CSU out of control

Letters

This letter was originally sent to Fred Lowy, rector and vice-chancellor of Concordia University, and is reprinted with permission. For more information, see the Dec. 13th cover story in the December 2002 Archives.

Dear Rector Lowy:

I have no doubt that by now you have heard from every conceivable group and organization, as well as from countless individuals. The vast majority, I suspect (and hope), criticizing the banning of Hillel by the Concordia Students Union (CSU) and calling upon you to do something about it.

I will not repeat their entreaties. The absurdity and the sheer maliciousness of what the CSU did is so patently obvious, that I have no doubt that the administration would, if it could, undo what the union did. And that, sir, is at the heart of the running confrontation between the CSU and Concordia.

You see, if you overturn or rescind or set aside what the union did, what good will that do? The CSU will simply seek yet another way to attack the university's authority (usually at the expense of the Jewish students, as has been the case for the last few years). It will thus continue; with the administration playing catch-up and trying to repair the damage being done to Concordia by the radicals who have captured the student council seats and who don't seem to care what their legacy to the university will be.

But what if you cannot revoke the banning of Hillel? At that point, Concordia will again have lost and the CSU won.

Either way, the powerlessness of the university has already been clearly shown. The point has been made that the CSU is above and beyond the grasp and control of those who are most suffering due to the excesses of the council; namely the 30,000 students, the hundreds of faculty members, the administration, the alumni and the public who, through their taxes, are the majority stakeholders at Concordia.

Sir, the Concordia Students Union, as presently constituted, is an entity that is out of control. Concordia University, as an institution, is on the verge of becoming an anachronism as it becomes ever more smeared by the antics of the CSU.

We urge you to go to Quebec city and have the union's status changed, so that the terror of the many by the few is stopped, once and for all.

Whatever alleged veneer of democracy that the CSU had, has now been stripped. The university administration therefore has an obligation to all of Quebec society to spearhead the campaign to rein in the CSU.

The more than 20,000 Canadian friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies are supporting Concordia and Hillel in the fight for democracy.
Please do something to end the madness that is the CSU.

Leo Adler,
Director of national affairs
Friends of Simon Wiesenthal
Centre for Holocaust Studies

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