Jewish groups say they're disappointed with the conclusion of an internal investigation into the removal of a Jewish student from McGill University's student council's board of directors last fall.
A general assembly of the Student Society of McGill University on Oct. 23 was supposed to have been a routine affair to elect a slate of directors. Following the assembly, Noah Lew claimed his candidacy wasn't ratified because he was Jewish, and because he opposed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement — a pro-Palestinian movement which calls for a boycott of Israel and Israeli products.
Lew claimed he had been singled out by members of a pro-BDS group called Democratize SSMU, which brought forth a motion to ratify each candidate individually, rather than as a group, as had been done in the past.
The final report into the incident, written by the university's ombudsman, Spencer Boudreau, and commissioned by McGill's principal, Suzanne Fortier, was released on Tuesday — and concluded that a political disagreement, not anti-Semitism, was behind Lew's rejection.
Jewish groups, both on and off campus, denounced the report as flawed, failing to acknowledge the increasing climate of hostility being faced by Jewish students on campus.
A statement by B'nai Brith Canada points to a tweet written by student politician Igor Sadikov in February 2017 urging his followers to "punch a Zionist today," and the policy of the main student paper on campus, the McGill Daily, which refuses to print material with what it considers "a Zionist worldview" as a matter of policy.
"Unfortunately, rather than seriously grappling with the issue of anti-Semitism at McGill, this report is a whitewash," wrote B'nai Brith Canada's CEO Michael Mostyn.
A joint statement issued by five Jewish groups at McGill struck the same tone, accusing the administration of condoning discrimination against Jewish students.