The University of Windsor issued an olive branch on July 16 to its Jewish students—and to Canada’s Jewish community and its allies—pledging to take “tangible” steps to make all students feel included, safe and welcome on the campus.
The unexpected statement was released just days after Jewish groups reacted with outrage to the school’s July 10 agreement with pro-Palestinian protesters. The administration agreed to two separate deals–one with the students’ union, and the other with the so-called Liberation Zone of students—in exchange for the dismantling of a two-month-old tent city on the school grounds.
This new statement espouses commitments to address the concerns of the Jewish students and the wider Jewish community over last week’s deals. The university is now promising dialogue, mandatory antisemitism training for the executive team, a formal agreement with Jewish stakeholders, and the hiring of a Jewish liaison worker to specifically support Jewish students.
The new statement came on the eve of a meeting already scheduled for Wednesday between the leaders of Windsor’s Jewish community, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), and the university’s embattled president, Robert Gordon.
The Jewish leaders intended the tete-a-tete to explain in the strongest terms how the school’s acceptance of many of the demands of the pro-Palestinian encampment protesters “has crossed the line.” According to Jewish groups and the protesters themselves, Windsor’s is the most far-reaching deal to date offered by any Canadian university embroiled in stand-offs with students opposed to the war in Gaza.
“I think the only thing that wasn’t mentioned was using Sharia law as the law of the university,” quipped Stephen Cheifetz, a Windsor lawyer who heads the city’s Jewish Federation, in an interview with The CJN Daily before the statement was released.
‘Not a place for Jews anymore’
Cheifetz’s fiery comment is certainly an exaggeration, but it speaks to the level of frustration in the Jewish community of Windsor and across the country over how the school has handled the global spike in antisemitism and anti-Zionism on campus in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent Israeli military response in Gaza. Some estimates say tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, while Hamas still holds at least 120 hostages, although IDF officials said only 80 may still be alive. Eight Canadians were murdered.
The leader of the small cohort of an estimated 35 to 40 pro-Israel Jewish students on campus in Windsor, Sydney Greenspoon, says they have been the targets of bullying, harassment, threats of violence and discrimination by anti-Zionist professors and the student council. She says she brought these incidents to the attention of the president but never received any follow up.
“This [encampment agreement] is like the nail in the coffin for Windsor, the precedent setting that no Jews will ever want to come to the school,” said Greenspoon, a recent Windsor law school graduate, who headed the Windsor Law Jewish Students Association, the only Jewish club on campus. “It’s not a place for Jews anymore.”
It’s unclear what the actual size of the Jewish population at the university is, out of a total student body of 17,000.
Windsor’s Jewish community numbers about 1,500, down by half from its heyday decades ago. There is no Hillel or Chabad house on campus. According to Rabbi Sholom Galperin of Chabad of Windsor, there is no kosher caterer in the city. Despite this, the university did promise to begin providing more kosher dining options, as well as more options for halal food.
According to Greenspoon, who was leading a Birthright trip to Israel this week before beginning as an articling student at an Ontario law firm, the university’s student council stipulated that any kosher caterers hired must declare themselves to be non-Zionist, although The CJN was unable to confirm this with the university.
It’s no wonder very few Jewish students identify themselves publicly at the university, Greenspoon said. At her convocation ceremony in early June, many of her law school classmates wore keffiyehs or Palestinian flags over their gowns. The valedictorian’s speech criticized Israel for what was called the systematic wiping out of Palestinian cultural heritage, and told the crowd that the Israeli war on Gaza is “a genocide on Palestinians.”
She carried a small Israeli flag with her on stage.
“I wouldn’t be surprised soon if they said that Jews are boycotted from campus, because that’s just the path Windsor’s going down,” Greenspoon added. “And I hope that Rob Gordon, after speaking to me for maybe 50 times, will have some sort of understanding of why we’re so upset.”
Agreement with pro-Palestinian students
Windsor was part of a continent-wide movement by pro-Palestinian students and faculty to push their schools to, among other demands: divest from investments in companies connected to Israel, to boycott Israeli universities and scholars and to condemn the Israeli government’s war in Gaza in response to the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
The University of Windsor agreed on July 10 to not pursue any institutional academic ties with Israeli universities, even though to date, it currently has none, “because of the challenging environment for academic collaboration.” The school said such partnerships could not happen “until the right of Palestinian self-determination has been realized, as determined by the United Nations, unless supported by [the university’s] Senate.”
UWindsor maintains that individual professors are free to work with Israeli colleagues, however, and to collaborate with them.
The school did not agree to immediately divest from companies which may profit from Israel’s military action or occupation, including weapons makers. However, the university is open to divesting, after promising a review of its ethical investment guidelines. Pro-Palestinian students will be permitted to participate in the review.
“The final step of that process may be recommending divestment by changing investment managers/pooled funds,” the agreement states.
A host of social and mental health programs and funding are being offered immediately to students impacted by the war in Gaza, with a special focus on Palestinians. Windsor is topping up its scholarships and housing funding for students from Palestine, as well as adding $65,000 to the Global Conflict Bursary Fund with a priority to be given to Palestinians.
The university will also actively recruit Palestinian scholars, including those in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The agreement accuses Israel of conducting “scholasticide” in Gaza.
Windsor will also push to create more courses about Palestine, and hire a Palestinian to work as a support advisor to Palestinian students.
As part of the lengthy list of concessions, the university also agreed to issue a statement to the Canadian government within 72 hours of the deal, calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, for more humanitarian aid, for release of the hostages, and to include anti-Palestinian racism in Canada’s anti-racism policies.
Publicly declaring support for Jewish students
When asked why it issued a statement pledging to support Jewish students, the university said that this had always been part of its overall plan to fight all forms of identity-based violence and discrimination, including antisemitism and Islamophobia. The school also explained it would be moving to formalize a separate agreement with its Jewish stakeholders, after previously inking deals with its pro-Palestinian encampment and with the student council last week.
However, the timing of the agreement seemed to suggest the outreach to the Jewish community came about after hearing from “government officials”, as well as staff from Ontario’s Ministry of Colleges and Universities, and also from the Conservative MPP for Windsor-Tecumseh, Andrew Dowie, on ways to “advance dialogue with the Jewish community and ensure all students feel included, safe, and welcome at the University of Windsor.”
Dowie is the parliamentary assistant to Andrea Khanjin, the province’s environment minister. Khanjin, a Barrie-area politician, is Jewish.
“Mr. Dowie has pointed out that the province of Ontario has adopted the IHRA working definition of antisemitism and expressed some additional concerns, and we are working with him to address his concerns,” said Dylan Kristy, a strategic communications manager for the university, in an email.
Dowie told The CJN he met with the university on Friday July 12 to share his views about the agreement which was made with the Liberation Zone students.
“The latter agreement has given me cause for concern, particularly to amend broader University policy in response to civil disobedience, and the suggestion of an institutional stance on global issues through publication of multiple instances of a singular perspective without counterbalance,” Dowie said in an email July 17.
He pointed out that thousands of people come to Canada from across the world to “seek peace and refuge here” and felt it unfair that global crises such as the Israel-Palestine issue are being blamed on “our neighbours and friends [who] have nothing to do with initiating conflicts around the world.”
According to Dowie, “public actions that support or demonstrate hatred and division based on a person’s ancestry must be stopped and condemned in the strongest possible terms. Neither Islamophobia nor antisemitism have any place in our community.”
The university did not explain why it didn’t issue this new statement earlier. Nor did it explain why it suddenly recommitted to hiring a Jewish liaison support worker now, when its agreement with the pro-Palestinian students last week used wording on this issue that was far less certain. Here is the excerpt from July 11.
“The University will engage an individual of Palestinian descent as a Palestinian Student Support Advisor (PSSA). The University will also commit to, with the encouragement and support of the UWSA (student council), evaluating the need for and appointing additional student support advisors to ensure all students have adequate support, including a student support advisor for Jewish students.”
And here is the new commitment:
“The university is actively recruiting a Jewish Student Support Advisor.”
The president of Windsor’s Jewish federation, Stephen Cheifetz, said the promise is old, as the school president sent an offer of employment to a promising candidate for that position a while ago, but then didn’t follow up.
Legal action against the university?
For his part, Cheifetz has tried to understand why the university where he did his undergraduate degree and where he also completed his law degree in 1980 and subsequently taught law, would “open a Pandora’s box” by agreeing to many of the protesters’ demands.
He thinks it is partly because the population of students from the Middle East is an important financial source for the university’s revenues and vastly outnumbers the Jewish community in Windsor and on campus.
“It’s a small Jewish community, and I think they thought they could just shove it through with not much of a response,” Cheifetz said.
Now, the Jewish community’s concerns have garnered support from Windsor law school alumni, from prominent Jewish politicians including MP Anthony Housefather—the new antisemitism advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau–and from leading Jewish advocacy groups including CIJA, Hillel Ontario, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre, and B’nai Brith Canada.
While a spokesperson for CIJA, Nicole Amiel, said her organization is “considering all avenues toward addressing the harmful agreements,” Cheifetz suggested if they aren’t satisfied at their meeting with the university president Rob Gordon, legal action is also on the table.
“There’s a very senior level of lawyers who are meeting together in Toronto, coming up with strategies on how to deal with this,” he said. “Because there is going to be a huge push back. Nothing like he’s ever seen before. And I’m going to try and explain that to him on Wednesday.”
Pushback from donors
Cheifetz’s ties to the university go deeper than merely as a student and professor. He and his wife donated a scholarship to be awarded to law students, in memory of both their late fathers.
The community leader said he likely won’t be able to get a refund on the Saul Pazner & Nathan Cheifetz Scholarship, which the couple established in 2009. However, he will ask that their names be taken off the grant.
“Both my father, Allav haShalom and my father-in-law, Allav haShalom would be rolling in their graves if they knew that the money that I donated on their behalf is being used by a law school where there’s so much Jew hatred that emanates from there,” Cheifetz said.
The university couldn’t say whether the Cheifetzes’ request was possible, or whether it had other donors asking to cancel their contributions.
“We do not have definitive answers to these questions at this time,” said Dylan Kristy, the spokesperson. “We are currently looking into the policies and procedures regarding changes to scholarship titles and donor requests.”
Some major Jewish donors to American universities actively cancelled their planned philanthropy or switched it to another institution, due to the way these schools handled pro-Palestinian protests and encampments.
No academic consequences for protesting students
Windsor followed the practice of most Canadian universities who have had to contend with encampments this spring and summer, and agreed to waive any penalties for students who participated in the weeks-long takeover of campus property. A ruling by a Toronto-area judge granting the UofT’s request for an injunction to force that encampment to dismantle, said the idealistic young students should not be penalized.
Over 70 students at the Toronto Metropolitan University’s Lincoln Alexander law school signed a statement last October critical of their school’s wish to stay neutral in the aftermath of Oct. 7. That letter had portions which read “Israel is not a country” and “All resistance is justified”. Subsequently, some of those students found themselves threatened with being barred from articling positions at Canadian law firms.
Both Greenspoon and Cheifetz think students should face career consequences if they issued hateful statements glorifying the murders of 1,200 Israelis by Hamas terrorists, including the slaughter of hundreds of young attendees at the Nova music festival.
Greenspoon recently visited the site of the music festival in southern Israel which is now a memorial spot.
“I think that for especially private law firms, they have their values. And what was signed in that TMU letter completely goes against their values,” she said. “I think that students need to be more careful, especially in law, when we should know better.”
While the University of Windsor maintains on its website that it is not taking sides in the Middle East conflict, the law school recently hired an award-winning professor from TMU who publicly defended the Lincoln Alexander Law School students who signed that controversial letter critical of Israel.
Joshua Sealy-Harrington, who begins teaching in Windsor this fall as the new chair of equity law, has been described by the Globe and Mail as a fierce anti-Zionist. His social media account has #freepalestine as part of his biography, and he calls for Palestinian liberation against the #gazagenocide.
For Greenspoon, who spent three years pushing back against a harsh atmosphere for Jewish students, this new hire isn’t surprising.
“It’s a place where they actually bring in the professors who are the most antisemitic, and that’s who they are, attracting antisemitic professors, antisemitic students, and people who disregard Jewish life and Jewish death, especially the disregard of the Oct. 7 massacre. I think that is what really makes us upset.”
After the university’s new pro-Jewish statement came out, Cheifetz had a short comment before heading into the scheduled meeting with the president.
“I am hoping that Robert Gordon and the University of Windsor are truly interested in finding a solution to this current problem.”
