All Posts Tagged With: "University of Toronto"

Monarchist League counts 1,500 members under age 25

Photo courtesy of Theodore Scott on Flickr

The Monarchist League of Canada is attracting young people in numbers that may seem surprising, considering the image of royal-watchers as tea-sipping senior citizens. There are 1,500 people under the age of 25 among 10,000 members of the League, according to the Ottawa Citizen.

Not only that, there are active branches of the league on at least four university campuses: at Queen’s, Ottawa, Toronto and Saint Francis Xavier. Some oung members say that William and Kate are easy for young people to relate to. Others say it’s a way to show their patriotism.

Still, not everyone is excited about the upcoming visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. The Quebec Resistance Network expects 300 protesters when the couple visit that province in July.

City staff prefer “grass-roots solution” to noisy parties

Fraternity and sorority houses at the University of Toronto won’t have to deal with any new regulations. A city staff report says the houses can’t legitimately be labelled rooming houses or businesses, so they can’t be regulated under current laws. Local councillor Adam Vaughan had asked staff for to look into a licences scheme after complaints about late-night parties from neighbours of the two-dozen Greek system houses in the city’s expensive Annex neighbourhood.

The report also noted that there was “promise of a grass-roots solution,” something with which Vaughan says he agrees. Complaints are “way down” in the past year, from six problematic houses out of 24 to just “one or two,” he told the Toronto Star.

David Harrison, chair of the Annex Residents’ Association sounded less enthusiastic about the report, though he said he would consult with neighbours before releasing a full statement. He told The Star that the situation had improved only because they had “spent hours and hours and hours” working on it. He questioned what might happen if “self-regulation” were to fail in the future.

The most important test I’ll ever write?

Even though it’s been more than a week since my last exam, I can’t relax and fully embrace summer vacation. Some of my marks haven’t been posted yet, but that’s not the problem. And I’m pretty sure that I’m not suffering from Post-Exam Stress Disorder, which is usually caused by physics or chemistry exams (I only had biology courses this semester). The reason I can’t relax is because I’m now studying for one of the most important tests that I’ve ever written: the MCAT.

For most schools across Canada, a high GPA and solid extracurricular experience are usually given more weight than the MCAT. Some schools don’t even consider MCAT scores, such as the University of Ottawa and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. McMaster University only considers the Verbal Reasoning portion of the test, and although the University of Toronto requires applicants to write the MCAT, their score isn’t included in the overall academic calculation. Instead, it’s just used as a “flag” during the admissions process, with less than minimum marks possibly disqualifying the application.

When it comes to medical school admissions, an applicant’s MCAT score isn’t a universally-important deciding factor. But it’s still going to be one of the most important tests I’ve ever written.

For one thing, the MCAT is much more important to med schools in the States and abroad. And even if some schools don’t consider the MCAT in their admissions process (or they only use cut-off scores), it’s still important for many Canadian schools, such as the University of Western Ontario. This is especially true outside of Ontario- the University of British Columbia, the University of Calgary, and the University of Manitoba all consider MCAT scores, just to name a few.

So unlike my last summer vacation, the next couple of months won’t just be a combination of part time jobs and relaxing- I’ll also be preparing for the MCAT. And stressing out about the physical sciences section.

Opposition candidates boycott UTSU elections, alleging challengers were unfairly disqualified

Members of an opposition slate have decided to boycott the University of Toronto student union elections after four of its members were disqualified right out of the gate.

The inexcusable offense? Well, some say the challengers failed to buff their “DEMOCRACY NOW!” pins before the all-candidates meeting, and others allege they were caught with Facebook profile pictures other than the obligatory “shouting into a megaphone” photo required for all UTSU executives. Of course, I also heard something about an envelope being lick-sealed as opposed to tape-shut and murmurs about those students who “hate freedom.”

The official reason, though, and according to The Varsity, is that incorrect student numbers were listed on the nomination forms of the candidates, who are part of the StudentsFirst slate. That is, of the 200 names, student numbers, and signatures required for a successful nomination, there is an error in there somewhere, or so it seems. The UTSU-appointed Chief Returning Officer (no conflict there, right?) has apparently refused to show documents to the disqualified candidates, according to the release posted on their website.

So one of your supporters wrote an extra “2” in her student number by accident while signing your nomination form? Well, sucks for you, stupid! All that money you spent on posters and other promotional material going down the tubes. A pity. Here, cry into this “Working for Students” t-shirt.

But it gets better. Not only were the disqualified candidates barred from the all-candidates meeting (and so, even their nomination forms are later found to be valid, their absence from the meeting would be grounds for immediate disqualification) but so too was the media, according The Varsity. Varsity staffers Andrew Rusk and Tom Cardoso were told to exit the room by a deputy returning officer with a conspicuously absent last name. Then, according to inside sources, The Varsity begrudgingly went to consult with the Glavlit as participants finished up the meeting and staged a public book burning on the University College quad.

Fourteen opposition candidates have since decided to boycott the elections, according to StudentsFirst. “It’s clear that the democratic principle, which the UTSU claims to respect, is not being honoured,” Matthew Gray, (once) presidential candidate for StudentsFirst told The Varsity.  “They’re basically working to stifle opposition.”

Good luck, Matthew. And watch out for unmarked white vans.

The army has as much a right to recruit on campus as any other employer

A group of students at the University of Toronto are trying to stop the Canadian Forces from holding information sessions on campus on the grounds that they felt it was wrong to recruit students to be trained “to kill and to fight wars.”

With all due respect to the 30 students who felt strongly enough about the issue to show up and protest the information seminar: you’re all wrong.

The seminar being protested was being held behind closed doors and only students interested in hearing the information were in attendance. Recruiters did not station themselves in the middle of campus with megaphones, they did not stage drills in the quad as demonstrations of active duty and they did not interrupt class time.

What they did do was provide information on a legitimate career option for interested students.

This isn’t the first time that a relatively small group of students has taken it upon themselves to protect their peers from the so-called evils of military recruitment. Back in 2008, the University of Ottawa’s student newspaper was forced to turn down all advertising from the Department of National Defence after a small group of students forced policy through at the paper’s annual general meeting.

Melanie Wood, the paper’s editor at the time, had her head on straight. She told Metro newspaper that “university students should be able to judge an advertisement’s message for themselves, and have information from all sources upon which to base decisions.”

And that’s what students at the University of Toronto should be allowed to do, as well.

Everyone is allowed to have an opinion. The protesters are allowed to believe that the military is wrong, that the war in Afghanistan is an imperialist push into Asia and that killing in every form is an incorrigible evil. But they are not allowed to force their beliefs on their fellow students.

Post-secondary institutions across Canada are filled with bright, intelligent and agile minds who are capable of deciding what kinds of information they do and do not wish to receive. If those people are interested in pursuing a military career path, they have a right to do so, and a right to learn about it in the comfort of their campus.

Peto says she was attacked for being a ‘pro-Palestinian activist’

Jenny Peto has broken her silence on her controversial master’s thesis in which she attempts to prove that Holocaust education is used as a subversive method of indoctrination to justify Israeli apartheid.

Peto’s paper, “The Victimhood of the Powerful: White Jews, Zionism and the Racism of Hegemonic Holocaust Education,” has garnered international attention for claiming that two Holocaust remembrance programs are essentially instruments of Zionist propaganda. Major news outlets picked up on the story and Peto’s paper was even debated in provincial legislature last month. Many slammed “The Victimhood of the Powerful” for supposedly spreading hateful messages, and others, including myself, decried the sorry state of academic affairs at U of T’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) for awarding a master’s degree to a polemic riddled with unsubstantiated claims and wild extrapolations.

But according to Jenny Peto, who sat down with The Varsity to discuss the recent backlash, her paper was attacked simply because she was purporting unpopular ideas. “I think that this is about who I am as a pro-Palestinian activist and what I have to say,” she said, “which is very critical of Israel, very critical of mainstream pro-Israel institutions in Canada, and critical of what I see as an abuse of Holocaust memory to justify Israeli apartheid.” In other words, all of that talk of misleading claims and spreading hate was really just a guise for mainstream intolerance of pro-Palestinian ideas. I know; this whole thing is doused with concepts of the subliminal and subversive—just try to keep up.

Peto also defends her decision not to interview a single person affiliated with the two Holocaust remembrance programs central to her paper. She uses countless secondary sources to back her opinion that the March of Remembrance and Hope (MRH) and the March of the Living (MOL) instill a sense of victimhood in their participants and/or reinforce the uniqueness of the Holocaust, though none of her secondary sources directly reference the trips. Peto’s only sources of information specific to the programs in question are the pictures and testimonials on their websites. But it’s OK, she says, because no one else really does interviews anyway.

At a master’s level, very, very few people do huge human subject research, because you can’t just interview one or two people. [It's] the kind of research project that some PhD students, but mostly only faculty members with research assistants, undertake.

It’s a completely valid methodology and it’s completely acceptable, especially in the era of the Internet, to rely on publicly available information, such as websites, and doing a discursive analysis.

Perhaps it’s acceptable to omit human subject research for topics that–you know–don’t specifically require testimony as to what participants are being told once they get off the website and on the airplane. Or on the bus. Or walking through Auschwitz. None of that information is available through MRH’s or MOL’s website. And while it may not be typical of a master’s thesis to incorporate wide-spectrum interviews, it should certainly never be acceptable for a master’s thesis to be based on speculation, an unfortunate characteristic of Peto’s paper.

Continue reading Defending her Holocaust education is racist thesis

Academic freedom is not freedom from standards

Jennifer Peto’s Master’s thesis is getting the University of Toronto a lot of attention. Her paper entitled “The Victimhood of the Powerful: White Jews, Zionism and the Racism of Hegemonic Holocaust Education” is stirring up students and educators around the country, and even became a topic of discussion in provincial legislature. Peto argues that two Holocaust education programs, the March of Remembrance and Hope, which takes non-Jewish youth to visit Nazi death camps, and the March of the Living Canada, a similar trip for Jewish youth, are instruments of Zionist propaganda. In her abstract, Peto writes that these programs “obscure Jewish privilege, deny Jewish racism and promote the interests of the Israeli nation-state.”

Loosely translated, Peto’s thesis amounts to something in the realm of: “I’m onto you, you rich Jews. You’re using the Holocaust to deny your privileged status and pursue your Zionist exploits!” Actually, that language isn’t far from what Peto uses in her paper. But if Peto wants to spend her time typing foolishness at her laptop, that’s her choice. Academic freedom shouldn’t deny even the most nonsensical of pursuits. But academic freedom does not mean freedom from academic standards, and unfortunately, Peto’s paper seems to blur the line. After trudging through more than 100 pages of political hyperbole and unsubstantiated claims, it seems questions should be raised about the conception of academic standards at U of T’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) where Peto was awarded her master’s degree.

Unsupported claims pepper Peto’s paper. For example, she argues that youth on the March of the Living (MOL) trip are “taught that their whiteness can only be maintained through racism, both in supporting Israel and [. . .] benefiting from racism and imperialism in their home” [p.98]. Read that sentence again, bearing in mind that Peto did not interview a single MOL participant—nor did she speak with any organizers, tour guides or chaperones. Yet perhaps through some sort of hegemony-sniffing ESP, Peto knows these kids are taught racist ideas about upholding their whiteness and power through imperialism.

Since Peto didn’t speak with any actual participants before reporting on what they were learning, I decided I would speak to one myself. I was put in touch with a 19-year-old Queen’s University student who went on MOL three years ago, and, for 10 minutes, did more primary source research on the topic than Peto did for her entire Master’s thesis. To avoid getting swept up in the controversy, the student asked that her name be withheld.

One of the more striking positions Peto asserts in her paper is that MOL “works to produce young Jewish subjects who feel intensely threatened and victimized, despite the privilege they actually hold” [p.79].

Of course, Peto failed to cite the bar napkin from which she sourced that tidbit, so I asked the real life participant what she took from the experience: “Of course, there was an intense sadness,” the student told me. “But it made me want to stand up. Not just against what we were seeing but against all abuses of human rights.”

Referring to the trip’s chaperones, the student said, “They told us that as much as we say ‘never forget,’ similar things still happen today. We’re not on March of the Living to play a passive role.”

Intensely victimized? This testimony reveals the opposite. Perhaps another would too? Yet Peto scoffs off such primary research as “beyond the scope of this project” [p.82]. Another questionable assertion that Peto makes is that the “Holocaust industry” focuses on the “uniqueness of the Holocaust,” causing Jews “to focus too much on their own victimhood, thereby preventing them from using the Holocaust to see parallels with other struggles” [p.44].

Is this true?

“The organization sent us packages before we left for the trip,” the Queen’s past participant says. “There was a whole section on modern genocides; Rwanda and Darfur.”

Of course, this is just testimony from one individual. Yet it speaks to the Pandora’s Box of information that would be revealed from conducting actual interviews.

The list of unsubstantiated claims in Peto’s paper goes on. She arrives at the conclusion that the other program she reviews, the March of Remembrance and Hope, is a Zionist project even though it “does not mention Israel in their [sic] literature” [p.64]. She concludes that the program targets non-whites because pictures of non-white participants outnumber those of white participants on its website. And she even stretches her imagination so far as to assert, “The organizers of the MRH are highlighting Muslim participation in order to celebrate the production of a particular ‘good’ Muslim subject [who] engages in Holocaust education” [p.66]. That conclusion, in case you were wondering, was derived by clicking through a website.

OISE has every right to approve Peto’s thesis for exploration, but it does not have to accept the validity of her argument. Her conclusions are based on faulty evidence (when based on evidence at all) and rely on secondary resources unrelated to the two Holocaust education programs in question. The 19-year-old  past participant may not have a PhD or penned as many works as the authors referenced in Peto’s paper, but her testimony is immeasurably more relevant and appropriate for such an analysis. A master’s student should know that, and should have interviewed a wide spectrum of sources. It is distasteful that Peto chose to attack those hoping to promote good, unacceptable that she invoked unsubstantiated claims to support her statements, but it is contemptible that the OISE award a graduate degree for such a polemic.

Worries that efforts in the U.S. to limit enrollment of Asian students in top universities may migrate to Canada

When Alexandra and her friend Rachel, both graduates of Toronto’s Havergal College, an all-girls private school, were deciding which university to go to, they didn’t even bother considering the University of Toronto. “The only people from our school who went to U of T were Asian,” explains Alexandra, a second-year student who looks like a girl from an Aritzia billboard. “All the white kids,” she says, “go to Queen’s, Western and McGill.”

Alexandra eventually chose the University of Western Ontario. Her younger brother, now a high school senior deciding where he’d like to go, will head “either east, west or to McGill”—unusual academic options, but in keeping with what he wants from his university experience. “East would suit him because it’s chill, out west he could be a ski bum,” says Alexandra, who explains her little brother wants to study hard, but is also looking for a good time—which rules out U of T, a school with an academic reputation that can be a bit of a killjoy.

Or, as Alexandra puts it—she asked that her real name not be used in this article, and broached the topic of race at universities hesitantly—a “reputation of being Asian.”

Discussing the role that race plays in the self-selecting communities that more and more characterize university campuses makes many people uncomfortable. Still, an “Asian” school has come to mean one that is so academically focused that some students feel they can no longer compete or have fun. Indeed, Rachel, Alexandra and her brother belong to a growing cohort of student that’s eschewing some big-name schools over perceptions that they’re “too Asian.” It’s a term being used in some U.S. academic circles to describe a phenomenon that’s become such a cause for concern to university admissions officers and high school guidance counsellors that several elite universities to the south have faced scandals in recent years over limiting Asian applicants and keeping the numbers of white students artificially high.

Although university administrators here are loath to discuss the issue, students talk about it all the time. “Too Asian” is not about racism, say students like Alexandra: many white students simply believe that competing with Asians—both Asian Canadians and international students—requires a sacrifice of time and freedom they’re not willing to make. They complain that they can’t compete for spots in the best schools and can’t party as much as they’d like (too bad for them, most will say). Asian kids, meanwhile, say they are resented for taking the spots of white kids. “At graduation a Canadian—i.e. ‘white’—mother told me that I’m the reason her son didn’t get a space in university and that all the immigrants in the country are taking up university spots,” says Frankie Mao, a 22-year-old arts student at the University of British Columbia. “I knew it was wrong, being generalized in this category,” says Mao, “but f–k, I worked hard for it.”

That Asian students work harder is a fact born out by hard data. They tend to be strivers, high achievers and single-minded in their approach to university. Stephen Hsu, a physics prof at the University of Oregon who has written about the often subtle forms of discrimination faced by Asian-American university applicants, describes them as doing “disproportionately well—they tend to have high SAT scores, good grades in high school, and a lot of them really want to go to top universities.” In Canada, say Canadian high school guidance counsellors, that means the top-tier post-secondary institutions with international profiles specializing in math, science and business: U of T, UBC and the University of Waterloo. White students, by contrast, are more likely to choose universities and build their school lives around social interaction, athletics and self-actualization—and, yes, alcohol. When the two styles collide, the result is separation rather than integration.

The dilemma is this: Canadian institutions operate as pure meritocracies when it comes to admissions, and admirably so. Privately, however, many in the education community worry that universities risk becoming too skewed one way, changing campus life—a debate that’s been more or less out in the open in the U.S. for years but remains muted here. And that puts Canadian universities in a quandary. If they openly address the issue of race they expose themselves to criticisms that they are profiling and committing an injustice. If they don’t, Canada’s universities, far from the cultural mosaics they’re supposed to be—oases of dialogue, mutual understanding and diversity—risk becoming places of many solitudes, deserts of non-communication. It’s a tough question to have to think about.

*This article was originally titled “‘Too Asian’?” For our response to the controversy it has generated, click here.

Legion KKK costume sparks memories of last year’s blackface controversy at U of T

A couple of geniuses decided to attend a Campbellford, Ontario, Royal Canadian Legion Halloween party this year dressed as a Klan member and slave. After allegedly sticking their fingers in electrical outlets and licking frozen telephone polls, the pair decided it would be a good idea for one man to don a Klu Klux Klan robe and lead around his partner—who would be in full blackface makeup—using a rope leash. Yes, Sonny and Cher costumes are apparently “out” in the Campbellford region this season.

As if the gag wasn’t enough on its own, the pair was awarded the top prize for best costume at the party. (I’m gonna go ahead and assume that the runners-up were something like a priest and a little boy duo, and a giant penis, respectively.) The celebration for the men ended, however, when the media caught wind of the unfortunate charade and the Ontario Provincial Police were brought in to investigate. The Legion and the individuals involved have since apologized.

So, does this debacle sound familliar to anyone?

Last year, a group of University of Toronto students caused a national stir when they dressed up as “The Jamaican Bobsled Team” from the movie Cool Runnings for a Halloween pub night. Four white students wore dark makeup and one black student wore white makeup to look like the characters they were supposedly portraying. The group won a “Costume of the Night” award, but again, their celebration was short-lived.

Soon after a local blog dropped the word “blackface,” the story appeared on national newscasts, in newspapers, and on the tip of many peoples’ tongues at the University of Toronto.  Several different groups at U of T requested apologies from the men themselves, as well as the colleges that hosted the event and awarded the prize. Students also held a public shaming town hall meeting to discuss the event, and word on campus was that a puppy cried well into the night for days following the incident.

Yes, the Jamaican Bobstead Team costume was an unfortunate choice that happened to offend some people. The students had probably never heard of the concept of blackface and were genuinely trying to look like ‘Sanka” and his pals without giving thought to the sociocultural implications. While ignorance is no excuse, of course, this more recent Campbellford costume controversy illustrates the difference between trying to resemble characters from a movie and making light of serious racial issues of yesterday and today. The former is more “teachable moment” than “disgusting display.” And as for the latter…

In any case, while dressing up as a character who happens to be black is not the same as dressing up as a “black character,” some would argue that neither case should be exonerated. Beyond that, others actually believe the issue could be criminal. Not just stupid, illegal! (Somewhere in the country, ears are perking up at Human Rights Tribunal headquarters.) Which leads me to wonder: was the OPP just out to lunch when the U of T students were knotting their dreds last year?

A plan to dismantle Northrop Frye founded Centre for Comparative literature has been shelved–for now

Students and faculty at the University of Toronto are celebrating after an annoucement that plans to dismantle the prestigious Centre for Comparative Literature may be reversed. Over the summer, the Faculty of Arts and Science released an Academic Plan that would have seen several departments and centres either closed or stripped of their autonomy. Those proposals are now being given a second look. The Centre was founded by Northrop Frye in 1969.

Among the proposed changes in the Academic Plan was the creation of a new School of Languages and Literature that would have housed six previously autonomous units, such as East Asian Studies, German and Spanish and Portuguese. The proposal had drawn international criticism in part because it included the disestablishment of the Centre for Comparative Literature. Students would have still be able to study each language, but not under the auspices of an independent department.

On Wedenesday, Meric Gertler, Dean of Arts and Science met with the chairs of all the units that would have been affected by a new school of languages, and agreed to explore other options. Although some reports suggested that the initial proposal has been taken off the table and that departmental independence has been officially preserved, Gertler says the results of the meeting were more nuanced than that. “It’s a bit premature to say definitively that we have found another model,” he said.

For now the units have been tasked with developing plans for boosting undergraduate enrolment in the languages, finding ways to pool teaching resources, improve graduate student recruitment and streamling administration costs. If the faculty’s goals can be reached without creating a new school of languages, then units are likely to keep their autonomy. “This is exactly the type of discussion we were hoping to have,” Gertler said.

Neil ten Kortenaar, director of the Centre, is optimistic about the future of comparative literature at U of T. “I’m glad that the languages are being listened to and that the tension is over,” he said. Similarly, Jonathan Allan, a PhD student in comparative literature is thrilled by the announcement. “After all this fighting, it’s great to see the dean listened to people in the languages.”

John Zilcosky, chair of the German department, is also confident. “My sense leaving the meeting is that our departmental status has been preserved,” he said.

Students and faculty had launched a campaign opposing the Academic Plan that included soliciting letters from academics around the world, circulating a petition that had over 7,000 signatures, and designating certain people responsible for keeping in touch with news media. The University of Toronto Faculty Association called the situation a “crisis” and had filed a griveance against the Plan.

In August, Allan was worried that closing the centre would handicap him on the job market, as his degree would have come from a program that technically was no longer in existence. Today, he is more confident. “This will bode well for those of us who are about to graduate from comp. lit. It shows that we are successful in academics, but also in university politics,” he said.

The Centre for Ethics and the Centre for Transnational and Diaspora Studies were also put on the block, but now look as if they will survive, but will have to streamline their budgets.