Delta Chi: One year later

Reflecting on the impacts of the Delta Chi incident one year later.

One year ago this week, on 23 November 2020, I sat in the Halifax airport waiting for my connecting flight from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Toronto, Ontario, while my phone exploded in my hand. During my two-hour flight, everything about my role as Co-President of the Jewish Students Association (“JSA”) had changed. 

An anonymous Instagram account had unveiled a trove of messages in a group chat for members of the University of Windsor Chapter of the Delta Chi fraternity. The messages discussed lynching and burning Black and Jewish people. They made comments about how Indians should die and included homophobic slurs. They referred to Black people as n*****s and called Jews k***s and cockroaches. Sitting in the airport with my glasses fogging up from my mask, I realized that as bad as we thought things were for Antisemitism on campus, they were, in fact, so much worse. 

By this point, JSA members were already engaged in conversations with the administration at the Faculty of Law about incidents of Antisemitism in the classroom. These discussions were initiated following comments in the Indigenous Legal Orders course, a mandatory requirement for all first-year law students, referring to Israeli-apartheid, denying Israel’s right to exist, and asking students why people cared more about the Holocaust than deforestation, to name a few. The year before, I warned faculty members that by failing to shut down comments about how Jews didn’t really need to leave Europe in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and comparing Zionists to rape-apologists, they were fostering an environment where something horrible could happen. 

A few days after the messages were exposed, I was out for a walk in Toronto when I got a call from my Co-President at the time. She was calling to inform me that students had received emails from someone at jewsmustdie@gmail.com stating they wanted to “make sure university is NOT a safe place for n*****s and k***s. Just wait”. I stood on the sidewalk, fumbling to get my mittens back on after we hung up, not sure which direction to go. 

In December 2018, I wrote a piece for the Toronto Star in the wake of the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting. Following its publication, I received countless taunts and threats on Facebook and Twitter. There were conversations on Reddit saying I should be deported, and I was emailed by Soldiers of Odin, a white supremacist group in Canada. The fear I felt then of being out on the street surged through me, and for the first time since the University had moved to distance learning as a result of the pandemic, I was grateful not to be on campus. 

On 26 November, the University and the Law School issued statements about the incidents. In reference to the groups who had been targeted by the messages, they said: “The University of Windsor is focused on addressing manifestations of anti-Black racism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination across our institution”. And then my phone exploded again. Jewish students wanted to know why the “other forms of discrimination” weren’t being called what they were. The hatred of Jews, the longest persecuted group in history, has a name, and that name is Antisemitism. So why weren’t they using it? 

So we asked them. That day, we wrote a letter to the President of the University and Dean of the Law School to say that in their messaging, they had failed to call the messages about Jews by their proper name; they were failing to include us. As it turned out, this was only the tip of the iceberg. While the University did release an amended statement to students (I am unable to find it on the University website), and the Law School did update the statement on their website, that was where the buck stopped. Over the following weeks, as we approached exams, professors in all of my classes talked about accommodations and extensions they would be providing to BIPOC students who were coping with the Delta Chi incident. This action was warranted entirely, and without a doubt, valuable to many students dealing with the Delta Chi situation. Not one of my professors mentioned Jewish students as a group who had been targeted. By all appearances, we didn’t count. 

We had shared our letter on the JSA Facebook page to allow Jewish students at the Law School to see that we were not just letting it go. The accusations began coming in that we were attempting to “centre” focus on ourselves and detract attention from BIPOC students. Instead of being supported or included in discussions about the impact of the incident on the targeted groups or minority students generally, we were cast out from our community. 

Things were growing increasingly hostile towards us. My parents contacted Windsor Police about the messages and emails while I was writing an exam one afternoon. An arrest was later made of the person who had sent the emails. They are not connected to the fraternity or the University. Out for a run after one of my exams, I found myself pausing my watch to sit on the steps of an apartment building, and discuss the Delta Chi situation, our safety concerns, and the ongoing incidents of Antisemitism at the Law School leading up to and following the exposure of the messages, with the acting-Provost while my hands went numb and the cold penetrated my jacket. This was the first of several calls I would have with him on the topic of Antisemitism until he stepped down from the position in June 2021. I made a campus safety plan with campus police for any Jewish students who needed to be on campus for any reason. I was told by the University administration that there would be no interim sanctions for the students involved in the Delta Chi incident, beyond barring them from using campus facilities to hold events. Further, many of the students would likely have graduated by the time the investigation concluded. 

When I took over the leadership of the JSA in March 2020, I had not envisioned any of this being part of my job, but little by little, it has become my primary function. 

The feeling of hostility from my peers has continued to grow in the year since the Delta Chi incident, and the Jewish experience on campus has been up for debate and dismissal in ways that have not ceased to disappoint me. While not every interaction can be discussed at this time, I feel it worth mentioning some of what has transpassed to demonstrate the results of our attempt to advocate for inclusion and recognition following the Delta Chi messages. 

We requested a meeting with the Dean of the Law School for early in January 2021 to discuss the Delta Chi incident, and the response from our peers to our attempts to advocate for ourselves. In the meeting, we raised action items that included faculty training on Antisemitism, addressing inappropriate mentions of Israel and the Holocaust in the Indigenous Legal Orders curriculum, and most importantly, adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of Antisemitism. To date, none of these action items has been adopted or addressed. 

Over numerous meetings and emails with the University administration and the Faculty of Law, it has been an uphill battle to have the Jewish experience on campus and the toll of the Delta Chi incident on Jewish students recognized. 

On 17 November 2021, 355 days after the investigation into the Delta Chi messages had been initiated, the conclusions were shared with students and faculty. The statement from the President of the University said that they had ceased all affiliations with Greek letter organizations on campus, and that sanctions had been imposed on members of the Delta Chi fraternity, including the requirement that they undergo training through the Office of the Vice President of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. From all attainable information, it would appear that there have been no suspensions or expulsions. 

So that’s it. Following a year-long investigation into messages promoting violent attacks on minority students on campus, the response will be nine hours of training. 

As a student on campus targeted by the messages, and as someone who has been actively dealing with the fallout from them nearly every day for a year, it looks like a slap on the wrist. On a personal level, I have not returned to campus, and will not be doing so in January. Too much has transpassed, and I do not feel confident in my comfort or safety around my peers or on campus, and I do not trust in my University’s ability to keep me safe. 

Dealing with the Delta Chi incident has, in so many ways, changed the trajectory of my life. If you asked me what part of Law School has most prepared me for being a lawyer and an advocate, it’s this. I, and my fellow JSA executives, have had to step up and fight for the rights of Jewish students on campus when we have been scared and tired, and when our cries have fallen on deaf ears. 

In an interview with CBC on 17 November about the conclusion of the Delta Chi investigation, the President of the University stated that “over the past year, the University has taken concrete steps to address anti-Black racism and other forms of discrimination on campus”. 

So, we’re back at the beginning. Hatred of Jews is not being called what it is. But this time, he’s right. Concrete steps have not been taken to address Antisemitism on campus over the past year. But we’re still here. While the investigation results may close the door on the Delta Chi incident for the University, it does not close the door on the impact it has had on us. And we will need to continue advocating for ourselves on these issues, because if we are not for us, who will be? If not now, when? 

Want to hear more about Antisemitism on Canadian campuses? Access a recording of a free program and panel from the Toronto Jewish Film Festival. The program includes a brilliant film on Antisemitism, and a panel moderated by Ron Levi with the Honourable Irwin Cotler, and Windsor Law students Hezekiah Davies and myself. Click HERE.