Thanks for that important question.
As I mentioned in my introduction, there are serious concerns among members of our community about their employment prospects. Without repeating too much of what I said earlier, there are legitimate concerns that if employees, students or candidates make comments about the conflict, they will face repercussions.
This matter was perhaps best exemplified recently by an instance of student protesters who issued a petition calling for change and expressing their position on the conflict. Numerous students from the Lincoln Alexander School of Law signed a letter of support for Palestine and all forms of Palestinian resistance. There was extensive backlash from the legal community that targeted the students who signed this letter, many of whom were racialized individuals, including visibly Muslim women. Students were doxxed on various social media platforms. There were various organizations and commentators who urged that they be named, expelled, deported and labelled as terror apologists. Many students received disturbing and threatening emails, phone calls and messages that included threats of violence and death, as well as graphic videos and images. This is abhorrent.
Following this extensive backlash I was talking about, the university engaged retired chief justice J. Michael MacDonald to thoroughly review this letter. The justice found that the letter was not anti-Semitic; nor was it anti-Semitic to “criticize the actions and policies of the Israeli government towards Palestinians” or “apply concepts from international law, like colonialism, genocide, and occupation, in discussions of and statements about the government of Israel.” That's a direct quote from the chief justice's report.