David Noble, perennial thorn in the side of Canadian Universities will be facing off against York University in front of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario "at hearings scheduled for September 14, 15, 16, 22, 23, and 24 at 655 Bay Street, 14th Floor, Toronto, Tribunal Chair Michael Gottheil presiding."
Noble has taken York to the Tribunal because they were offering Jewish holidays of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah as days off, while other faiths were not provided with such holidays.
According to Noble:
My complaint had two parts, discrimination and reprisal. The first has been settled; after a Human Rights Commission investigation found York's practice to be discriminatory and the Commission decided to refer the matter to the Tribunal for adjudication, York ended the practice. The second part focuses upon the reprisals undertaken by York against me in response to my efforts to end the discrimination.
In a recorded interview Fiona Crean, the former York Ombudsman and Director of York University's Centre for Human Rights (currently Ombudsman for the City of Toronto) explained why the York administration continued the blatantly discriminatory practice. She said it was because of the "lobbying "by these outside organizations: the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) Hillel, the United Israel Appeal/United Jewish Appeal (UIA, UJA) and B'nai B'rith (BB).
These organizations claim to represent all Canadian Jews but in reality represent only Jews who support the state of Israel (as opposed to other JewishÂ]member organizations such as Independent Jewish Voices, Not in Our Name, and the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians).
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