OP-ED: McGill’s classroom invasion shows a deep failure of priorities and moral judgment

Dotan Rousso writes, "What happened recently at McGill University this month (November 2025) should trouble anyone who believes universities have a basic duty to protect students."

Author: Dotan Rousso

What happened recently at McGill University this month (November 2025) should trouble anyone who believes universities have a basic duty to protect students. During a regular class, several masked individuals forced their way into the room, shouted political slogans, and intimidated students who had simply come to learn. The behaviour was so aggressive and frightening that campus security had to intervene urgently and physically remove the masked intruders from the classroom. Videos recorded by students make the scene impossible to misinterpret. It was not a peaceful expression. It was coercive and intentionally terrifying. As it turns out, this was not an isolated event but one of several similar incidents that have taken place at McGill.

Yet even a greater shock came from the message sent afterward by the course instructor, Dr Nona Elsaadawy, who offered the following account:

“I am very sorry for those who witnessed the unfortunate incident that occurred in LEA132 between a security staff member and a protester. The behavior displayed by the security personnel was entirely unacceptable and disrupted the safe learning environment we strive to maintain. I have communicated this to the CS Department and the Faculty of Science, requesting immediate action to ensure security personnel do not initiate physical force or interactions with protesters, who are our students, and that they are present in a classroom ONLY when explicitly requested by the instructor in charge… I’m sorry that you went through that, and I sincerely hope no one ever has to experience anything like that again.”

The issue here is not just incorrect emphasis. It is a failure of moral judgment. A university instructor should immediately recognize that masked entry into a classroom, intimidation, and the disruption of teaching are not forms of free expression. They are forms of coercion. They undermine academic life, violate the rights of students to learn in safety, and target those who already feel vulnerable, including many Jewish students who report an increasingly hostile atmosphere at McGill and other North American campuses.

When an instructor frames intimidation as understandable but treats security intervention as the real threat, the message to students is unmistakable: safety is secondary, and radicalized disruption may be quietly accepted. When an institution allows such framing to stand uncorrected, it signals that classroom invasions are not just tolerated but may even be implicitly encouraged.

This is not only a moral failure. It is a dangerous one. The more an institution tolerates masked disruptions, the more it normalizes them. And once intimidation becomes normalized, escalation becomes almost inevitable. The next stage is violence. If that happens, McGill will not be able to claim it lacked warning.

There are already clear warnings from the United States. At Cooper Union in New York, Jewish students filed a federal civil rights lawsuit after they reported being afraid to leave a campus library while protesters banged on nearby doors and shouted hostile messages. A federal judge recently allowed the case to proceed, rejecting the university’s attempt to have it dismissed. At Cornell University, a student who issued violent online threats against Jewish students was arrested and later pleaded guilty after a federal investigation, underscoring how quickly such situations can escalate when institutions fail to respond decisively. Universities that overlook or minimize early signs of intimidation are increasingly facing legal scrutiny and civil rights actions, and the consequences can be significant.

McGill is placing itself in precisely the same position. If a student is harmed because masked agitators were allowed to intimidate classrooms while security was discouraged from intervening, the university will face the consequences, both legal and institutional.

Following the incident, I contacted McGill University for clarification on November 21. As of today, no response has been received. Silence in the face of intimidation is not neutrality. It is a choice, and it carries responsibility.

For comments: dotanrousso@yahoo.com