Student Suspended For Reposting MY Israel Criticism!

New column by Lee Camp

By Lee Camp

A few months ago a Montreal high school student was suspended from school for blatantly displaying free speech for all to see. And not just free speech, but free speech which originated with… ummmm, me. (Sorry about that.)

The high school, Royal West Academy, which is public, said in a letter addressed to the teen’s mother that the commentary was “offensive/inappropriate regarding another country.”

This implies that every student at that school who strongly criticized another country — be it the US, France, or Nauru — would be suspended. Do you think that’s the case? Or do you think it’s only Israel?

The school said the suspension was due to the teen posting two critical statements. She had posted “Fuck Israel. Holy shit” after she read details about Israel’s genocide in Gaza. (And if you don’t have that same thought when you read about tens of thousands of children being slaughtered, then you’re probably dead inside.)

CBC also reported:

“Students had flagged that story and another one, posted about a month ago, where the teen shared a reel by comedian and news commentator Lee Camp.”

That’s right. Reposting the truth that I report can get you suspended. Apparently I’m so censored that I infect others with my censorship.

“The reel shows an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier purportedly stating that on the day of the Oct. 7 attacks, his team was ordered not to patrol the Gaza border between 5:20 a.m. and 9 a.m.”

You can watch the clip they’re talking about here. Clearly, posting the truth about October 7th is wildly offensive and deserves punishment.

But the CBC wants to make sure to pump out some good ol’ pro-Israel propaganda at the same time as reporting on this student’s case. So they next say:

“No investigation has suggested that Israel intended for the attacks to happen which led to the deaths of about 1,200 people and saw another 251 taken hostage to the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli figures.”

What they won’t tell the reader is that no full investigation of the events of Oct 7th has been allowed by Israel. Netanyahu has stated he won’t allow a full investigation until Hamas has been defeated (which he knows will never happen or will be long after anyone cares much about the truth about Oct 7th). Furthermore, Israel has been shown to have destroyed most evidence of the events of Oct 7th including shredding and burying most of the cars that were bombed and eviscerated by IDF helicopters. Plus, the CBC doesn’t want the reader to know that of the 1,200 people killed, hundreds, if not the vast majority, were killed by the IDF. I have heavily documented those facts here. Furthermore, Israel knew the exact plans of Oct 7th for at least a year beforehand. The CBC wants to remind readers about the 251 hostages taken by Hamas, but they say nothing about the 10,000 hostages taken by Israel or the fact that Israel killed many of the Israeli hostages intentionally under the Hannibal Directive.

So really the student was simply sharing truth on her personal Instagram account. But that aside, it shouldn’t matter. Even if she had been wrong, it’s still freedom of speech. She was told by the school to serve a six-hour in-school suspension (sounds more like a reeducation program), but she refused to do so. It seemed that if she didn’t complete it, she may ultimately never graduate.

“‘To object to a student’s post because it was critical of a country, it’s just beyond the pale. It’s outrageous,’ James Turk, the director of the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University said, adding he hadn’t come across a similar case before at a public school.”

That’s right. Apparently the first ever suspension in Montreal public schools (or perhaps even Canada’s public schools in general) due to reposting criticism of a country was because of …me. Wow. I’m more powerful than I realized.

But here’s the good news. After many people wrote to defend the student and protesters even showed up in freezing temperatures in March to demand the school system apologize, the student was vindicated. Quebec’s student ombudsman rebuked the school, telling them:

“…to retrain relevant staff on the school board’s anti-bullying policy. It also demanded they review how to apply disciplinary sanctions in a way that respects students’ rights.”

That’s right, Royal West Academy, retrain your staff to better protect your students’ right to repost my shit!

Too bad I only heard about this story after the fact. I would’ve been up there in the cold with a protest sign of my own.

And to the student who had to suffer through all of this merely for being absolutely correct about genocide — Don’t give up. You’re on the right side of history. Keep fighting.