[mobglob-discuss] Update on Free Speech at York University & The Case of Dan Freeman-Maloy

[Tony Tracy]

--- please forward --- 

*York President Lorna Marsden under fire for her abuse of power!* 

The highest academic decision-making body at York University, the Senate,
has just come out in support of demands to have expelled student activist
and journalist Daniel Freeman-Maloy reinstated!  For updated information
about the growing political campaign to challenge President Marsden's abuse
of power, visit http://www.en-camino.org/freespeechyorku and please keep
the
letters of protest coming!  We extend sincere thanks to all those in the
York University community and elsewhere who are helping to stop this
ominous
political precedent from being set. 

In Solidarity, 

The York Free Speech Committee 

---------

York President Lorna Marsden under fire for her abuse of power!

Free Speech York University, May 30 2004

York University President Lorna Marsden is under fire from all directions
for her decision to banish student activist and journalist Daniel
Freeman-Maloy from campus for three years. Freeman-Maloy's expulsion was
meant to send a message: challenge my administration’s authority, and you
will suffer the consequences. Instead, it is demonstrating that crude
repression of student activism will always backlash. 

The public justification for the summary expulsion of this third-year
Political Science student was that Freeman-Maloy used an unauthorized
megaphone at two Palestine solidarity demonstrations in York’s Vari Hall
Rotunda. In response to the expulsion, some 50 concerned community members
took over Vari Hall on Thursday, May 17 for a “Megaphone Choir.” The action
was attended by a delegation of rank-and-file union activists from a hotel
owned by a York University Foundation member; right before the megaphone
choir, the delegation delivered a letter to Marsden's office expressing
their solidarity with student struggles to organize for social justice. A
coordinated ode to freedom was then staged, drawing lyrics from such great
political figures as the Palestinian refugee poet Mahmoud Darwish: “I am
the
witness of the massacre, I am the victim of the map, I am the son of clear
speech, I saw stones take flight, I saw dewdrops become weapons, When they
slammed shut the door of my heart, when they threw up barricades, When they
imposed a curfew inside me, my heart grew into an alley, My ribs became
hovels, But carnations were budding, carnations were in bud.” 

This demonstration was an important stand, taking place in the midst of a
major Israeli assault on the community of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. From May
13-24, Israeli forces killed 56 Palestinians in Rafah, 45 of whom were
civilians, including 10 children, and injured at least 200 others. Further,
220 Rafah houses were completely destroyed and 140 others partially
destroyed, leaving 4847 people (821 families) homeless. (Palestinian Centre
for Human Rights, 27 May 2004) 
 
Earlier this year, President Marsden introduced acting Israeli Minister
Natan Sharansky, from the country’s far right wing, as “a symbol of the
struggle for human rights.” Given her affinity for the state, perhaps she
wanted to move slowly towards an Israeli mode of treating popular
engagement, drawing her inspiration from the recent use of tanks and
helicopters to attack Palestinian demonstrators in Rafah. But despite her
obvious wishes, York University is not Dr. Marsden's personal political
fiefdom, and the reaction to her power-trip has been strong. 
 
Quickly following the May 17 takeover of Vari Hall, more than 20 faculty
members from Freeman-Maloy’s own Political Science department co-authored a
letter calling on President Marsden “to follow the path of justice and
prudence by rescinding the expulsion of Dan Freeman Maloy.” The Executive
of
the York University Faculty Association (YUFA) itself chimed in, urging the
President “to reconsider Mr. Freeman-Maloy's suspension” so that “the wider
community [not be given] the impression that our university is not a forum
for the free exchange of ideas.” 
 
Then, on Thursday, May 27, she was struck with an even harder political
blow. The highest academic decision-making body at York, the Senate, passed
a motion respectfully requesting, among other things, that President
Marsden
“reconsider and rescind her decision on the suspension of Daniel
Freeman-Maloy.” 
 
President Marsden is presently faced with two options: to cut her losses,
and terminate her project of executive harassment of Mr. Freeman-Maloy; or
to stand in increasingly isolated opposition to student freedoms of speech,
expression, assembly, and political organization on the one hand, and to
York University’s own procedures and decision-making bodies on the other. 
 
In either case, a message is indeed being sent. Progressive activism at
York
University will not so easily be stifled.

Please continue to send your letters to presidnt at yorku.ca and cc them to
freespeechyorku at yahoo.ca

http://www.en-camino.org/freespeechyorku