John Ivison: University instructor fights back after being suspended for daring to denounce Hamas

Contrast:

….I wrote about Finlayson late last year. He has been teaching at Guelph-Humber for 13 years, has no disciplinary record and no history as a political activist.

In a social media post that he admits may have been a little too blistering, he said that an academic in Pakistan calling for Palestine to be free “from the river to the sea” was a “pro-Nazi zealot.” Finlayson said he stands with Israel, against antisemitism and against Hamas, which he said takes millions meant for health and education and uses the money to make war. “You stand with Palestine means you stand with Hitler.”

Hitler references aside, it was all fairly standard stuff.

…[complainant] Surely this could not be Dr. Wael Ramadan, professor of project management at Sheridan College’s Pilon School of Business?

I’m told it is. I wrote about Ramadan a week or so after Finlayson. He had called Israel “an apartheid state committing genocide” but he was not suspended by Sheridan — in my opinion, quite rightly, since it is not the college’s place to protect the delicate ears of generation Z from opinions with which it may disagree.

…

Ramadan did not respond to requests for comment then or now, but I am told that the man whose right to free speech I defended is at the centre of the effort to shut down Finlayson’s right to the same, and get him fired in the process.

Academia is in a shocking state when the desire to root out anything that a complainant disagrees with, or considers “unsafe” is gratified by academic bureaucrats.

People far beyond Guelph-Humber are starting to take an interest in this case, aware of the chilling effect on academic speech it will have if it is not challenged.

The university has made a mistake. It should admit as much and reinstate Finlayson.

Source: John Ivison: University instructor fights back after being suspended for daring to denounce Hamas