Don’t Suspend Prof. Tony Hall
Canadian Association for Free Expression
Box 332,
Rexdale, Ontario, M9W 5L3
Ph: 905-566-4455; FAX: 905-566-4820
Website: http://cafe.nfshost.com
Paul Fromm, B.Ed, M.A. Director
October 7, 2016
Mike Mahon,
President of the University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge, Alberta,
Canada
Re: Suspension Without Pay of Professor Anthony Hall
Dear Dr. Mahon:
The Canadian Association for Free Expression (CAFE), founded in 1982, is Canada`s most active free speech advocacy group.
I write to express our grave concerns about the recent suspension without pay of Professor Anthony Hall who teaches Globalization issues. This brutal measure, seemingly without a trial or hearing or opportunity for Professor Hall to explain his point of view, violates both academic freedom and due process and fairness.
The university’s complaints, in your recent letter to Professor Tony Hall are:
- “Virulent anti-semitic posts on Facebook.” These occurred during a time Professor Hall was travelling. Facebook removed them. Someone planted them or hacked his account. He completely repudiated them. It has since emerged that these scurrilous posts were the mischief of a notorious provocateur one Joshua Goldberg. Cartoonist Ben Garrison appeared in the rightly impugned post. He writes: “Unfortunately that Photoshopped image of me assaulting that Orthodox Jew man continues to circulate and be posted everywhere. Ironically,it was created by a 20 year-old Jewish kid named Joshua Goldberg. He was arrested by the FBI about a year ago for sending bomb making instructions to what he thought was a Muslim terrorist–instead it was an FBI undercover agent.Goldberg is now pleading mental illness, but for years he was allowed to stir up trouble from his parents` basement in Florida. For some reason he enjoyed targeting me and he’s the one who created that image as well as many other hate screeds.”
Ben Garrison had his life ruined by trolls like Goldberg, who vandalized Garrison’s cartoons to make it appear that Garrison was a rabid Jew-hater. Now Goldberg’s hate speech has damaged another man’s career and reputation: that of Professor Anthony Hall, Globalization Studies, University of Lethbridge. Mainstream media outlets including CBC and the Lethbridge Herald accepted B’nai Brith’s false narrative that Professor Hall was responsible for Goldberg’s planted image.
- Professor Hall has blamed Israel for 9-11.
- At a recent meeting between the provost and the dean at the University of Lethbridge, Professor Hall inquired whether either was Jewish. This was an entirely proper inquiry as to possible bias, as Professor Hall’s main tormenters are the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith.
According to the CBC (September 30, 2016), “A Jewish group is calling on the University of Lethbridge to fire a professor who it alleges is ‘well-known for using his academic credentials to deny the Holocaust and promote 9/11 conspiracy theories.’ Anthony Hall co-hosts a weekly YouTube show called False Flag Weekly News, which allegedly promotes the notion of a Zionist conspiracy to foster hatred of Muslims through ‘false flag’ terror events, beginning with 9/11. B’nai Brith alleges that Hall “is a proponent of what he refers to as an ‘open debate on the Holocaust,’ a supporter of Holocaust [skeptics] like Monika Schaefer, and has even accused Israel of ‘playing a key role’ in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.”
Clearly, it didn’t take the university long to hop to the order of B’nai Brith and betray your mission to protect scholarship and freedom of speech. Within days you sought to oust this tenured professor.
Over 60 years ago, the Catholic Church in Quebec exercised a heavy hand in censoring professors at French Canadian universities, even leading to the exclusion of future Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau for his leftish views. Recent events seem to point to the replacement of the Catholic Church by B`nai Brith as religious arbiters of what can be said and believed on campus.
I urge you to rethink the university`s position and reinstate Professor Hall with full pay. Canada needs more free speech, not less, and more divergent thinkers like Professor Hall, not fewer.
Paul Fromm
Director
CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR FREE EXPRESSION