Organizers of a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Toronto say students will continue occupying the campus indefinitely, following a meeting with administrators that they say made clear the academic institution isn’t yet willing to accept their demands.
Dozens of students, staff and faculty have been occupying a green space at King’s College Circle on the university’s St. George Campus in downtown Toronto around the clock since May 2.
They’ve set up tents and canopies in solidarity with other encampments at universities throughout North America, calling for an end to Israel’s war in Gaza.
Representatives of the protesters and the university administration met on Sunday to discuss the students’ three official demands, which include disclosing a complete list of the university endowment’s investments, divesting from assets that “sustain Israeli apartheid, occupation and illegal settlement of Palestine,” and that the school cut ties with Israeli academic institutions that operate within the Occupied Territories or support Israel’s military efforts.
While encampment organizers say the meeting was the first time the university appeared willing to engage with the substance of their demands, the two sides remain far apart.
“They haven’t met a single one of our demands. There’s an open dialogue about disclosure and divestment and a flat out no for the cutting all ties,” organizer Kalliopé Anvar McCall, a fourth-year student, told reporters at a press conference Monday.
“It could be progress or it could be them wasting our time.”
University offers working group, students say
The encampment organizers said the administrators offered to create an “ad-hoc working group” that would look into their divestment demand and develop recommendations and expressed a willingness to expand the group’s mandate to also cover disclosure. However, the students said the administrators were unwilling to consider cutting ties to academic institutions in Israel.
The university confirmed the meeting in an update on its website Monday morning, but wouldn’t disclose details about the conversations.
“While we understand that many in our community will be interested in the substance of our conversation, we are choosing not to share details at this time, in order to enable dialogue,” wrote Christine Szustaczek, vice-president of communications.
“Our actions are guided by our foundational commitment to the right to protest and freedom of expression, within the limits of university policies and the law.”
The university declined to provide additional details about the meeting in a statement to CBC Toronto, saying, “the university is working hard to find a peaceful resolution.”
Students propose June 30 deadline
The students say they proposed a deadline of June 30 to hear back from the university with more firm commitments to addressing their demands. The date was chosen, they say, because it aligns with the university governing council’s summer session.
Avi Jain, one of the student organizers, said he was disappointed with the university’s lack of concrete commitments.
“Bring us something real. Bring us something concrete. Bring us something immediate,” Jain said.
“The time has long past for commitments to think about committing.”
Anvar McCall said there are no plans to take down the encampment, and organizers are hoping for another meeting soon.
“We live here now, and we will live here as long as needed to have our demands met,” Anvar McCall said.
“We’ve cleared our calendars for the summer. We’ve cleared our calendars for the fall. We’re comfortable staying here for our demands to be taken seriously and for actual commitments to be made.”
So far, the university has avoided requesting the help of police to clear the encampment by force, as happened at universities in Calgary and Edmonton over the weekend. But it has raised concerns about health and safety as well as “concerning incidents” in or around the encampment, including reported assaults and hate speech.
As attacks on Rafah continue, the U.S. secretary of state criticizes Israel’s war planning for not doing enough to protect civilians or stopping Hamas.
Israel’s war in Gaza began on Oct. 7 after a Hamas-led attack killed 1,200 people, many of whom were civilians, according to Israeli government tallies, including several Canadian citizens. About 250 people were taken hostage, with the Israeli government believing just under 130 are unaccounted for, with several confirmed dead and dozens repatriated after a late November pause in fighting.
Israel responded with an offensive that has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in Gaza. While the health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its death tolls, it says the majority of the dead have been women and children.
Seven months of fighting and Israeli restrictions on aid deliveries have led to famine in the north of Gaza. Aid organizations say the now nearly total cutoff of food, medicine and fuel, and the disruption from the Rafah offensive, have humanitarian operations across Gaza on the brink of collapse.