As we return to school this fall, we must remember that there are no Palestinian students, scholars, or academics in Gaza returning to their classrooms, for their universities now cease to exist. Every single university in Gaza has been destroyed by bombs dropped by the Israeli government and paid for using the tuition dollars of students here at the University of Toronto.* Even now, amidst escalating attacks by settlers and the Israeli military in the West Bank, our University chooses to remain willing collaborators in the actions of a settler-colonial apartheid state. 

Instead of ending its complicity in the ongoing genocide in Palestine, the University of Toronto has chosen to unilaterally adopt a slew of new sweeping and repressive regulations regarding on-campus protests in a clear attempt to stifle Palestine solidarity protests and calls for the University to disclose its investments, divest its endowment, and cut ties with Israeli academic institutions. We, the signatories, are outraged, appalled, and disgusted by U of T’s decision to adopt these regulations and call on the University to rescind this policy immediately and commit to divestment from weapons manufacturers and companies complicit in Israeli apartheid.

The effects of this policy go further than just the Palestinian Solidarity movement by effectively preventing any meaningful form of on-campus organizing and protest, further criminalizing students, and violating our fundamental right to free speech and protected expression. Specifically, new restrictions include:

• Preventing "the use of amplifiers, megaphones, microphones," which have been used regularly at on-campus protests for decades.
• "Blocking doorways to buildings or roadways into campus," a common occurrence during any demonstration, rally, or union picket.
• Disrupting "meetings of University governance," which have historically been a site of protest and a way to access decision-makers within our University.
• "Affixing signs, posters, or flyers (including the use of chalk, marker, paint, and projections)," designating them a form of vandalism.

Simply put, our administration permits protests as long as they remain unheard, unseen, and unfelt by the halls of power at our University. But we know that change doesn't happen through polite interaction. It happens through mass mobilization that challenges authority and demonstrates our collective power.

We see this move as part of a larger plan to make the temporary powers granted to the University and Toronto Police by their injunction into a permanent new status quo, allowing Campus Safety to call on TPS whenever they want, and granting them sweeping powers to criminalize any expression on campus they don't like. We're watching closely to see how the university administration and police choose to enforce these regulations and against whom. It is clear that these regulations are in response to the massive power the Pro-Palestinian movement has gained on campus and will be used to target and silence students who oppose UofT's complicity in genocide and occupation of Palestine.

These kinds of regulations are not limited to U of T. Several university administrations, including but not limited to Waterloo, Western, are passing regulations like these in a clear and coordinated attempt to stifle Palestine solidarity protests across so-called Canada.

As signatories representing the U of T community, we will not be silenced. We will continue to loudly criticize the University for profiting off of genocide and for violating our fundamental rights to free speech by adopting these new repressive regulations.

*Editor's note, Sept 7, 2024: It is our understanding that tuition fees do not go to U of T's endowment fund and therefore those fees are not invested in Israeli companies and international weapons makers, such as those who make the bombs being dropped on Gaza. The endowment is funded from donations, not tuition fees.

Signed,

Tkarón:to Students in Solidarity with Palestine

Occupy U of T

U of T Graduate Students Union

Scarborough Campus Students' Union (SCSU)

University of Toronto Mississauga Students' Union (UTMSU)

U of T Graduate Students Union (GSU)

CUPE3902

CUPE 3902 BDS Caucus

Indigenous Students Association

Association of Palestinian Students at the University of Toronto Mississauga

U of T Muslim Students Association (St. George Campus)

UTSC Muslim Students Association

Diaspora and Transnational Studies Student Union

UTM Pakistani Students Association

Factor-Inwetash Faculty of Social Work (FIFSW) for Palestine

U of T Public Health for Palestine (UTPH4P)

Scholar Strike Canada

Faculty for Palestine U of T

Independent Jewish Voices for Peace (U of T Chapter)

U of T Students for Choice

Pears Project

Dig-in U of T

Black Students Assosciation UofT

NEWPride

Communist Party of Canada (U of T Chapter)

Climate Justice UofT

UTM Charity Fashion Show Club

OPIRG Toronto

Students on Seven

UTM Health Law and Business Assosciation