The lawsuit alleges the school violated the plaintiffs’ s. 2 Charter rights
A professor and two master's students at the University of Alberta have sued the university’s board, alleging the school violated their rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association when it called in police to forcibly remove a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus in 2024.
The April 10th lawsuit asks the Court of King's Bench of Alberta to declare that U of A’s conduct violated ss. 2(b), (c), and (d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The lawsuit was filed by Michael Litwack, an associate professor at U of A who identifies as Jewish, and by Noor Abdo and Mustapha Yassin, both master's students at the school when the encampment was removed. Both Abdo and Yassin are Palestinian Canadians whose families arrived in Canada as refugees.
According to their complaint, Abdo co-founded a student-led group to raise awareness of Palestinians being killed by Israeli military efforts in November 2023, roughly a month after Hamas kidnapped and killed Israeli civilians in a series of coordinated attacks on October 7. The group, Students for Justice in Palestine, held a vigil the same month to commemorate the Palestinian civilians killed by the Israeli military in the weeks that followed the October 7 attacks.
Ahead of the vigil, Abdo wrote to the university to inform them that an event would be taking place and to ask whether the group needed to notify anyone. U of A responded by publishing statements on its social media accounts and website that revealed the location of the vigil and characterized it as a threat to public safety, prompting Abdo’s group to move the event out of concern that it would attract counter protestors. Litwack and other members of Independent Jewish Voices, a Jewish advocacy organization, agreed to serve as marshals for the vigil. According to the lawsuit, the event was peaceful.
In December, U of A president Bill Flanagan published on the school’s faculty and staff blog, referencing the “conflict in the Middle East” and affirming the right of students, faculty, and staff to freedom of expression. Later that month, Litwack sent Flanagan an open letter signed by more than 1,000 students, faculty, staff, and alumni demanding an apology for the university’s statement about the vigil, among other demands. The letter also invited Flanagan to a town hall co-hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine and Independent Jewish Voices to discuss the letter.
Flanagan acknowledged that the vigil had been peaceful, but did not apologize and declined to attend the town hall, stating he did not believe it would lead to constructive dialogue, the lawsuit claimed.
In April 2024, Students for Justice in Palestine organized a peaceful, one-day sit-in on campus in solidarity with other pro-Palestine student encampments worldwide. The encampment was one of more than a dozen that cropped up on Canadian university campuses that spring.
After the success of the sit-in, the group established a longer encampment on campus called the People's University for Palestine. According to the lawsuit, the encampment was planned as a temporary measure and aimed to raise awareness of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the West Bank. The group also called for U of A to disclose its investments with Israeli institutions, divest from those institutions, and condemn Israel’s military actions in Gaza and the West Bank.
The lawsuit alleged that U of A repeatedly stated it would allow the encampment as long as it was peaceful. However, on the third day of the protest, Edmonton police officers dismantled the encampment, forcibly removed student and faculty protestors, and banned all the attendees – including the plaintiffs – from campus for a year. The move sparked backlash from student and faculty groups, with one U of A professor resigning from her role as associate dean in protest.
The following day, Flanagan published a statement acknowledging that most of the protestors had been peaceful and “posed no threat to public safety.” He said, however, that the school believed only a quarter of the protestors were U of A students and that many were collecting materials to erect barricades.
He added that when the encampment was dismantled, the school found potential weapons, including hammers, axes, and screwdrivers, and that it lacked the resources or expertise to manage a large encampment while ensuring public safety.
In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that Flanagan’s assertion that the encampment posed a risk to public safety was false. The school retained Adele Kent, a retired justice of the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta, to conduct an independent investigation of its conduct.
Kent’s report found that while U of A could have ended the encampment via an injunction or negotiations, which would have been preferable, the school was also legally entitled to call in the police.
The plaintiffs and the university did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
