Students call for boycott of McGill summer course in Israel
SPHR McGill denounces university for relaunch of summer exchange program with Israeli university
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Students at McGill University have started an email campaign to prevent Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and Israeli students from coming to the university’s campus.
The campaign, first started by Students for Palestine's Honour and Resistance (SPHR) McGill, aims to boycott a summer exchange course between McGill and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI).
In their campaign, SPHR McGill accused the university of secretly restarting the POLI 339 course despite previous student attempts to shut it down. In a press release, the group then claimed that McGill has doubled down on its complicity regarding the Palestinian genocide.
“While students in Gaza fight for the lives of themselves and their families, McGill has invited the facilitators of genocide to spread their genocidal agenda at our university,” the press release reads.
According to a SPHR McGill Instagram post, Israeli exchange students are supposed to visit McGill from Aug. 1 to Aug. 22.
History repeats itself
The email campaign is not the first attempt to shut down the course. In April 2019, students organized a sit-in to protest the course and demand its cancellation.
The course requires enrolled students to pay a mandatory fee of $1,000, which needs to be approved by the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) of McGill University.
In late January 2019, the AUS council voted 14 against and 13 for holding the summer course. According to reports from The McGill Daily, those in favour of the course cited “academic opportunity,” while those against claimed it “discriminated against Palestinian students, Arab students, and students who oppose the Israeli occupation of Palestine, as they could be denied entry at the border and detained by Israeli officials.”
Accusations of scholasticide and complicity
In a 2024 statement, the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees criticized numerous Israeli universities for their complicity in genocide.
HUJI, in particular, was criticized as one of its campuses was partially built on land illegally expropriated from Palestinian owners in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem. The university has also hosted a military base on its campus to offer academic training to IDF soldiers.
The Link has reached out to McGill for comment, but has yet to receive a response as of the time of publication.
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