MP Leslyn Lewis says in lawsuit that York professor worked ‘behind the scenes’ to torpedo her hiring

New details are emerging in the defamation case against York University by MP Leslyn Lewis, a former leadership candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada.

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Lewis alleges the Toronto school cultivated a “toxic culture” of “wokeism” that allowed a professor to blindside her with unfair and defamatory questions in the interview process for a scholar position reserved for a Black person of African descent.

Lewis applied for this job while also campaigning in the 2021 federal election, when she won the position she still holds, representing Haldimand-Norfolk in rural southern Ontario.

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In a new filing in Ontario Superior Court in reply to York’s statement of defence, Lewis accuses the school of “gatekeeping” her candidacy, and gives further detail on her claim that the school is liable for the “traumatizing” experience of not getting the job on what she claims are unfair ideological and political grounds.

She accuses one professor in particular of working behind the scenes to alert academic decision makers to his defamatory allegations that Lewis was racist, anti-gay, anti-refugee and opposed to women’s reproductive freedom.

“Faculty who disagreed with her on ideological grounds worked against her behind the scenes,” reads the reply her lawyer filed with the court.

She alleges Sean Rehaag, a professor of refugee law named as a defendant along with York, acted in a manner that was not “relevant, foreseeable, or within the proper scope of a recruitment seminar. Without notice, Professor Rehaag used excerpts of her political media appearances that he had prepared in advance and questioned her on political matters unrelated to her academic presentation.”

The fact she was allowed to answer these questions did not make the process fair, Lewis claims.

More broadly, she says the ideological environment at York was not “neutral or ordinary,” and that she was forced to take an unscheduled break, and claims the chair of a committee later phoned her to apologize.

Lewis denies that the alleged defamation of her character is saved by fair comment or justification, as York and Rehaag have claimed in their defence against the lawsuit. Both York and Rahaag say there was never any campaign of “vetting out” or “lobbying” against Lewis.

“Identifying isolated political positions does not prove the far broader sting that Dr. Lewis is racist, anti-refugee, or hostile to the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, and material facts about her record were omitted or not investigated,” Lewis’s legal reply reads. It mentions her work as a refugee lawyer on behalf of sexual minorities.

Lewis claims York is “directly liable in negligence and vicarious liability for Professor Rehaag’s conduct.”

“The true issue was not whether Dr. Lewis met the advertised qualifications, which she did, but whether her conservative political, philosophical, and Christian beliefs made her acceptable for a position created for a Black scholar,” reads Lewis’s reply. “Political beliefs, religious beliefs, and ideological conformity were not among the advertised and assessed criteria.”

Rehaag’s suggestion of seeking input from groups representing racial or sexual minority students was not “a neutral consultation” but rather an effort by Rehaag to make “sweeping and damaging characterizations of Dr. Lewis’s character and beliefs.”

“I think it’s important people understand that this is a university that likes to trumpet its DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) bona fides,” said Lewis’s lawyer Darryl Singer. “But there’s two places where it doesn’t occur.”

One is with Jewish people, Singer said, and his firm is involved in a separate class action lawsuit against York University and the York Federation of Students claiming the school failed over many years to address antisemitic incidents, in violation of its non-discrimination policies. That claim has since expanded to include other schools and student unions across Canada.

“The other place it doesn’t apply is in Leslyn’s case,” Singer said.

“It’s not just York, we’re seeing it all over now. They like to say we’re all about equity, and we’re all about diversity, and we’re all about women and Black empowerment,” Singer said. “Unless the woman happens to be part of the Conservative party.”

“When you go out there trumpeting these values, and then you act completely contrary to those values for the sole reason you don’t like her political party, that’s a story to me,” Singer said. “If she was an NDP candidate, she certainly in my view would have been treated with the dignity and respect that she deserved and certainly would have been given a fair opportunity.”

Next steps include mandatory mediation in advance of a potential trial.

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