Or the notion that a university is supposed to be a place of intellectual ferment where competing points of view may be aired and debated.

At least if these union thugs in Canada get their way.

In their current war against Hamas, the Israelis recently bombed buildings at the Islamic University of Gaza. As reported in the Chronicle, an Israeli army spokeswoman said the facilities had been used as "a research and development center for Hamas weapons."

In response to the bombing, the Canadian Union of Public Employees in Ontario, the largest labor union representing staff members at the province's universities, announced its plan to introduce a resolution at its forthcoming conference to ban Israeli academics from all schoolarly activity at Ontario universities if they do not first condemn Israeli operations in Gaza.

There is, of course, the obligatory anti-Semitic quote from the head union thug comparing Israel’s defensive war to the policies of the Nazis, so we know what the REAL motive of the boycott is. But let’s pretend that CUPE Ontario president Sid Ryan isn’t a raving Jew-hater and apologist for terrorism for just a moment, and consider this proposal more objectively. What he is, in effect, demanding is that a political orthodoxy be imposed before scholars are permitted to engage in scholarly activity at universities in Ontario. That would appear to fly in the face of the very notions of academic freedom that are usually demanded by the faculty of institutions of higher education. Where is the outcry against this effort to undermine academic freedom – especially when this litmus test is being imposed upon academe by a non-academic and would be voted upon by a union which is composed primarily of those outside of academia?

Posted by: Greg at 10:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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