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Gayatri Spivak

Overview

Gayatri Spivak, University of Toronto, Supporting UofT encampment

Gayatri Spivak [Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak] showed support for the pro-Hamas encampment at the University of Toronto (UofT) in May 2024. She is also a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Spivaks’s activism took place during Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists. Israel launched the war, called called “Swords of Iron,” after a series of Hamas terror attacks and war crimes against Israeli civilians, including mass murder, torture, rape, beheadings and kidnappings. The atrocities were executed on October 7, 2023, and left approximately 1,200 Israelis dead, hundreds kidnapped and thousands wounded.

As of August 2024, Spivak was listed on the Columbia University (Columbia) website as a university professor in the humanities in the Department of English and Comparative Literature and a founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society (ICLS). Columbia is located in New York, New York.

As of the same date, Spivak was listed online as having received an honorary doctoral degree from UofT in 2000.
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Support for the Pro-Hamas Encampment at UofT

In May 2024, Spivak showed support for the pro-Hamas encampment at UofT.

Spivak showed support for the encampment by signing on to a statement put out by UofT community members in May 2024 [row 3, third photo]. The May 20, 2024 statement was part of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The statement backed all the encampment’s demands, including divesting from the alleged “apartheid policies of the state of Israel and its ongoing genocide in Gaza.”

To show support, Spivak submitted a “support selfie,” where text beside her face said: “DISCLOSE. DIVEST. CUT TIES.”

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.

Protesters occupied [00:00:17] the area from May to July 2024, despite UofT warning they were trespassing. On July 3, 2024, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice issued an injunction at UofT’s request, requiring the encampment to be cleared. Occupy UofT dismantled the encampment and wrote a statement that ended: “Long live the intifada.”

Anti-Israel Activism (BDS)

On January 5, 2017, Spivak was featured in a video promoting a resolution that called on the Modern Language Association (MLA) to boycott Israel. 

In the video, Spivak stated: “I support this boycott…[00:02:52] because I think it is a case of global injustice” and that [00:03:02] “the situation of injustice is exacerbating under the current administration of Israel and it does seem to me that it is our obligation to stand up against injustice as intellectuals.”

In 2016, Spivak signed an open letter calling for the academic boycott of Israel. 

The open letter was addressed to the Modern Language Association (MLA), “calling on the association to pass a resolution endorsing the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”

In January 2017, the MLA Delegate Assembly approved a resolution (2017-1) acknowledging “the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel contradicts the MLA’s purpose” and conflicted with another resolution (2002-1), that condemned boycotts against scholars. Therefore, the Assembly “resolved that the MLA refrain from endorsing the boycott.”  

In an article published on April 21, 2016, by the Columbia University newspaper, Spivak was cited as one of the university’s professors who had signed a petition calling on the university to divest from Israel.

The petition, circulated in February 2016, demanded: “Columbia divest from eight specific corporations ‘that profit from the State of Israel’s ongoing system of settler colonialism, military occupation, and apartheid law’ as part of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement.”

In April 2015, Spivak led an initiative in opposition to a speaking event featuring French philosopher, Monique Canto-Sperber, because of Canto-Sperber’s anti-BDS activism. 

In an article published in November 2015 by the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) celebrating the 10 year anniversary of BDS, Spivak was cited as one of its academic supporters. 

In June 2014, Spivak signed a letter to the artists group “Living as Form,” that encouraged its participants to cancel their exhibition at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology and join the BDS movement.

The letter was part of a larger initiative calling for artists to boycott Israel. In multiple articles written about the effort, Spivak was cited as one of its leaders.

In a press release published by the BDS Movement on January 12, 2010, Spivak was cited as one of the organization’s “academic endorsers.”

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.



Gayatri Spivak
Status:
Professor
University:
Columbia,
more...
Toronto
Organizations:
BDS

Related Profiles:
Marianne Hirsch,

Last Modified:
06/23/2025

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