B.C. court dismisses challenge to university faculty association’s Gaza resolutions

VANCOUVER — The B.C. Supreme Court says the Simon Fraser University faculty association did not go beyond its “stated purposes” by passing resolutions condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza and calling for the university to divest from arms manufacturers.

The resolutions were adopted by the association last year, but were opposed by a group of members who said that taking stances on such divisive geopolitical issues was inconsistent with the faculty association’s purpose.

The court ruling released Tuesday says both resolutions had introductions about Israel’s “unrelenting assault” on Gaza, the number of Palestinians killed, and the university’s investments in weapons manufacturers, and were “vigorously debated” by the membership.

The judgment says the petitioners argued that faculty members were free to advocate political stances on their own, but not through the faculty association because they claimed its actions should be geographically limited to the “university campus or region.”

The court ruling says the faculty association had passed other political resolutions and gone unchallenged, including a protest against the arrest and torture of a Uruguayan professor, the oppressive regime of Augusto Pinochet in Chile, the abuse of academics in the former Soviet Union, and resolutions about the Trans Mountain pipeline and climate change.

Justice Francesca Marzari’s ruling says the petitioners failed to convince her that the Gaza and divestment resolutions were improper because the stated purposes of the university’s faculty association are “worded broadly and without the limitations asserted” by the dissenting faculty members.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 2, 2025.