I’ve been an activist for thirty-five years now, and this is the first time I’ve been threatened with legal action for speaking on a panel.

It is hard to believe that Concordia University rector Frederick Lowy will be able to get an injunction to stop me and two Members of Parliament from speaking on the Middle East. Yet, he has told the media that he will seek such an injunction if Svend Robinson, Libby Davies and I go through with our plan to speak at a Concordia Student Union-sponsored talk on Israel and Palestine on Friday.

I have just received a copy of a lawyer’s letter sent to the CSU stating: “Our client [the university] will take every step necessary to enforce its moratorium and prevent the speech from taking place.”

Of course, we knew that the panel discussion was designed to break the ban on speech relating to the Middle East at Concordia. For me, it is not only a question of defending free speech, which is important enough, but also an issue of who controls the university. Concordia students, staff, administration and faculty voted, through the Senate, to lift the ban. It was the Board of Governors, dancing to the tune of corporate donors, that refused to lift the ban.

I was part of a student democracy movement in the 1960s that fought for students to have a say in the governance of their universities. It began in Berkeley, California, and was called the Free Speech Movement. By inviting us onto campus, the Concordia Student Union (CSU) is continuing that important tradition. If activism can be banned because of corporate donors, then corporate control of our society will have taken a giant leap forward.

And the ban is not only affecting events on the Middle East. CSU VP Yves Engler is facing expulsion for distributing flyers advertising the Canadian Federation of Student’s Day of Action against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA.) What’s next? We’re on the eve of a war against Iraq, perhaps Concordia’s Board of Governors will decide that anti-war activity is not conducive to raising money from the corporate elite either.

I have a more personal reason to participant in this panel, too.

Last June, I went to the Occupied Territories with the president and a vice-president of the CSU. Sabine Friesinger, Aaron Maté and I were a part of a mission sponsored by Montreal-based NGO Alternatives. We went so we could speak out here about what we saw there. The ban at Concordia has prevented Sabine and Aaron from telling these stories. So, I feel a personal responsibility to speak on their behalf.

Using their profile and privilege as elected MPs, Svend Robinson and Libby Davies are doing just what leftwing politicians should do. Working with a student group and providing visibility for their fight against repression is the height of political responsibility.

Lowy has called our presence on campus “an inflammatory interruption.” He claims that everything has been calm on campus since the ban.

At what price?

Freedom of speech is our most basic democratic right. Sometimes it causes conflict and discomfort. But that is never a reason to suppress it. I hope that everyone in the Montreal area will come to Concordia on Friday at 2 p.m. to stand with the CSU for freedom of speech and an end to corporate control of the university.

Judy Rebick

Judy Rebick

Judy Rebick is one of Canada’s best-known feminists. She was the founding publisher of rabble.ca , wrote our advice column auntie.com and was co-host of one of our first podcasts called Reel Women....