Dawson student could lose youth medal following investigation into racist Discord channel

Montreal Gazette

14-05-2025

By
Quebec Lieutenant Governor Manon Jeannotte's office has contacted Dawson College about its investigation into racist trolling on the social media platform Discord by medical school applicants to determine whether to rescind a youth medal awarded to a student, The Gazette can confirm.
The Dawson student, who is enrolled in the enriched health science program at the CEGEP, is alleged to be one of the ringleaders of a gang of trolls on the Discord channel Med serveur who had been exchanging a virulent stream of antisemitic and other racist messages since February. On Friday, Discord deactivated the Med serveur channel after inquiries by The Gazette.
On May 1, Dawson proclaimed on its website that two of its students had received the lieutenant governor's youth medal at a ceremony in Laval on April 26. Dawson has since taken down that announcement from its website, replacing it with another message that is solely about the other student, who is studying psychology and is not under investigation.
Ian Préfontaine, a spokesperson for the lieutenant governor, said on Wednesday that his office will await the outcome of Dawson's investigation before taking any action, if any, about the medal.
'We would like to thank The Gazette for bringing this matter to our attention,' Préfontaine said. 'You can imagine that from our side, we were not aware of the situation. And so we've made a lot of inquiries about this. As a result of the information that we received, we quickly contacted the collegial institution to obtain some clarification about the acts that were denounced.'
'For our part, we are letting the institution continue its investigation, and afterward, we will take the appropriate decisions at the opportune moment,' he added.
Préfontaine declined to identify the student, citing provincial privacy legislation. Dawson has also chosen not to make the student's name public. The Gazette has decided not to release the student's name, but has reached out to them through their Gmail account.
Still, the individual's name, academic accomplishments and pro-Palestinian activities, including fighting against islamophobia, are well-known by fellow students in the enriched health science program at Dawson, sources have told The Gazette.
On Monday, Dawson's director of communications and corporate affairs said the CEGEP's internal probe was making headway.
'The investigation is advancing,' Donna Varrica said. 'We are awaiting clarity on a couple of important points before considering any action or calling it closed. As for any changes to web pages on our website that reference specific students in order to identify them in another context ... I can't comment on that.'
Meanwhile, the Service de police de la ville de Montréal has begun its own investigation, even going so far as to share information with the RCMP and CSIS concerning some of the perpetrators. Officially, a SPVM spokesperson would neither confirm nor deny that it is conducting an investigation.
The latest controversy at Dawson has attracted international media attention, with two Israeli newspapers reporting on it in recent days. The Times of Israel published a story on Sunday about 'Holocaust jokes and denial on (a Discord) social media platform accessed by 1,400 people.' For its part, the Jerusalem Post wrote about how some 'aspiring doctors (in Quebec) ... spread Holocaust denial, praised the 'Final Solution,' and degraded women.'
Although the bulk of the online vitriol was antisemitic, Jewish advocacy group B'nai Brith also captured screenshots that were homophobic, anti-Black and anti-Indigenous. Some of the posts threatened violence against Jews and members of the LGBTQ2S+ community.
B'nai Brith Canada has exposed a public Discord server used by Quebec medical school applicants and attendees that became a cesspool of antisemitism, racism, misogyny, and hate.
For months, a number ofaspiring doctors openly posted Holocaust denial, praise for the 'Final… pic.twitter.com/xRxBJa1GvA
— B'nai Brith Canada (@bnaibrithcanada) May 8, 2025
Sources have told The Gazette that 20 to 30 anonymous accounts on the Med serveur channel spewed the hateful content on a daily basis. And when some people on the channel raised objections, they were quickly excluded from the chat group by the moderator.
Since Discord took down the channel, hundreds of med school applicants have switched en masse to another server on Discord called ADMISSION MED QC 2024, which had seen little activity since last year. But Sunday afternoon, one user openly praised Hitler as a 'charismatic' orator on the revived channel.
On Monday, Quebec Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry condemned the incendiary rhetoric on Discord and appealed to both students and medical school applicants to come forward to assist in the investigation by authorities.
In December, Déry opened an inquiry into complaints of racist bullying from students at Dawson and Vanier colleges as part of the fallout from the Israel-Hamas war. Since then, some academic union leaders have accused Déry of political interference after she demanded Dawson justify the content of a French course discussing Palestinian issues.
The racist social media posts are the latest in a string of antisemitic incidents — including firebombing synagogue entrances and shooting at the buildings of private religious schools — that have traumatized Montreal's Jewish community since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas committed the worse massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.