Toronto law professor apologises for pairing Nazi quote with photo of Jewish judge on Twitter

A Toronto law professor has apologised for changing his Twitter profile photo to an image of a Jewish judge with a quote attributed to a well-known Nazi written over it. 

Professor Mohammad Fadel, who teaches Business Organisations at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, changed his Twitter profile photo last week to that of Justice David Spiro, a Jewish member of Canada’s Tax Court, with the words “The sovereign is he who decides the exceptions” written below. This is a quote from Carl Schmitt, who was an active member of the Nazi Party. Prof. Fadel also changed his Twitter name to “Schmitt lives in Toronto.”

Prof. Fadel has since released an apology in which he said that although he “never intended to compare Justice Sprio to a Nazi,” he understood in retrospect why people accused him of making the connection. He went on to say that he was “deeply sorry for the pain” that he “unintentionally caused them.” 

In August, the University of California Merced launched a formal investigation into the alleged antisemitism of Prof. Abbas Ghassemi after he reportedly tweeted that “Zionists” controlled the American economy, government policy, banking, and media.

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