Pro-Palestinian protesters set to meet with U of T administration
Pro-Palestinian protesters who have set up an encampment on the University of Toronto campus are expected to meet with school officials on Sunday.
The meeting, which is scheduled for 5 p.m. ET, comes after the university issued a trespass notice to the protesters on Friday.
U of T has said it will take “all necessary legal steps” if the protesters don’t clear out by Monday at 8 a.m.
The notice threatens to seek a court order against the camp.
The encampment was set up on May 2 at the heart of the university’s downtown campus, part of a massive wave of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at post-secondary institutions in Canada and the United States.
Organizers called on the university to cut its ties with Israel, divest from companies profiting from Israel’s offensive in Gaza, and terminate partnerships with the country’s academic institutions deemed complicit in the war.
The school made an offer to the protesters on Thursday, which organizers say doesn’t meaningfully address their demands.
Organizers say the university’s offer was presented to them at the same time President Meric Gertler held a hastily arranged press conference Thursday publicizing its terms and imposing a Friday deadline to accept.
The university’s offer said it would form a working group to consider options for the disclosure of the school’s investments, but it would not end any partnerships with Israeli universities.
On divestment, the university said it would strike an advisory committee to review the students’ request under existing school policies.
At a news conference on Sunday morning, Mohammad Yassin, a student with family in Gaza, restated the demands of UofT Occupy for Palestine, an advocacy group that has organized the encampment.
Yassin said the students want the university to divest of holdings with companies that provide military goods or services to Israel, disclose all of its publicly traded investments, and suspend ties with specific Israeli institutions, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which the students say operates in “illegally occupied” East Jerusalem, and the AI partnership with Technion University, which the students say is involved in developing weapons for the Israeli Defence Force.
Yassin said the group also wants the university not to discipline students, faculty members, librarians and staff involved in the encampment. And it wants the university not to work with police to pursue criminal charges and to withdraw civil litigation against participants.
“We are not in a position where we can waste another three weeks arguing over bureaucratic details of a process that will end in nothing,” Yassin told reporters.
“We are planning to stay here until we get a commitment to our demands,” he said.
In a message to the U of T community on Friday, the university said the students are unlawfully occupying a part of campus.
“The fundamental principle of inclusion — one that extends to physical space on our campuses — has been violated,” the message reads.
Gertler, for this part, has also said convocation, which is a formal celebration of graduation, begins on June 3 and the university is determined for the ceremonies to proceed as planned.
“We will proceed with convocation no matter what,” he previously said.
The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) issued an open letter on Saturday saying labour workers will join a solidarity rally with demonstrators on Monday if no agreement is reached.
“As the voice of Ontario’s labour movement, the OFL unequivocally supports the right of students to engage in peaceful protest on campus, as they call for a ceasefire and divestment from companies that are complicit in war and occupation,” OFL president Laura Walton said in the letter..
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