Campus BDS, Freedom of Speech, and a Way Forward in a Canadian Context

Both Stern (2020) and Landes (2020) consider BDS, Israel/Palestine, and the campus issues in academe. They highlight the issues faced by administrators, faculty, and students and possible ways forward considering freedom of speech and ensuring faculty members and students are not colleterial damage. My research is based on interview data with students who want to discuss BDS and Israel/Palestine and students who clearly want to remove themselves from the fray and controversies of BDS. This presentation will use both Stern (2020) and Landes (2020) work to consider ways to ensure there is a safe place for students who want to discuss these issues and that also respects freedom of speech. This middle ground approach offers insight based on students’ responses and is tempered by a balancing of a pedagogical and scholarly environment that promotes critical thinking, carefully weighing of the facts and evidence, while being careful to avoid ideological pitfalls.

This research is based on interview data with university students who identify as Jewish (n=55), Christian (n=3), and Muslim (n=2). The study primarily highlights students’ standpoint and lived experiences with BDS and how it has impacted their postsecondary perceptions of safety in the education system between May 2016 and August 2018. A total of 60 undergraduate university students in south-central Ontario, Québec, and Manitoba (females n=32, males n=28), who ranged in ages between 19 and 35 years old, were interviewed. They attended campuses including Carleton University, the University of Guelph, Wilfrid Laurier University, Ryerson University, the University of Ottawa, Queen’s University, the University of Western Ontario, the University of Windsor, the University of Toronto, and York University in Ontario. Students from McGill University, Concordia University, and the Université de Montréal were interviewed in Quebec; and students from the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg were interviewed in Manitoba.