Toronto, ON — A group of current and former students from the Lincoln Alexander School of Law at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) has filed a $10-million defamation lawsuit against the university, alleging that it falsely accused them of antisemitism in response to a letter expressing solidarity with Palestine.
The lawsuit, filed by ten students and represented pro bono by a team of five lawyers including attorney Dimitri Lascaris, claims that TMU’s public statement in October 2023 defamed the students, discriminated against them, and breached the university’s commitment to providing a progressive legal education.
The dispute stems from an open letter dated October 20, 2023, which was signed by 74 individuals — including 35 who publicly identified themselves — in the early days of the war in Gaza. The letter expressed “unequivocal solidarity with Palestine” and criticized the law school’s neutral stance on the conflict following Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. It condemned institutions that denounced Hamas while remaining “silent on the historic and ongoing war crimes committed by Israel.”
Within days, the letter became public and the Lincoln Alexander School of Law issued a statement distancing itself from the students, saying it did not endorse or condone their views and describing the letter as containing “sentiments of antisemitism and intolerance.” That statement remains published on the school’s website.
A subsequent third-party review by retired Chief Justice J. Michael MacDonald determined that none of the students involved had breached TMU’s code of conduct. In his review, MacDonald wrote that although the letter was “understandably troubling and offensive to many,” it was “a valid exercise of student expression and therefore protected under the University’s Statement on Freedom of Speech.”
The plaintiffs are seeking $5 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages, arguing that the university’s statement damaged their reputations and careers. In a statement to the media, the group called TMU’s characterization “a defamatory misrepresentation” and demanded a formal retraction and apology.
Their lawsuit comes less than a month after the United Nations Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. The students said their opposition to the war has been wrongly conflated with antisemitism, stating: “Opposition to genocide is not antisemitism.”
Lascaris criticized what he described as a broader trend in Canadian higher education of suppressing criticism of Israel. “Our clients are appalled at the degree to which universities and other education institutions around the country are suppressing criticism of Israel’s genocide. As a society, we have entered truly dangerous territory when students of higher learning cannot condemn a genocide without having their names and reputations dragged through the mud,” he said in an email to TorontoToday.