The McGill Daily’s Attack on Opinion
“We must beware of a tyranny of opinion which tries to make only one side of a question the one which may be heard. Everyone is in favour of free speech. Hardly a day passes without it being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.” – Winston Churchill
In a time of budget cuts to student journalism we do not criticize other student-run papers lightly. We always support the voices of students who want to be heard, and will protect the rights of students to have their opinions expressed. As the largest student paper on campus, we expect the McGill Daily to do the same.
Earlier this semester, two of our law classmates were silenced by the McGill Daily for their critique of the glossary of socio-political terms that appeared in the September 3rd issue of the Daily. The Daily published its definition of Zionism as “represent(ing) a racist attitude and violent practice against Palestinians” that “only recognizes Israeli/Jewish hegemony and legitimacy to self-determination in Palestine.” Incredulously, the McGill Daily urged readers to learn more about Zionism by visiting the website of the BDS Movement, which is akin to asking people to learn more about feminism by watching Jordan Peterson lectures. There is a spectrum of Zionist perspectives, and to label all Zionists as racist colonialists is irresponsible and unbecoming of any respectable paper.
Zionism appears to be too hot a subject on university campuses these days to examine comprehensively in an Editor’s Note, but suffice it to say that the McGill Daily definition of Zionism is extreme and has the potential to cast any McGill student who identifies as a Zionist as a “violent racist”. With such a slanted description of Zionism, the Daily must have been prepared to respond to students who disagreed with their definition. Two law students wrote a balanced and nuanced opinion letter to the Daily titled “Response to McGill Daily on Zionism”, in which they declared: “Zionism is the national movement of the Jewish people to express their right to self-determination. Nothing more, nothing less.” The McGill Daily refused to publish the opinion as it considered the letter to be “Zionist”.
The authors of the opinion rightly believed that the Daily was in violation of its own letters policy and turned to university administrators for help. After deputy provost Fabrice Labeau intervened, the letter was finally published in the November 4th issue of the McGill Daily. However, the letter was accompanied by a lengthy slanderous response from the McGill Daily editorial board titled “Our Response”, which apologized for having to publish the law students’ letter and read egregious claims into it.
Silencing students is one matter, mischaracterising and unjustly attacking students who pay fees to the McGill Daily is another issue. For defending their definition of Zionism in an opinion piece, our classmates were libelously slurred by the McGill Daily editors, who stated that there was “inherent anti-Arab racism and dehumanization of Palestinian people present in this letter”. I invite Quid readers to examine both the “Response to McGill Daily on Zionism” and “Our Response” and determine which of the two articles is more likely to expose McGill students to prejudice on campus.
It was disreputable that the McGill Daily editors refused to publish the opinions of students with whom they disagreed with. However it is even more deplorable that the Daily felt the need to attack these students through a fanatical interpretation of their opinion. To my knowledge, this is the only opinion letter ever published in the McGill Daily that has been accompanied by a letter from Daily staff admonishing fellow students.
The Quid Novi will never stand for radical censorship and the libellous targeting of students. We fully support the rights of law students to have their voices heard, and invite you to submit your opinions to our paper.