Carleton University and the University of Ottawa have banned one Israeli Apartheid Week poster from their campuses because it included an image that was “inflammatory and capable of inciting confrontation.”

This poster was banned from Ottawa university campuses
Carleton
University and the University of Ottawa have banned one Israeli
Apartheid Week poster from their campuses because it included an image
that was “inflammatory and capable of inciting confrontation.”

This poster was banned from Ottawa university campuses

The decision, first made by the Carleton administration on Feb. 8, came after the group Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) put up 100 posters throughout the school by political cartoonist Carlos Latuff depicting a helicopter labelled “Israel” firing a missile at a teddy bear-holding toddler labelled “Gaza.”

Carleton’s equity services ordered  that the posters be removed from campus, because they “could incite infringements of the Ontario Human Rights Code,” said Carleton spokesperson Lin Moody.

She added that the university did not ban IAW events, but the posters had to be removed because they didn’t have the necessary approval to be displayed.

Nearly two weeks later, the University of Ottawa became the second Ottawa-area post-secondary institution to ban the same IAW poster, following Carleton’s lead.

U of O issued a statement that said “the administration has the right and the responsibility to ensure that all posters comply with the posting regulations before they are displayed on a bulletin board owned by the university.

“One of the posters in relation to Israeli Apartheid Week was found to be inconsistent with our posting regulations for reasons that included the use of an image that was inflammatory and capable of inciting confrontation.”

In the days following the announcement that Carleton would not allow the poster to hang on its walls, Carleton’s provost and vice-president academic, Feridun Hamdullahpur, sent a letter to the entire university community calling the posters “hurtful and discriminatory.”

He wrote: “Carleton University, regardless of the circumstances, cannot and will not tolerate actions that infringe or contravene the Ontario Human Rights Code and Carleton’s own University Human Rights Policy and Procedures.”

Hamdullahpur added that if anyone violates the school’s policies, they would be subject to sanctions under these rules, and “students can be withdrawn from their studies indefinitely.”

Alana Kayfetz, executive director of Hillel Ottawa, commended the schools’ response to the situation.

Although Hillel wasn’t involved in having the posters removed, Kayfetz said she encouraged Jewish students who complained to her about feeling intimidated to voice their concerns to their school’s administration.

“There was an influx of those types of complaints, and I think the administration responded. We commend them, because they responded and they’re standing by their guns,” she said.

“I think the issue at Carleton originally was that they had printed 100 posters, so you couldn’t escape it. It was everywhere.”

U of O has approved a different IAW poster, which Kayfetz said students are still complaining that it is offensive.

“They are propaganda posters… It’s blue and it has all [IAW event] information. At the bottom of it there is a cartoon image of the ‘apartheid wall’ with a mother on one side crying and a baby on the other side crying.”

There was a similar issue last year at McMaster University when a student group hung a banner in the school’s student centre that used the slogan “Israeli Apartheid” and depicted a soldier-like figure pushing a small child.

McMaster spokesperson Andrea Farquhar said that this year, school officials have not seen any IAW posters.

“We certainly don’t take a position to say that they aren’t going to be allowed. All posters that go up have to be approved individually. But there aren’t any that I’ve seen at the moment. It seems to be something that is more of an issue at other campuses,” Farquhar said.

In response to the Ottawa universities’ decisions to ban the IAW poster, the Ontario Public Interest Research Group at Carleton staged rallies at Carleton and U of O last week in support of SAIA and Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, student groups that organize IAW events.

According to the OPIRG-Carleton website, the purpose of the rallies was to call on the schools to clarify why the posters were banned and students were invited to “symbolically cover their mouths” as if they were being silenced. Students were also encouraged to deliver letters from unions and organizations to the administrations after marching to the presidents’ offices.