By Joel Goldenberg and Beryl Wajsman, Editor
The Suburban
Concordia University and its president Graham Carr were served Friday with a mis-en-demeure filed in Quebec Superior Court that seeks a permanent injunction demanding that the university enforce its rules against hate and intimidation, in light of events that took place following the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack against Israel. The university is also accused of being in breach of contract. Concordia officials told The Suburban the university does not comment on pending legal proceedings.
“Since Oct. 7, 2023, conditions at Concordia have worsened to the point that, for plaintiffs and others, Concordia has become a bastion of Jew-hatred and antisemitism,” the document says. “Concordia permits students and non-students to advocate for, without consequence, the murder of Jews and the destruction of the State of Israel on campus.” The case was prepared by Spiegel Sohmer senior partner Neil Oberman and Michael Hollander of Choueke Hollander.
Student plaintiffs in legal actions against local universities in the past year have been mostly anonymous, but this time Concordia students Anastasia Zorchinsky, Michael Eshayek, Drew Sylver and Diana Levitin have come forward publicly. Other plaintiffs are Hillel Concordia and the student activist group Startup Nation, headed by Zorchinsky and Eshayek. Sylver and Levitin are members of the Concordia Student Union.
The 109-page action states that it, “arises from a need to ensure safety and protection of the plaintiffs who have been subjected to discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and violence based on their ethnicity, religion, and beliefs by other students, faculty members, staff, or administrators of the university.They share a common interest in seeking justice and accountability from the university and Graham Carr personally for their failure to protect them and to uphold its own values and policies.”
The suit states that while Concordia claims to be committed “to creating an environment of respect and inclusiveness” and to fostering “a culture of prevention, reporting, and response” to address issues of sexual violence, racism, and discrimination,” “these claims are contradicted by the reality faced by the student plaintiffs at Concordia.These students have suffered physical, psychological, and academic harm because of Graham Carr’s and the university’s negligence, breach of contract, and violation of their fundamental rights.”
The plaintiffs also state that Concordia has “violated its contractual duties to the students by not ensuring a secure, respectful, and fair learning environment, by neglecting to prevent, properly investigate, and address incidents of harm and hate; and by failing to adhere to its own policies and procedures as well as relevant laws and regulations.”
Examples include chants at rallies, signs and graffiti stating “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” “globalize the Intifada,” and “all Zionists are terrorists”; celebrations by Concordia students of the Oct. 7 attack on Oct. 8, including distributing candies around the campus; the Nov. 8 riot against pro-Israel students at the Hall building, which included assaults; an occupation of a university building in late November, during which plaintiff Eshayek was asked “how many babies did you kill today?”; and many other incidents, including the March 4 blockade at Federation CJA of a pro-Israel event that was supposed to take place at Concordia but was cancelled by the same administration that had allowed anti-Israel events to take place.
The students add that the university has “violated their right to equality, dignity, access to education and security, under the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms by allowing and condoning a climate of discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and violence within the university. Graham Carr, in his capacity as president and vice-chancellor of Concordia, was under the obligation to ensure the safety and security of the plaintiffs on campus. His inaction, neglect, indifference, and dereliction of duties to have allowed intimidating, offensive, demeaning, threatening, disruptive, unwelcome, and unwanted conduct to flourish on campus.”
The university is specifically accused of, since Oct. 7, a “repeated and repetitive failure to investigate incidents of antisemitism and acts that are targeted at Plaintiffs on campus, provide proper trainings or methodologies to its staff and representatives in dealing with the verbal assaults, harassment, and/or bullying matters on campus, provide students at Concordia with resources and proper education on the issue of antisemitism, assaults, bullying and zero-tolerance policies; adequately document, and discipline or sanction students and student organizations involved in antisemitism, assaults, harassment, and/or bullying on and off campus.”
The university and Carr are also accused of a failure to “take the appropriate steps to adequately investigate the activities of students involved in antisemitism, assaults, harassment, and/or bullying on and off campus; take the appropriate steps to denounce and reject antisemitic movements at Concordia, including, but not limited to, any organization for the BDS movement, and any organization that promote hatred towards Jewish persons; take the appropriate steps to sanction students and student groups from supporting antisemitic movements on campus, including, but not limited to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement; properly identify, counsel and assist Jewish students, including plaintiffs, once they became harassed and assaulted by persons on campus; take the appropriate steps to address the antisemitic behaviour and rhetoric on campus using its own internal policies, regulations and guidelines in a timely manner; take the appropriate steps to terminate its agreement with students and student groups for breach of internal policies, regulations and guidelines, particularly those relating to the dissemination of violence, hate propaganda and hate speech; and to enforce policies such as wearing masks or covering your face while on campus; and enforce policies in view of preventing general disorderly conduct and lawlessness on campus.” n