UofT has gotten their injunction against the Pro-Palestine encampment, but they may regret it sooner than they think.
The Monkey's Paw is already curling in Meric Gertler's hands.
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On July 2nd, Justice Markus Koehnen of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled in favour of the University of Toronto’s Governing Council, granting an injunction requiring the dismantling of the Pro-Palestine encampment at King’s College Circle. As a result of this injunction, the students were informed that they would face police violence if they did not vacate their encampment by 18:00 on July 3rd.
To the moral vindication of the student protestors, Justice Koehnen made it explicit that accusations towards the encampment of violence or antisemitism put forward by UofT and various intervenors were categorically unfounded. While incidents did occur in the wider geographical area surrounding UofT’s expansive campus, the Justice Koehnen found no evidence that any encampment protestors, or even any UofT students in general, were involved in perpetuating these reported incidents.
I do not imagine that intervenors in the case, such as the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, will be pleased that Justice Koehnen has now established legal precedent from the Ontario Superior Court that explicitly recognizes that there is no inherently antisemitic or hateful meaning to the slogan “From The River To The Sea, Palestine Will Be Free”.
As R. v. Sullivan (2022) makes clear, absent a distinction in the fact pattern, Superior Court justices are bound by the precedent from rulings of other justices from the same bench, and thus interest groups such as CIJA will not be able to push for legal restrictions on the speech of Pro-Palestine demonstrators the same way that such speech and slogans have been restricted in Germany.
Ultimately, while the order to dismantle the encampment is a blow to the organizers, Justice Koehnen has ruled in favour of the student protestors right to demonstrate anywhere on campus property from 7:00 to 23:00 as long as they do not physically block others from accessing any part of campus themselves. In effect, the protestors are only required to leave the campus to shower, eat, and sleep in their homes, before returning a few hours later in the morning.
I do not believe this is the victory that UofT’s Governing Council, or intervenors such as the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre and Hillel Ontario are portraying it to be. The encampment may be “over” in a technical sense, but the students will continue protesting in massive numbers across the entire UofT campus, as they did yesterday after vacating the encampment. The student protestors are now freed of the burden of sourcing donations to sustain their encampment; they now have the opportunity to increase the effectiveness of their demonstrations by directly bringing their disruption to students and faculty across campus.
Instead of containing themselves to an empty grass field, the student protestors are now marching in circles around the entirety of UofT’s campus in the same way the ancient Israelites marched around the walls of Jericho. The protestors are now louder, they are now angrier, and they’ve realized they can be far more effective at disrupting the status quo by targeting different UofT buildings on a random basis which will ensure the Governing Council cannot effectively prepare countermeasures.
What has Meric Gertler accomplished in this debacle as the President of UofT? The Superior Court refused to grant the injunction until after all graduation ceremonies had already completed, meaning the protestors had succeeded in fully denying the administration’s use of the grass field. The protestors are now further radicalized, knowing that rather than negotiate in good faith, their university administration was gleefully threatening for months to have police violently raid their peaceful protest and crack their skulls on the pavement.
The ruling came too late to provide UofT the only benefit it could have, but according to estimates I received from encampment organizers, UofT is believed to have paid a seven-figure bill to the full legal team pursuing this injunction on the administration’s behalf. It’s hard to see the value in such a financial expenditure, especially when the student protestors have active plans to cause as much disruption as possible to university operations, while toeing the line and remaining within the legal boundaries of the injunction.
President Gertler has obtained the injunction he so desperately sought, and yet he may grow to regret this “victory” far sooner than he realizes. Ironically, Justice Koehnen has legally validated and enabled the student protestors to stage far more effective actions on the UofT campus than they had before July 3rd.
UofT’s Governing Council decided to break the encampment’s self-containment, and now it appears that the entirety of campus will be subject to massive demonstrations that will be far more difficult to avoid. Ultimately, such an outcome could have been prevented by the adminstration, if they were to possess even a modicum of foresight or self-reflection.
I hope the Governing Council is prepared for the storm that awaits them at their doorstep. I do not imagine their egos are robust enough to deal with the realization that the protestors will indeed be returning to campus on a regular basis, fully protected by Canadian law and empowered to fight harder than before.
These students see the complicity of their university in the slaughter of innocent Palestinians, and they are rightfully outraged. They’re fighting for a cause bigger than themselves, and the flame of their passion is burning brighter than ever. Meric Gertler best steel himself for the coming weeks of high-intensity protest; yesterday’s rally will merely be a taste of everything yet to come.