What to know
- A University of Toronto working group has accused the institution of failing to protect its Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian communities after the university rejected its 177-page report, Over-Policed, Under-Protected, and all 57 recommendations.
- The report, released Nov. 12, followed 85 consultations with students, faculty, staff and administrators, alongside a university-wide survey. It alleges systemic discrimination, excessive policing, restrictions on free speech and inadequate protections for these communities, including a specific “Palestine exception.”
- The recommendations called for more neutral policing of protests, stronger academic freedom protections, fairer discrimination complaint processes and reviews of university partnerships. U of T rejected the report, citing concerns about its methodology, scope, collective agreements, and potentially offensive language toward Jewish and Israeli community members.
- Although U of T acknowledged anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian discrimination exists and announced commitments including expanded prayer spaces, additional training and a Muslim Community Advisory Council, working group chair Professor Anver Emon said the measures offered nothing meaningfully new. He and law professor Mohammad Fadel are calling for public pressure, acceptance of the report and an independent third-party review.
Some University of Toronto (U of T) members are accusing the institution of racism and failing to protect its Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities after the university rejected a report examining discrimination on its campuses.
The university’s Muslim, Arab and Palestinian Discrimination Working Group (MAP DWG) publicly released a 177-page report titled Over-Policed, Under-Protected, on Thursday, Nov. 12.
How the report’s data was collected
The document outlines what the group describes as a pattern of discrimination, restrictions on free speech, and inadequate protections for students, faculty, and staff.
However, despite spending nearly two years examining the issue, allegedly alongside the university, the working group’s 57 recommendations were rejected by the institution.
The move led to criticism from MAP DWG’s chair, Professor Anver Emon.
“You can imagine that their response rings, frankly, as bullsh*t… and actually a little bit racist if you think about it,” Emon told Now Toronto.
Emon confirmed that the report was developed following 85 consultations with students, faculty, staff, and administrators across U of T’s three campuses, as well as a university-wide survey.
The working group outlined three themes within its research, including a broad ignorance of Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities within the school, growing distrust of the university’s administration, and the alleged over-policing and under-protection of these communities.
“Whether we’re talking about freedom of speech, it’s overly restricted. Whether we’re talking about academic freedom, it’s underprotected,” he explained. “Consistently, anything on these topics, and in particular Palestine, tends to be subject to a tangle of procedural hurdles articulated in facially neutral grounds, but ultimately designed to limit speech and fundamentally run contrary to the institution’s statement of institutional purpose.”
The report goes into depth around concerns about freedom of expression, academic freedom, campus security, student protests, and the handling of discrimination complaints.
The ‘Palestine exception’
The MAP DWG especially points out a “Palestine exception,” alleging that academic research, advocacy, and events relating to the particular state have specifically faced scrutiny and restrictions.
The report says some university members have personally experienced these instances of discrimination on campus, with participating individuals also expressing concerns about speaking publicly or pursuing any research related to Palestine out of fear of harassment, disciplinary action, or professional repercussions.
What the report recommends the university do
The report recommends that the university review its safety and risk assessment practices, ensure protests and picketing are policed in a neutral manner, it strengthens procedural fairness in complaint processes and improves protections for academic freedom.
The report also calls for the university to review its relationships with third-party partners, including hospitals and school boards, in order to address concerns about discrimination and the handling of complaints within their own faculty.
Emon said the working group spent five months going through an administrative review process that included senior university staff, in order to ensure the report’s accuracy as well as look at the feasibility of its recommendations.
According to Emon, the original report previously had 109 recommendations, but the number was shortened to 57 following the review.
The University of Toronto’s total rejection
Emon said that during the review, the university never indicated it would reject the report outright.
In its response to the MAP DWG, U of T said it could not accept the report or the included recommendations, arguing that several aspects strayed from past equity reports.
The university also claimed that some recommendations conflicted with collective agreements and protections for academic freedom, while others involving hospital partners, school boards and government fall outside of its jurisdiction.
U of T also did not agree with specific, unattributed allegations, with some reflecting a single individual’s perspective, while others were thought to be more of a longer commentary about international events.
The university added that some aspects of the report could also be offensive to Jewish and Israeli members of its community, as the report discusses Israel’s military actions in Gaza and uses language describing Israel as a “colonial genocidal government” through multiple survey responses.
However, U of T acknowledged that anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian discrimination exists at the university, and committed to taking additional steps to address it in their response published the same day as the report.
Those commitments include expanding Muslim prayer spaces across all three campuses, introducing additional training on discrimination, creating a Muslim Community Advisory Council and providing further academic and financial support for students.
The university also pointed to its newly created Office of Human Rights, Equity & Inclusion.
Despite this, Emon said the commitments were already initiatives that were in the works before the report’s release, and that there was no new meaningful action in response to the group’s findings.
“They want to perform as if they are being a caring university, but they’re not,” Emon said.
He also questioned the university’s reasoning for rejecting the recommendations, especially when they told the group that the report should follow the “same approach” as previous equity reports.
Emon said there was no template they were advised to follow by the university when researching.
“There was no term of reference in which we were required to adhere to some templated form of a report… and no one said that we had to abide by whatever scope or scale,” he explained.
He added that lumping marginalized communities into one group was not the right approach.
“The idea that you could subject every minority group to the same templated analysis suggests to me that this rather white institution sees all these minority communities as if they’re all the same,” Emon said.
‘Nothing in it that was a surprise’
As for Mohammad Fadel, a U of T law professor and chair of the report’s Arab subcommittee, he also found the university’s verdict surprising, especially following the lengthy review process prior to its release.
“We spent five months with them, going over the report line by line, including over all the specific recommendations,” Fadel told Now Toronto. “There’s nothing in it that was a surprise to them. They gave comments, and we worked on it together.”
Fadel said that the process itself was to address potential university objections before the report was finalized, making the school’s quick rejection confusing for the group.
Now he believes the university’s next steps on the report will be determined through pressure from the wider community.
“I think the only way that there would be next steps at the administration level is for there to be substantial pressure from the public for the university to take the report seriously and implement its findings, implement its recommendations,” he said.
Fadel also suggested political pressure may be influencing the university’s response.
As for Emon, he said he wants the university to retract its response, accept the report and recommendations, and formally entrust the document to its Governing Council.
He added that he believes an independent, third-party review is necessary to ensure unbiased handling.
“Unless we get a third party external from the university doing an independent review, I’m not confident that we’ll see any change,” Emon said.
For students and faculty members who may be experiencing discrimination but are hesitant to speak out, Emon encouraged them to continue advocating for themselves.
“The university is not in the business of giving us anything. We have to demand and take,” he said.
