[mobglob-discuss] Expulsion from York University: Dan Freeman-Maloy

[Tony Tracy]

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Freeman-Maloy <encamino at mail.tools4change.org>
Sent: 05/05/04 6:37:57 AM
Subject: My Expulsion from York University

*please forward*

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My Expulsion from York University: an appeal for support and reconsideration


  On April 30, 2004, I received a letter signed by York University President 
and Vice-Chancellor Lorna Marsden declaring that I "will have no purpose on 
campus" after May 1, 2004. If I set foot on York's campus at any point in 
the three years following this date, she threatens, I will be charged for 
trespassing. My expulsion comes in the context of escalating repression of 
student dissent by York's administration, and sets an ominous precedent 
regarding student rights to freedom of speech, expression and assembly. 

  The administration's declaration that I now "have no purpose on campus"
is baffling. I am a full-time student at York, and May 1 was both the very day 
I formally started my job as an editor at York's main student paper, Excalibur, 
and nearly three weeks before my last exam. I am being treated as if I have 
acted dangerously and criminally, even in the absence of any allegations of 
criminally dangerous conduct.
 
  In fact, those looking for a description of my behavior as dramatic as the 
administration's response to it are likely to be disappointed. The alleged 
crime for which I have been exiled from my school for three years is use of 
"an unauthorized sound amplification device" (that is, a megaphone) on two 
separate occasions: October 22, 2003, and March 16, 2004. While general issues 
of freedom of expression and procedural fairness lie at the heart of this 
matter, I still feel compelled to address the specific allegations in turn. 
  
  Firstly, the events of October 22, 2003. On this date, the administration 
provided space for "Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Appreciation Day," an event at 
which people sporting Israeli military paraphernalia congregated in one 
of York University's principal public spaces to celebrate Israeli militarism.  
The mayor of an illegal Israeli settlement led the event, which was attended by 
many people who have served in the forces. In this situation, as a Jewish anti-
nationalist and an avid anti-militarist, I did use a megaphone to highlight the 
event's glaring impropriety. But vocal opposition to militarism, even 
expressed loudly, is far from criminally threatening. 

  The second instance cited, March 16, was the first anniversary of the death 
of Rachel Corrie, a US peace activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli 
bulldozer as she tried to block it from demolishing a Palestinian 
family's home in the Gaza Strip. What happened on that day was without 
precedent in my experience. While approximately thirty of us set up a mock 
check-point, some dressed as soldiers and some as civilians, a crowd of 
some 150 militant Zionists that had been congregating nearby in preparation 
proceeded to rush our display. We had postponed our action for a period to 
avoid a clash, but were unsuccessful. We were surrounded, and for nearly an 
hour faced physical and verbal intimidation.   

  In this context, I was one of many students organizing the mock check-point 
who tried, through chants and small speeches, to let confused onlookers know 
the purpose of the display that was being aggressively swarmed. President 
Marsden is contending that this somehow "contributed to the threat of harm to 
the safety and well-being of York University community members." If this is the 
case, why am I not being charged criminally? Why did the administration wait so 
many months to paint my conduct as dangerous? 

  When I was informed in early November by Ms. Ridley from the Office of 
Student Affairs (OSA) that I needed to review the student code of conduct, 
which she alleged I had broken on October 22, I told her that I would do so 
and then get in touch with her. That same month, I visited her to set up an 
appointment (I was in and out of the OSA office throughout this period 
regarding the status of Students for a Critical Consciousness, a campus club of 
which I am President). She informed me that she would need to coordinate the 
meeting with the security personnel who had been present on the day in 
question. I told her that the meeting had been called at her request, and that 
I was in no rush to meet - Ms. Ridley smugly responded that she was not 
surprised, and that she would contact me in the near future. She never followed 
through. 

  The administration had every opportunity to contact me. Again, I am the 
President of a recognized student club, my York University email account is 
listed online as the group's contact information (and is used readily by York's 
library to notify me of late fines), and I even had a minor debate in late 
February/early March in the pages of Excalibur with Nancy White, York's 
director for media relations (regarding some of our school's questionable 
corporate connections). Plainly, it is hardly as if I had gone underground. 

  Over the past year, as a York-based social justice activist who is both 
Jewish and anti-Zionist, I have been called a "self-hater" and a "terrorist"; I 
have received death threats. Now, the administration of Lorna Marsden is 
topping all of this off with a summary suspension order.  York University's 
mission statement describes the school as "a community of faculty, students and 
staff committed to academic freedom [and] social justice." In the hope that 
this is truly the case, I appeal to the administration to allow me to return to 
my studies and to my job without any further harassment. 

  To everyone else reading this (in case the administration's response is not 
immediately favorable), the York Free Speech Committee, which recently formed 
to deal with this situation, will be circulating an important call-out shortly.


Sincerely,

Daniel Freeman-Maloy