A review of the University of Toronto’s policies and practices has found the school has a “general pattern of over-policing and under-protecting” Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians, with a report laying out dozens of recommendations related to academic freedom, on-campus security methods, institutional autonomy and other concerns.
The university, however, says it cannot accept the report or recommendations issued by its Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian discrimination working group, which it says “departs significantly from past equity reports in several ways,” such as including “lengthy commentary about events abroad.”
The school nonetheless promises to take immediate actions to address discrimination against those groups at the university.
The nearly 300-page report is based on consultations with 85 people and small groups as well as 525 responses to a survey of students, staff, faculty and librarians across the school’s three campuses. These were carried out between March of last year and January.
The university says it received the working group’s final report a month ago and is releasing it as part of its commitment to transparency. Both the report and the school’s response were shared online Thursday.
The report describes restrictions on speech and events, inconsistent processes in dealing with complaints, and double standards in enforcement related to protests and postering, as well as repeated complaints about the university’s successful litigation to get rid of a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus two years ago.
Similarly, there were recurring concerns that “the university’s institutional commitment to radical, critical teaching and research suffers from a Palestine exception,” the report said.
The working group also heard about bigoted attitudes and assumptions steeped in stereotypes painting Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians as terrorists, misogynists and antisemites, it said.
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“The most prevalent pattern we encountered, however, was a generalized ignorance of the histories, cultures, and lived experiences of Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians, and the ways in which anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian discrimination and harassment take shape,” the report said.
“Relatedly, we learned about instances when innovative research or outreach activities on issues of interest to Muslim, Arab, or Palestinian members of the university were viewed as instances of antisemitism calling for disciplinary action.”
The report lists 57 recommendations that include reviewing safety and risk metrics and how they get applied; ensuring that protests and postering are policed in a content-neutral manner; issuing stronger guidance to administrators on procedural fairness in handling complaints and regarding the cancellation or postponement of events that have already been scheduled.
Other recommendations relate to addressing concerns of bias in the university’s partnerships with organizations such as school boards that accept student-teacher placements and hospitals involved in affiliation agreements. One example cited in the report says that many clinical faculty reported “being cited for unprofessionalism when signing an open letter supporting medical workers in Gaza.”
The report makes further recommendations regarding the university’s investments, including that it “consider an absolute prohibition on investments that aid and/or abet violations of peremptory norms of international law.”
The consultations showed that “what happens around the world has implications locally on our campus, in our hallways, and in our classrooms,” the report said.
“Our consultations began in 2025 as Israel continued its campaign of large-scale violence in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran. University members explained how their experiences on campus were refracted through this global conflict and its history,” it said.
“Many reflected on the university in light of published reports from human rights organizations, genocide scholars, international lawyers, and multilateral and international bodies that increasingly described Israel’s actions in Gaza as apartheid and/or genocide.”
In a written response, the university acknowledged that anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian discrimination exists at the school and said it is committed to addressing the issue.
Still, it’s understandable that the working group and the university administration wouldn’t fully agree on the range of issues raised in the report, “nor about the ideal responses to those issues – particularly given the fraught circumstances, passionate feelings, and ongoing global conflict informing many of the situations described,” it said.
“While we expect that the working group’s report will validate the experiences of many members of our community, aspects will also be offensive and upsetting to other members of our community, including some Jewish and Israeli colleagues and students,” it said.
The school cited multiple reasons for rejecting the report and its recommendations, including that some recommendations clash with collective agreements and protections related to academic freedom, some fall outside the university’s jurisdiction, and some don’t align with the university’s “position of institutional restraint.”
The university said it already offers spaces that Muslim communities can use for prayer and spiritual practice, but will do more work to ensure there are appropriate Muslim prayer spaces and multi-faith spaces on each of its three campuses.
The school’s new office of human rights, equity and inclusion will also release an e-module on discrimination against Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians, and hold an information session for members of its governing council.
“The university has supported and is committed to continued support for a range of scholarly activities, including research related to Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian communities, as well as academic initiatives focused on Palestinian history and culture,” it said.
