Fro
To
Cc:
Sent: Tue, May 14, 2024 at 1:20 AM
Subject: Pls forward
James Diamond’s letter to the president of U of
T
Dear President Gertler.
I hold the Joseph & Wolf Lebovic endowed
Chair in the Religious Studies department at the University
of Waterloo. It was a privilege for me to have participated
this week as an invitee of the Pontifical Institute for
Medieval Studies to deliver a presentation at a wonderful,
learned gathering of scholars sponsored by the J. RICHARD
AND DOROTHY SHIFF CHAIR IN JEWISH STUDIES and THE ELIZABETH
AND TONY COMPER FOUNDATION. I am taking the liberty of
copying representatives of the families who have graciously
endowed and supported the University’s endeavors, including
Albert Friedberg who donated the invaluable Friedberg
collection at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library who also
attended our conference at the University. There are other
such magnanimous donors I have copied who have contributed
to the development of U of T as a world class institution of
higher learning. They should be apprised of your failure to
put an end to what is an utter disgrace and dismal display
of ‘lower’ learning, as I will describe in what follows,
which serves only to erode what they have concretely helped
build.
After our conference sessions on Monday
afternoon I proceeded onto one of my favorite walks across
the campus accompanied by Prof. Kenneth Green, an esteemed
and beloved professor at U of T of many decades, a walk I
have been doing for over 50 years now. During that stroll we
experienced a most humiliating, insulting, and offensive
encounter, that has tarnished a treasured relationship with
my alma mater.
As we passed by the appalling encampment that
is both a physical and moral blight on Kings College Circle
we were confronted by anything but what the University
misguidedly considers, and misleadingly rationalizes, as
freedom of expression.
A large group of what can only be described as
masked thugs blocked my movement and maniacally and
menacingly screamed obscenities at me such as “go back to
your country”; “you will never get by me”; followed by a
string of vulgar expletives unworthy of repeating. That in
sum reflects the sort of ‘sophisticated’ level of speech
being engaged in there that you are protecting.
There was U of T security personnel standing
and observing nearby, who it seems are actually tasked by
the University with preserving the encampment blight rather
than protecting innocent bystanders. The ‘administration’ of
the Circle has been totally abdicated for the benefit of
this mob who exercises unimpeded control over who can enter
and exit University property. Thus you have abandoned your
responsibility and duty you owe to thousands of students and
visitors, surrendering it to an insignificant number of
threatening, screaming, members of a brutish assemblage. I
can add ‘mindless’ as well, based on the tenor of their
reactions and responses to me, a trait any University of
course would be expected to at the very least discourage, if
not to eliminate among its constituency. I assure you they
do not in any shape or form represent the vast majority of
students, alumni, and supporters of U of T. (If for some
reason they do then the University suffers from a far deeper
malignancy it must address.)
In fact, since they assiduously hid their faces
with threatening symbols decidedly intended to identify with
the perpetrators of one of the most barbaric atrocities in
modern times, it is most likely that they are not even
students.
To compound the egregiousness of their
behaviour, their claim in barring me from walking freely
within University grounds was based on the assertion that
Kings College Circle is “indigenous land”! University
security personnel stood by apathetically and refused to
accommodate my request to be escorted safely on my long
standing walk and enjoyment of the campus.
The encampment behaviour and its control of a
significant landmark on campus grounds is unambiguously
being condoned and indeed encouraged by the University.
Have you ceded ownership of King’s Circle? Do
you wish to preserve the ‘rights’ of a small band of
unidentifiable individuals to harass, badger, offend, and
trample on the ‘rights’ of virtually everyone else you are
entrusted to provide with the most conducive environment for
their education? How many legitimate events will you
continue to cancel as you already have in abject submission
to coercive intimidation? Are we to assume that the
University stands behind the notion of dismantling our
entire country since it is all ‘indigenous’ land? Your
inaction speaks loudly as a positive response to these
questions.
I graduated with three degrees from the
University of Toronto (PhD 1999) and have always been proud
of my scholarly pedigree. However, your encouragement of the
very worst behaviour and the kind of regressive “expression”
operating on the crudest of levels that are anathema to
everything an institute of higher education stands for is a
profound affront to the integrity of the University and its
reputation.
At one point I even resorted to challenging
those thugs illegally preventing me from walking in the
direction I wished, to a reasoned debate in the classroom.
Their response was to raise a large megaphone literally
inches from my ears whose only message was to inflict
physical pain rather than communicate in the preferred
language of the academy- that of reason. As a result, my
ears are ringing to this very moment and there may very well
be further consequences to that. While you have abdicated
your responsibilities, as you well know you are not relieved
of your legal liabilities for anything that occurs on the
property.
The transition from the learned gathering I
attended to that obnoxious encampment could not have been
more pronounced. The latter asserts its authority by the
level of decibels and perverse language with which it
conveys its ‘positions’, while the former reflects all the
values the University’s halls of learning traditionally have
encouraged. Truly a descent from the sublime beauty of
reasoned and mutually respectful dialogue to the very lowest
degree of human discourse.
As an alumnus and as a scholar I and my
colleagues have earned the right to be respected and heard
over the din of a rabble that hijacks dialogue by force,
commits illegal trespass, shuts down any meaningful
conversation by aggressive gestures, disrupts university
events, and obstructs others’ right to free movement, all of
which you appear to be prioritizing in the name of nothing I
can conceive of as legitimately advancing the noble aims of
the University, its faculty, and its students.
There is no middle ground! Allowing this
encampment to remain and grow amounts to an endorsement of
its behaviour and its positions and sets a dangerous
precedent the University will most certainly regret.
I will circulate this letter to every single
supporter of U of T I can identify so that they can render
their own informed decisions about whether your policy, or
lack thereof, should impact on the future of their
relationship with your institution.
I implore the administration to remove what has
become a stain on its good name before it becomes indelible.
Sincerely yours
Prof. James A. Diamond
Joseph & Wolf Lebovic Chair- Jewish Studies
University of Waterloo,
200 University Ave. W.
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada N2L 3G1
