U of T Faces Backlash After Rejecting Recommendations on anti-Muslim, anti-Arab Discrimination

The University of Toronto (U of T) is facing sharp criticism from faculty members and researchers after formally rejecting the final report and all 57 recommendations of its own Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian Discrimination Working Group (MAP DWG).

While the university’s administration stated it cannot accept the report—arguing that it departs from past equity reviews by including commentary on global conflicts—a new policy brief from the independent Muslim Communities Research Observatory (MCRO) and comments from working group leaders highlight the extensive evidence behind the findings and accuse the institution of stalling on meaningful reform.

Working Group Leaders Call Refusal "Performative"

Released online on November 12 alongside the university’s formal refusal, the working group's report, titled Over-Policed, Under-Protected, is the result of nearly two years of work, including 85 consultations and 525 survey responses collected across U of T’s three campuses.

According to NOW Toronto, working group chair Professor Anver Emon said the university's response felt dismissive, particularly because the group had spent five months in an administrative review process with senior university staff—paring an original list of 109 recommendations down to 57 to ensure feasibility.

At no point during that review did administrators indicate they would reject the document outright, Emon noted.

"They want to perform as if they are being a caring university, but they're not," Emon said, as reported by NOW Toronto, adding that the university's demand that the report follow the "same approach" as past equity reviews ignores the unique challenges facing Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian communities.

U of T law professor Mohammad Fadel, who chaired the report's Arab subcommittee, echoed that surprise.

"We spent five months with them, going over the report line by line, including over all the specific recommendations," Fadel said, according to NOW Toronto. "There's nothing in it that was a surprise to them."

Suggesting that outside political pressure may be influencing the administration's stance, Fadel stated that substantial public pressure will be required to force the university to act.

A Pattern of "Over-Policing and Under-Protecting"

According to MCRO’s synthesis of the report, the working group identified a "general pattern of over-policing and under-protecting speech, research, and advocacy by or on Muslims, Arabs, and especially Palestinians."

Notably, 44 per cent of survey respondents did not identify as Muslim, Arab, or Palestinian, yet reported witnessing discrimination or facing harassment themselves for expressing solidarity or conducting related scholarship.

Rather than finding isolated incidents of open bigotry, the working group noted—according to the MCRO brief—that the most common barrier on campus was "incurious ignorance," defined as a widespread lack of understanding of Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian histories, cultures, and religious obligations.

At the same time, respondents described pervasive stereotypes casting them as terrorists, misogynists, and antisemites, alongside a deep distrust of university complaint mechanisms due to fear of reprisal.

Institutional Refusal and Unanswered Questions

In its written response, U of T acknowledged that anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian discrimination exists on campus and pointed to initiatives such as expanding Muslim prayer spaces across all three campuses, launching an educational e-module, creating a Muslim Community Advisory Council, and holding a Governing Council information session.

According to NOW Toronto, Emon dismissed these commitments as pre-existing initiatives that offer no new action in response to the group's findings.

In refusing the 57 recommendations, the university argued that some proposals conflict with collective agreements and academic freedom, fall outside institutional jurisdiction, or clash with its policy of "institutional restraint".

Officials also took issue with unattributed survey responses and stated, as reported by CityNews and NOW Toronto, that aspects of the report—which references international human rights assessments of Israel's military actions in Gaza—would be "offensive and upsetting" to some Jewish and Israeli community members.

According to the MCRO brief, institutional resistance began well before the report's release.

Several key university bodies—including Campus Safety (St. George), the Office of Research Security, the Division of University Advancement, and the university's asset management corporation—declined to meet with the working group during its review.

Furthermore, the Office of the President did not answer specific questions regarding where the university is invested.

Key Areas for Reform Left Unaddressed

The MCRO briefing note underscores that many of the working group’s proposals address long-standing, unresolved requests from campus groups:

• Academic Freedom and the "Palestine Exception": According to the report, research, advocacy, and events related to Palestine face a tangle of procedural hurdles. The working group urges U of T to revoke its April 2024 memo on "institutional neutrality," stop cancelling publicized events in response to third-party complaints, and establish clear evidentiary standards before administrators hold informal "call-in" disciplinary conversations.
• Campus Policing and Doxing: Recommendations highlighted by MCRO include instructing Campus Safety that handing out flyers does not constitute illegal "postering," auditing national security risk assessments for bias, and providing cybersecurity and legal support to students and alumni targeted by online doxing campaigns.
• Medical and Affiliated Placements: Citing what the report describes as an "inordinate number of complaints" within the Temerty Faculty of Medicine—where clinical faculty and learners reported being cited for unprofessionalism after signing open letters supporting Gaza medical workers—the working group calls for fair-process protocols in agreements with partner hospitals and school boards.
• Dedicated Funding and Space: According to the MCRO brief, the working group called for a $1 million start-up fund to incubate academic initiatives on Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian life, guaranteed custodial budgets for prayer spaces so costs do not fall on student unions, and the inclusion of Centres for Muslim Life in U of T’s 10-year real estate plan.

As noted in the MCRO brief, previous university advisory tables in 2017 and 2019 dissolved without producing formal recommendations.

According to NOW Toronto, Emon is now calling on the university to retract its response, formally submit the report to its Governing Council, and commission an independent, third-party review.

"Unless we get a third party external from the university doing an independent review, I'm not confident that we'll see any change," he said, as reported by NOW Toronto.