Students walk across York University campus in in Toronto. The university’s administration said it suspects the student unions have breached their responsibilities over statements issued about the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.York University says it will begin a process that could lead to the school withdrawing its recognition of its student unions in response to a controversial statement the groups issued about this month’s Hamas attack in Israel.
administrators will begin a process to determine if sanctions are merited. The most severe sanction would be withdrawal of recognition, the university said. in its own statement last week, condemned what the student unions had said, suggesting that it was a justification of “violence against unarmed civilians.” The university called on the organizations’ leaders to issue a retraction and affirm their commitment to non-violence, anti-discrimination and repairing the hurt they had caused to their members. The student unions have not publicly responded to that call.
In the case of the York student unions, she urged the university administration to investigate and, if necessary, launch non-academic misconduct investigations of the student union executives.