McMaster University president Peter George says demonstrators who waved provocative banners and shouted pro-Palestinian slogans at the end of a campus free-speech forum last Friday crossed the boundaries of academic freedom.
The demonstration started before the audience had left the hall, and teetered on the edge of a confrontation with some pro-Israeli students until McMaster security officers intervened.
The demonstrators, many from groups that had bused in from Toronto, chanted slogans that called for a Palestinian uprising. Their banners and placards featured such messages as “death to apartheid,” and “Zionism is racism.” One hand-painted banner showed an Israeli flag planted in the bloodied back of a dead Palestinian.
The president told the university’s board of governors that such messages are not acceptable at the university.
“It’s not educational. It’s not informative. It’s certainly not civil discourse,” he said. “I don’t think academic freedom is a justification for what the organizers wittingly or unwittingly allowed to happen.”
George said the university treasures academic freedom, but also has a duty to provide an environment where everyone feels safe and secure.
“Some believe, earnestly, I think, that there are no boundaries,” he said. “I happen to believe that academic freedom is founded in the exchange of informed opinion, and I emphasize informed.”
He said university provost Ilene Busch-Vishniac had acted correctly three weeks earlier when she had disallowed a banner headlined “Israeli apartheid” on the basis that it was unduly inflammatory. That action led to last Friday’s forum.
George said he has received several hundred e-mails from correspondents on all sides of the controversy.