University of Toronto
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B’nai Brith Canada on Tuesday called on the University of Toronto to take immediate steps to implement a recent ruling against a mandatory “BDS Caucus” for graduate students.

In a landmark ruling on February 4, the Complaint and Resolution Council for Student Societies (CRCSS) found that the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (UTGSU) had engaged in discrimination against Israelis based on nationality, in violation of its own Anti-Discrimination Policy.

The CRCSS issued five recommendations to the UTGSU, including making the BDS Caucus student fee refundable and revising its bylaws to prevent boycotts based on nationality.

U of T’s CRCSS instructed the UTGSU to provide a summary of its implementation plans by March 1, and to implement the recommendations within one year, noted B’nai Brith Canada in a statement.

Instead, at a meeting on February 16, the UTGSU General Council adopted a resolution condemning the CRCSS ruling and pledging not to implement it. UTGSU University Governance Commissioner Lwanga Musisi even threatened to “crush… the CRCSS or anybody like them”, the organization said.

“U of T must immediately withhold the UTGSU’s student fees in order to enforce its own policies and stop ongoing discrimination on campus,” said Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer of B’nai Brith Canada.

“It is clear that the UTGSU leadership has created and continues to create a hostile atmosphere for Jewish graduate students. Any further delay in this respect would be unconscionable. Jewish and Israeli students have been waiting for justice for years,” he added.

The UTGSU is the only student union in Canada that forces all members – even Jewish and Israeli students – to fund a BDS Caucus that uses student fees to attack the Jewish State.

The University of Toronto has been in the headlines several times in recent years in relation to anti-Israel conduct.

In March of 2019, the Graduate Students’ Union approved a motion to make its Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Committee permanent.

Last year, B’nai Brith Canada condemned CUPE 3902, a labor union at U of T, following a series of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic tweets issued by its official Twitter account.

Several months earlier, CUPE 3902 attempted to host Issam al-Yamani, a Palestinian Arab terrorist facing deportation from Canada, as a speaker at a campus event. The event was nixed by U of T following complaints from B’nai Brith and other groups, but was relocated to CUPE 3902’s own offices instead.