent review of the open letter, which garnered 74 signatures and was delivered to the Lincoln Alexander School of Law administration two weeks after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, taking about 250 hostages and killing 1,200 people. Israel has since engaged in a large-scale military operation in Gaza, which has killed 36,000 and displaced nearly one million people, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.

The letter, a response to what was perceived as the LASL’s “neutral position” in an earlier communication, condemned institutions that had denounced Hamas’s “recent war crimes” but not “the historic and ongoing war crimes committed by Israel.”