MONTREAL — Concordia University’s Hillel has decided to sue to force the student union to rescind a week-old ban on the Jewish group.
The Concordia Student Union voted Dec. 2 to ban Hillel from campus because of fliers found on a Hillel table advertising Mahal 2000, a program that allows volunteers to spend several months in the Israeli army.
Hillel decided to file suit at a meeting Tuesday night, after the union ignored Hillel’s Monday evening deadline to issue a written apology and unconditionally reinstate the Jewish group.
“Basically, we discussed what damages we would be seeking in court and what our goals were,” said Concordia Hillel’s co-president, Noah Joseph, after the meeting. Joseph had cast the lone dissenting vote in the student union’s Dec. 2 vote to ban Hillel. The executive board’s vote came close to midnight during the hastily arranged meeting, with just nine of 27 union council members present.
The board announced that during the weekend it had agreed to allow Hillel back on campus, provided Hillel sign a statement pledging to adhere to the union’s policy guidelines, including not distributing literature that the union deems offensive.
However, Hillel officials said they had received no such statement, and are demanding that they be reinstated without conditions.
That move was the latest in a string of anti-Israel actions at Concordia. In September, pro-Palestinian rioters forced the cancellation of a speech by Israeli former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Jewish students have reported being verbally and physically intimidated on campus, and one was beaten a week after the canceled Netanyahu speech.
Those incidents followed pro-Palestinian rallies, when the intifada began in the fall of 2000, that featured placards proclaiming “Death to the Jews” and marchers chanting anti-Zionist slogans.
The union also got into hot water over its handbook for the 2001-2002 academic year, which was titled “Uprising” and featured the image of what appeared to be a Muslim woman and the word “revolution.”
The complaint against the Mahal 2000 flier was brought by Samir Elatrash, founder of the campus’ Society for Palestinian Human Rights.
Hoping to save face and avert a lawsuit, the student union executive board had asked the university administration to order it to reinstate Hillel. However, with the student union answerable not to the administration but rather to Quebec’s provincial Education Ministry, Concordia administrators refused.
In a statement on its Web site, the administration noted that the student union has reacted angrily in the past when it thought the administration was overstepping its boundaries.
“Therefore, it is particularly offensive to request the university overturn union council decisions on an invitation-only basis when it is to the advantage of the CSU,” the statement reads. “The CSU Executive has the authority to take the same action that they have requested of the university administration. We cannot absolve them of their responsibility and legal duty to conduct their affairs in a fair, equitable and non-partisan manner.”
It also said the administration believed the “sanctions against Hillel are wholly disproportionate and should be modified.”
On Tuesday night, Hillel instructed lawyer Michael Bergman to take the matter to court.
“As far as I know, this is the first time since at least the1930s that a Jewish organization has been banned or proscribed from a university campus, anywhere in the free world,” Bergman said.
Bergman said his goal was to see that Hillel’s rights are protected.