The UBC Vancouver Senate agenda on Wednesday night had four items regarding how escalating pushes for UBC to “cut” affiliations with academic institutions in Israel could be addressed.
The first was the recent correspondence from the AMS — an open letter stating that the AMS supports cutting ties with Israeli universities. The second was a motion to suspend Senate rules and call a special meeting in June to consider the third item, a motion from Senator Drédyn Fontana, which asked senators to end partnerships with three Israeli institutions. The text of the same motion also asks to end relationships with any state-funded or state-supporting institution if an international court has found that state “to be in breach of the international legal prohibition on racial segregation or apartheid.”
The fourth item, which was brought forward in session and was not on the agenda, was a motion from Senator Charles Menzies to refer Fontana’s motion to the Agenda Committee for further discussion.
Confused? So were some senators. President Benoit-Antoine Bacon admitted it was “a bit complicated” during the meeting.
The first item: 6:11 p.m.
Campus social justice groups — Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights UBC, the Social Justice Centre, Faculty 4 Palestine and Apartheid Free Communities UBC, among others — have been pushing UBC for greater recognition of the ongoing war crimes in Palestine, clarity on the university’s stance and divestment from corporations and companies that they, citing the UN, say have been complicit in genocide and occupation for years. In March, AMS elections saw a referendum on the ballot asking students whether they supported the student union sending an open letter to Senate urging it to vote to “cut ties with Israeli universities that uphold apartheid."
Nearly 9,000 students voted in favour of sending the letter in principle, binding the AMS to follow through on writing it. It was published earlier last week.
The referendum was organized by a coalition of advocacy groups who say three academic institutions that UBC has current ties with — Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) and Tel Aviv University — uphold an apartheid regime that discriminates against Palestinians. At the AMS meeting where the referendum was tabled, student organizer Dayla Hart argued that UBC’s student exchange program with Tel Aviv University is “not an opportunity that is actually open to anyone who chooses to take it. Because someone like me, I'm white, I'll be fine, but my Arab Canadian friends will not have that same opportunity without facing incredible discrimination and literal threats to life. So we, by having this relationship with these universities, are extending that apartheid racism here to our fellow students.”
UBC has student mobility partnerships with Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, and Technion — students from UBC can study at those institutions and earn credits toward their UBC degree, and vice versa. Currently, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University’s pages on the Go Global website have a travel warning, saying “travel to Israel is not currently permitted, the current advisory level is level 4: 'Avoid all travel,'” based on the federal government's advice.
Technion’s Advanced Defense Research Institute published a report in 2025 noting their success in turning “academic concepts into operational solutions for the battlefield, demonstrating the power of collaboration between academia and the military.”
When the AMS's letter was first mentioned on the Senate floor, President Bacon asked senators to hold off discussion on the letter itself until the Agenda Committee's motion was brought up later on in the meeting. Nobody objected, and the meeting carried on.
The second item: 6:19 p.m.
In a memo to senators, the Agenda Committee said it was recommending a special meeting on Fontana’s motion after it concluded the Senate’s current schedule did not provide “enough time to prepare for or have sufficient background information to consider this matter.”
Motions like Fontana’s are not without precedent. Four years ago, Senator Charles Menzies introduced a motion to “cease, until further notice, all forms of academic relations (such as research collaborations, student exchanges, and administrative partnerships) with Russian entities, be they civilian, governmental or otherwise,” in the context of the country’s invasion of Ukraine that same year.
“It's only symbolic but I think it's an important act of symbolism in the current state of affairs in the world,” said Menzies in 2022. Then, the motion was referred to the Academic Policy Committee and the Research and Scholarship Committee. The following month, the motion was reintroduced in the form of two more targeted motions, both of which were passed almost unanimously.
In 2024, Senator Jasper Lorien tabled a petition signed by 18 senators asking for a special meeting to debate a motion they, alongside Senator Brenna Bhandar, brought forward. That motion asked the Senate to terminate academic partnerships with Israeli institutions, as the April 15 motion did. Bhandar said at the time the motion was similar in principle to the approved 2022 Russia motion — and specified it was unrelated to the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement.
It ultimately failed, and Senate discussions about severing ties with Israeli institutions had stalled until recently.
On Wednesday, Senators Ben Britton, Siobhán McElduff, Paul Harrison, Byran Buraga, Sarah Kamal, and Fontana all spoke in favour of holding a special meeting. Britton argued that senators were facing exam season and the upcoming docket indicated a need for a special meeting where a “fulsome, fair and engaged discussion” could take place.
McElduff said, “If we want students to be involved in university governance, then we need to face [the] issues that they feel are of great concern, even if that requires an exceptional meeting.” Harrison said a special meeting could be an opportunity for Senate “to actually discuss where we might have policy gaps that might help us address issues like this in the future.” He added that “It seems like we’re not able to make a decision based on principles and policies that we have … that, for me, necessitates a special meeting.”
Senator Menzies disagreed and said that more time would not change people’s minds on how to vote. “I'm just suggesting that we move forward. We don't change the rules … I think logistically it makes most sense just to do it today,” he said. He was joined by Senator Joanne Fox — chair of the Admissions Committee, which oversees partnerships — who also did not support a special meeting. “Senate's mandate is academic decision-making, and calling special meetings to debate politically motivated motions risks drawing Senate into areas that compromise this role,” she said. “It also places senators in the position of being subjected to external lobbying and political pressure, and I believe that this negatively affects our Senate environment and our collective ability to make sound independent academic judgments.”
Fox’s comments echo similar sentiments shared by the Jewish Academic Alliance British Columbia (JAABC), which published a statement two days before the Senate meeting condemning the content of Fontana’s motion — “above all, we believe that the UBC Senate should serve the interests of the entire UBC community without having to face down relentless obstructionism. The proposed motion runs counter to the values that British Columbians expect UBC to uphold. We call on the UBC Senate to recommit to its academic mission, including the protection of academic freedom, and democratic processes.”
Senators Laura Moss and Britton both mentioned they had been receiving a significant volume of lobbying. Britton said, “we want to make sure that we are engaging with community and soliciting voices, and as I'm sure [like] most of my senator colleagues, our inboxes have been deluged as of recently.” Senator Moss said she had received 125 emails in the last three days. “There's a large amount of feedback coming in,” she said.
Senator Fontana intervened “to remind everyone that this is not about whether we're having a debate. It's about whether the debate will be delayed to June. If this motion fails, it's on the agenda for tonight.”
The motion required a two-thirds majority. It failed by two votes, 43–24.
The third item: 6:57 p.m.
Since the special meeting was not approved, Senate business carried on, and the substance of Fontana’s motion was now on the floor. Bacon took a moment to “advise the Senate that the motion came quite last minute” and said he thought Senate recognized “that having a discussion tonight was not the best path.”
“I'm struck by the comments of Senator Harrison about principles … I'm feeling that nothing good can come from jumping into this cold here tonight,” said Bacon.
Senator Fontana’s motion asked Senate to recommend to the Council of Senates and Board of Governors the “complete termination of all existing institutional partnerships, MOUs, and research agreements” between UBC and the same Israeli academic institutions identified in the AMS referendum — Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Techion (Israel Institute of Technology) and Tel Aviv University.
The motion argued that students and faculty “who hold documents that indicate Palestinian or Arab identity” would be “subjected to discriminatory treatment including segregated checkpoints, restricted access to infrastructure, roadways, and services including health care, and exclusive subjection to a military legal system,” in Israel, and such treatment violates UBC’s discrimination policy and the BC Human Rights Code. It cited an opinion from the International Court of Justice, a report from Amnesty International and an investigation conducted by a UN Special Rapporteur.
Since 2023, organizers have argued that UBC and the Vancouver Senate have displayed a double standard by weighing in on Russia’s war on Ukraine but failing to demonstrate equivalent concern for Gaza. Senator Menzies said during the meeting that he disagrees with those comparisons, but said the way the 2022 motion was dealt with can be helpful to guide the current discussion. He said that referring Fontana’s motion back to committee “stands out as a possibility,” — and then entered a fourth motion onto Senate’s floor.
The fourth item: 7:01 p.m.
Menzies asked to move Fontana's motion to be referred to the Agenda Committee Senator Sathish Gopalakrishnan said the Agenda Committee would be the “inappropriate” committee for the issue. Multiple senators expressed confusion about the motion in general.
“I thought the Agenda Committee was handling this because they wanted to propose this special meeting. So now it's going back to the Agenda Committee … if it's going back to the Agenda Committee, and this group [Apartheid Free Communities UBC] is talking, what are they doing together?” asked Senator Ingrid Price.
In an interview with The Ubyssey, Senator Lorien, who, speaking as chair of the Agenda Committee, said the motion was originally brought to their committee they were provided with a notice of motion — a request from a senator to table a motion onto Senate’s floor. Senate’s rules and procedures state that “the Agenda Committee shall be responsible for considering
and making a recommendation [for the notice of motion] to the Senate by its next meeting.”
After a 10-minute recess, Senate held a vote on Menzies’ motion to refer Fontana’s motion to the Agenda Committee. The vote was successful.
Senate adjourned: 7:27 p.m.
In an interview with The Ubyssey after the meeting, Senator Fontana said he went in expecting to have a June special meeting.“ I do believe that we should take the time to have a nuanced conversation.” He added that he is not disappointed. “The work continues … you have to take these things in stride.”
Lorien, speaking as an individual senator, said the motion “is deserving of really fulsome, thoughtful discussion where there is time to, for example, receive correspondence from the community, listen to that [correspondence] and listen to the wider community … if it was to be brought forward and to be voted on or discussed [as] other business today, I was pretty confident that it would have failed. And that’s, from a very personal perspective, not what I want to see. I think that this is one of the great moral litmus tests of our time.”
Fontana told The Ubyssey he understands that in addition to being referred back to the Agenda Committee, Provost Gage Averill — who “has a working group on global partnerships" — will be consulting on the matter.
Fontana expressed a desire to see a framework developed that can address future cases of controversial partnerships, “because this probably is not going to be the last time when an issue like this comes up,” he said.
The Agenda Committee's next meeting is scheduled for May 1, and Senate will meet again on May 13.
