April 2009
Dear Dr. Shoukri,
York University President and Vice Cancellor
February 25, 2009
I am Shalom Lappin Professor of
Computational Linguistics at King’s College, London, and I am currently a
visiting professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of
Toronto, where I am on sabbatical for the semester.
I was recently invited to
give a talk on my research on computational modeling of grammar induction in
the Colloquium of the Cognitive Science Program of the Philosophy Department at
York, on March 25. I accepted the invitation with great pleasure. I received my
BA in Philosophy from York in May 1970, and I welcomed this opportunity to
return to my first academic home. It is therefore with considerable regret that
I must now withdraw from this engagement in light of the York administration’s
handling of the attack on Jewish students that took place on the afternoon
of February 11.
The reports of this attack that I have read
in both the Canadian and the foreign press (confirmed by eyewitness accounts
that I have received) converge on a disturbing sequence of events. A group of
approximately 100 students supporting the York Student Federation (YSF) broke up
a press conference organized by other students campaigning to impeach the YSF.
This group then pursued approximately 40 of the students from the press
conference, most of them Jewish, to the offices of the campus Hillel, where the
latter locked themselves in for fear of physical assault. The YSF supporters
banged on the door and the windows of the offices, shouting threatening comments
at the students trapped inside. The students in the Hillel headquarters appealed
to campus security for assistance but received none. They then called the
Toronto Police, who eventually arrived to escort them out of the offices,
through lines of hostile YSF supporters chanting angry slogans and hurling
insults at them.
To date I have seen no public statement by
any University official on this incident, beyond the expression of an intention
to investigate it. I called your office on Monday, February 23 to seek
clarification of the administration’s view of the attack. A member of your staff
called me back today and graciously listened to my concerns. However, she was
unable to do more than reiterate the University’s official position that the
matter is still under investigation. Given that the incident took place two
weeks ago, I find it odd that the administration has been unable to come to any
conclusions on what took place. It is particularly remarkable that it felt no
need to release at least a general statement specifying that violence and abuse
of any kind will not be tolerated on campus, and confirming that all students
have the right to express their views without fear of intimidation.
The fact that the University has not
taken up this assault with the students who launched it, nor acted to
reassure the students who they targeted indicates a severe failure on the part
of the administration to fulfill its responsibility to sustain a campus free of
physical violence and harassment. Several of the Jewish students at York claim
that the assault was not an aberration, but part of a general atmosphere of
extreme hostility that they have been forced to contend with over an extended
period of time. I am in no position to evaluate this assertion. But it seems to
me that the administration is obliged to address the grievances of students who
feel that they are being victimized, particularly in light of a significant
incident which lends some credence to their charge.
I do not regard the ethnic identities or the
political views of any of the participants in this event as of relevant concern.
All sides to a controversial question have an equal right to be heard in a civil
environment of tolerance and mutual respect. Nor do I see criticism of Israel as
the problem here. I have frequently spoken out publicly against the policies of
the Israeli government, most recently in a joint letter and comments critical of
Israel’s operation in Gaza, published in the
Observer in January.
If one group of students is permitted to
engage in violent harassment of another without the decisive intervention of the
University’s administration, then the conditions for a free and unfettered
exchange of ideas are completely undermined, and the primary purpose of
university life is betrayed.
When I was an undergraduate at York in the
late 1960s the University was home to lively political activity on a variety of
issues. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was one of these, and discussion was
intense, occasionally heated. However, at no time did this discussion degenerate
into systematic bullying, intimidation, or expressions of bigotry. Nor would the
administration of that period have allowed it to do so. It is a source of great
sadness to me that the current administration is either incapable or unwilling
to insure the existence of a basic culture of decency, civility, and free speech
on its campus. This culture is a necessary feature of any serious institution of
higher learning.
Sincerely,
Shalom Lappin, Professor of Computational Linguistics King’s College, London.
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