Dana Seitler

As of July 2024, Seitler was listed on the UofT website as a “Professor of English and Director of the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto.” She was a UofT professor as early as 2014.

Defending Campus Anti-Israel Activists

Seitler signed a 2017 letter, condemning a decision by Fordham’s dean to block the establishment of a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter on campus. The letter was authored by the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organization.

In 2016, Fordham reportedly blocked the formation of a Fordham SJP chapter “based on the reported behavior of other [SJP] chapters on other campuses,” indicating that “the establishment of a local branch could be ‘polarizing’ and pose a safety concern to students and faculty.”

Signatories demanded that Fordham “immediately rescind the rejection of SJP as a student group on campus, apologize to the students affected by this harmful decision, and reaffirm Fordham’s commitment to free speech and academic freedom.” 

The petitioners also highlighted SJP’s BDS activity, characterizing SJP’s efforts to promote anti-Israel boycott as part of “a time-honored non-violent mode of political expression.” The petition accused Fordham’s administration of a “fundamental misunderstanding of what boycotts are, the purpose of a university, and the goals of SJP.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in cooperation with Palestine Legal (PL), and civil rights attorney Alan Levine sued Fordham on behalf of four students in April 2017. A New York court annulled Fordham’s decision in August 2019, mandating that the university recognize SJP as an official club. 
 
Fordham appealed the ruling to the NY State Supreme Court Appellate Division in January 2020. On July 24, 2020, Fordham SJP students filed a brief asking the appellate court to deny Fordham’s appeal of the lower court’s decision.
 
As of October 2020, a variety of groups, not directly involved in the case, filed amicus briefs with the Appellate Division for the court's consideration including JVP. 

Demonizing Israel

On January 23, 2018, Seitler was featured as a speaker at a Toronto, Canada book launch of anti-Israel Professor Jasbir Puar. 

The event launched two books written by Puar that demonized Israel. According to the book launch’s event page: “Puar's analysis culminates in an interrogation of Israel's policies toward Palestine, in which she outlines how Israel brings Palestinians into biopolitical being by designating them available for injury.” 

In July 2016, Seitler signed an open letter to the President of the University of Toronto (U of T) condemning him for allowing the publication of an article which praised Jerusalem’s innovative approach to city planning. 

Signatories of the letter wrote: “The article makes omissions that obscure the deeply unequal and contested nature of urban development in that city. Nowhere does the article address the well-documented demolition of Palestinian homes and expropriation of Palestinian lands that constitute the broader context for urban planning and development in Jerusalem.”

Defending Steven Salaita

Seitler signed an open letter, published on September 3, 2014, to University of Illinois (U of I) chancellor Phyllis Wise, expressing support for anti-Israel former professor Steven Salaita

The stated purpose of the letter was to “write regretfully, to inform you that we will not engage with the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign as speakers, as participants in conferences or other events, or as reviewers for the tenure and promotion of your faculty until you rescind the decision to block Professor Steven Salaita’s appointment.”

In 2014, The University of Illinois withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” In 2017, Salaita posted to Facebook: “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not…I will die unapologetic.” In February 2019, Salaita stated that he had become a school bus driver in the Washington, D.C., area.

Dana Seitler’s Support for the Pro-Hamas Encampment at UofT

Dana Seitler is a UofT professor who participated [slide 7] in an anti-Israel ceremony organized by the UofT encampment on June 3, 2024, graduation day at UofT. Protesters held the event to “honor all of those who could not graduate because of the genocide their university is funding.”

The ceremony was organized by UofT Occupy for Palestine, which according to their Instagram is a body of “Students calling for divestment from entities sustaining the attacks on Gaza + the occupation, apartheid, and illegal settlements of Palestine.”

On May 2, 2024, UofT Occupy for Palestine (Occupy UofT) activists “stormed down” fencing around UofT’s Kings College Circle and set up a pro-Hamas and pro-BDS encampment called the “People’s Circle for Palestine.” Protesters chanted [00:02:59] for “intifada” and celebrated “resistance” [00:02:45]. Both terms are calls for terrorism. Activists chanted [00:01:28; 00:02:21] for Israel’s destruction multiple times.

After the October 7, 2023 massacre of nearly 1,200 Israelis, the inverted red triangle -  - became a Hamas symbol. It appeared on large signs at the encampment and was featured in other encampment-related activism. Openly pro-Hamas marches began elsewhere in the city and ended at the encampment. In one incident, pro-Hamas activists punched a Jewish man, stole his Israeli flag and shouted anti-Semitic slurs.

BDS

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true. 

One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”  

Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”

In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”

The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.

BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.

The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.

Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.

BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.

http://www.english.utoronto.ca/facultystaff/facultyprofiles/seitler.htm [Deleted]