tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/canadian-universities-49426/articlesCanadian universities – The Conversation2023-07-04T22:33:25Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2075592023-07-04T22:33:25Z2023-07-04T22:33:25ZCopyright exceptions in Canadian education aren’t a loophole, they’re essential<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534361/original/file-20230627-29-hl1r78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C301%2C4436%2C2565&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The shift towards digital access has changed the way libraries buy materials. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent op-eds about Canadian copyright law call on <a href="https://www.hilltimes.com/story/2023/05/18/canadas-writers-need-a-functioning-market-not-endless-promises/387222">the Canadian government to</a> stop allowing uncompensated copying in education.</p>
<p>At the end of May, an op-ed in <em>The Globe and Mail</em> described the current state of affairs regarding copyright and education as “<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/article-copyright-loophole-for-education-should-be-plugged/">the legalized robbery of Canadian authors by the education sector</a>.”</p>
<p>This follows the ongoing “<a href="https://ivaluecanadianstories.ca/">I Value Canadian Stories</a>” campaign, by a coalition of more than 20 <a href="https://ivaluecanadianstories.ca/about-us.php">publishing, writerly and creative associations</a>, which calls on the federal government to “restore fair compensation to creators and publishers for the use of their works by the education sector.” </p>
<p>As researchers with expertise <a href="https://doi.org/10.17161/jcel.v5i1.15513">in copyright and universities</a>, we think the tone of this discourse is misleading. It’s also potentially harmful to a broader discussion of the important role that copyright exceptions serve within education and society at large. </p>
<h2>Decline in author incomes</h2>
<p>Authors and publishers <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/421/INDU/Brief/BR9990266/br-external/TheWritersUnionOfCanada-e.pdf">trace the decline</a> in author incomes back to a specific addition to the Copyright Act in 2012 that added “education” as a purpose <a href="https://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/academic-integrity/copyright/fair-dealing">under the fair dealing exception</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-fair-dealing-in-copyright-heres-why-it-matters-when-moving-classes-online-due-to-coronavirus-134510">What is fair dealing in copyright? Here's why it matters when moving classes online due to coronavirus</a>
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<p>Fair dealing protects the right to research, private study, education, parody, satire, criticism, review and news reporting. Fair dealing is not illegal — <a href="https://fair-dealing.ca/">the ability for users to make copies for specific purposes is an integral part of the Canadian Copyright Act</a>.</p>
<p>When universities do use fair dealing in a small number of situations to supplement purchased, licensed and freely available resources, they are working <a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/restricting-copyright-exceptions-detrimental-to-education-says-student-group-1.3901077">within guidelines developed across the post-secondary</a> and kindergarten to Grade 12 sectors.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People seen walking across a campus." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534877/original/file-20230629-12801-krliiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534877/original/file-20230629-12801-krliiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534877/original/file-20230629-12801-krliiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534877/original/file-20230629-12801-krliiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534877/original/file-20230629-12801-krliiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534877/original/file-20230629-12801-krliiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534877/original/file-20230629-12801-krliiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A changing landscape of digital disruption affected universities’ decisions not to renew licences with Access Copyright.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<h2>Shifting licensing relationships</h2>
<p>Prior to 2012, most post-secondary institutions paid Access Copyright for the right to copy and distribute articles and chapters to students. Access Copyright is an organization that collects copying fees from institutions, like schools and governments, on behalf of authors. </p>
<p>It’s true that during the <a href="https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/general/access-copyrights-next-chapter/269495">early part of the 2010s</a> many post-secondary institutions decided not to renew their annual licences with Access Copyright. This certainly had an impact on the royalties higher education institutions passed along to authors. </p>
<p>For <a href="https://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2011/08/more-update-on-opt-outs-from-access.html">many institutions, including the University of British Columbia, the University of Alberta and Dalhousie University</a>, the initial decision to step away from the Access Copyright licence preceded any changes to the Copyright Act. It was informed by the diminishing value of the licence and the technological changes happening in the publishing sector.</p>
<p>For a long time, the Access Copyright licence served the needs of the university community. However, in a changing landscape of digital disruption and acquisition models, it became less valuable. Libraries make decisions all the time about how they purchase and license materials, responding to the value of different products and services on the market. </p>
<h2>Digital disruption</h2>
<p>The Access Copyright licence, which only covered <a href="https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2018/05/canadian-copyright-fair-dealing-and-education-part-two-the-declining-value-of-the-access-copyright-licence/">physical photocopies of up to 20 per cent of a work</a> in 2011, no longer made sense given the growing impacts of digital disruption. A shift from print to digital materials was happening in many sectors at this time. </p>
<p>University libraries were increasingly paying publishers for online access to materials. These licence agreements included unlimited digital access to many articles and books universities had already been paying Access Copyright for the right to use. This access reduced the need to make copies of materials for teaching and learning.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People seen on computers in a library." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534879/original/file-20230629-17-r0c2bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534879/original/file-20230629-17-r0c2bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534879/original/file-20230629-17-r0c2bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534879/original/file-20230629-17-r0c2bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534879/original/file-20230629-17-r0c2bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534879/original/file-20230629-17-r0c2bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534879/original/file-20230629-17-r0c2bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A shift to digital purchasing and access impacted how instructors assigned university readings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>This shift to digital purchasing and access also impacted how instructors assigned readings. Instead of each student being asked to purchase a textbook or course pack of photocopied and bundled readings, instructors could share a digital syllabus with links to library-licensed readings. </p>
<p>Students would only have to enter in their library password and could have immediate access to assigned readings from any location. </p>
<h2>How libraries buy materials</h2>
<p>The shift towards digital access has increased the ability of universities to meet the needs of students and instructors, but has also changed the way libraries buy materials. </p>
<p>Universities now gain access and copying rights primarily through these digital licences. This significantly reduces the need to pay additional fees for copying, such as Access Copyright licence fees. </p>
<p>To supplement library materials, universities also pay publishers directly for use of specific materials that aren’t included in the licences. Increasingly, <a href="https://www.ecampusontario.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/eCampusOntario_September2018_ResearchReport.pdf">educators are also using freely available online materials such as YouTube videos</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the variety of sources available for educational content today, universities continue to <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/421/INDU/Brief/BR10002433/br-external/UniversitiesCanada-e.pdf">pay large amounts for library materials</a>.</p>
<h2>Creative writers affected</h2>
<p>The types of authors that Access Copyright represents and those discussed in the opinion pieces above are primarily creative writers. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.carl-abrc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Library_Expenditures_Memo.pdf">Only about two per cent of post-secondary library holdings are Canadian literature</a> of the type that would be covered under an Access Copyright licence. </p>
<p>The vast majority of university courses do not assign work by creative writers.
Universities overwhelmingly purchase and use research and other non-creative materials created by scholars and students who receive no financial compensation for their writing.</p>
<p>Universities Canada’s submission to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology’s statutory <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/421/INDU/Brief/BR10002433/br-external/UniversitiesCanada-e.pdf">review of Canada’s Copyright Act acknowledged changes</a> in copyright and publishing industries. These shifts have happened while <a href="https://theconversation.com/low-funding-for-universities-puts-students-at-risk-for-cycles-of-poverty-especially-in-the-wake-of-covid-19-131363">university funding models are also changing</a>.</p>
<p>The submission to the standing committee proposed two solutions for remunerating writers affected by a loss of royalties: increased funding in <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/funding/book-fund.html">the Canada Book Fund</a> and including university libraries’ Canadian literature in <a href="https://publiclendingright.ca/">Canada’s Public Lending Right program</a>. This program issues annual payments to authors according to the frequency with which their books appear in Canadian public libraries.</p>
<h2>Fair dealing’s value to society</h2>
<p>Fair dealing exists for all Canadians and empowers individuals to access information, critique institutions, educate themselves, create new cultural products, innovate on technology and more. </p>
<p>Education can include any kind of instruction, formal or otherwise — the impact of removing education from fair dealing would go far beyond universities. For example, a community organization might share an article about a key issue with its staff and volunteers in a training session.</p>
<p>Fair dealing is not a copyright loophole that facilitates robbery, it is an essential part of the Copyright Act and has been <a href="https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/2125/index.do">defended in Canada by the courts at the highest level</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207559/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Zerkee receives funding from an SFU/SSHRC Small Explore Grant. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Savage does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When universities do use fair dealing to supplement purchased, licensed and freely available resources, they work within guidelines developed across the education sector.Stephanie Savage, Scholarly Communications and Copyright Services Librarian, University of British ColumbiaJennifer Zerkee, Copyright Specialist, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1949542023-02-02T21:22:48Z2023-02-02T21:22:48ZUniversity presidents’ trip to Israel undermines academic freedom and democracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506156/original/file-20230124-13-5n3keg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C273%2C2950%2C1832&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People in Montréal attend a demonstration on May 15, 2021, to denounce Israel's military actions in the Palestinian territories. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Multiple presidents of Canadian universities <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/11/30/anti-palestinian-racism-on-canadian-campuses">travelled to Israel</a> in August of 2022. </p>
<p>The purpose of the visit was <a href="https://www.biu.ac.il/en/article/11577">to build and deepen research partnerships between Israeli and Canadian research universities</a>. </p>
<p>This trip was led by <a href="https://www.cija.ca/who_we_are">the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA)</a>, a non-profit organization that advocates <a href="https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/app/secure/ocl/lrs/do/clntSmmry?clientOrgCorpNumber=111">and lobbies for</a> Jewish federations across Canada. As education scholar Sheryl Nestel has noted, CIJA also has a track record of being among organizations that have acted as <a href="https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/advocating-for-palestine-in-canada">political proxies for the Israeli state</a>.</p>
<p>The delegation visited only one Palestinian University: <a href="https://www.alquds.edu/en/news/staff-news/31520/leaders-of-13-canadian-universities-visit-aqu-to-discuss-cooperation/">Al-Quds University, at its main Jerusalem campus</a> — a sad illustration of tokenism. Regardless of what was intended, a trip to Israel <a href="https://twitter.com/myriam_ah/status/1565601218109612032">sponsored by CIJA</a> is not neutral: it makes a loud political statement.</p>
<p>By participating in this trip, the Canadian university delegates took a stand against the campaign for <a href="https://bdsmovement.net/">boycotting, divesting and sanctioning the state of Israel</a>,
including an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions, until Israel complies with <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/10/commission-inquiry-finds-israeli-occupation-unlawful-under-international-law">international law</a> and <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights">universal principles of human rights</a>. </p>
<h2>Many university leaders attended</h2>
<p>As reported Nov. 30 in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/11/30/anti-palestinian-racism-on-canadian-campuses">an <em>Al Jazeera</em> article</a> by Mark Muhannad Ayyash, one of the authors of this story, Israeli institutions acknowledged trip <a href="https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2022/09/canada-u15-visit/">participants hailed</a> from Concordia University, Dalhousie University, University of Manitoba, McGill University, University of Ottawa, Simon Fraser University, University of Waterloo, Western University and York University. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1566410540364218371"}"></div></p>
<p>Bar-Ilan University <a href="https://twitter.com/ubarilan/status/1565322282985291776">tweeted</a> enthusiasm in anticipation of the trip and for the opportunity the trip would provide to strengthen relations between Israel and Canada.</p>
<h2>Academic freedom and democracy</h2>
<p>Universities do create partnerships with one another to enhance their teaching and research capabilities all the time. However, universities should be viewed as caretakers of <a href="https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/resources/academic-freedom-and-its-protection-under-international-law">academic freedom and its protection under international law</a>, <a href="https://governingcouncil.utoronto.ca/university-toronto-statement-institutional-purpose">including</a> radical critical teaching and research. </p>
<p>This is because universities’ <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000160495">public mission</a> and <a href="https://www.univcan.ca/media-room/media-releases/statement-on-academic-freedom/">major responsibility</a> is to uphold academic freedom in a democratic society — not to pander to political agendas or ideological preferences. </p>
<p>When universities are seen as favouring one such position, as on the Palestine/Israel issue, their ability to uphold academic freedom as a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2022/09/08/why-academic-freedom-challenges-are-dangerous-for-democracy/">fundamental tenet of democracy</a> is jeopardized. They fail in safeguarding the free flow of information, in encouraging critical thinking, and in fostering healthy civic discourse. </p>
<p>This summer trip raises grave concerns for academic freedom in every one of these ways.</p>
<h2>Equity-informed lens on academic freedom</h2>
<p>While some <a href="https://www.wlu.ca/about/discover-laurier/freedom-of-expression/statement.html">universities recognize</a> that academic freedom ought to be understood and implemented in relation to the imperatives of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), others have <a href="https://theconversation.com/academic-freedom-cant-be-separated-from-responsibility-175026">been criticized</a> for lacking this approach. </p>
<p>People in support of Palestinian rights underscore what they see as a <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/548748b1e4b083fc03ebf70e/t/560b0bcee4b016db196d664b/1443564494090/Palestine+Exception+Report+Final.pdf">Palestine exception</a> to academic freedom. This means academic freedom as the honest pursuit of knowledge on Palestine and Israel on the basis of Palestinian histories and lived experiences is often <a href="https://iphobiacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Canada-Report-2022-1.pdf">characterized as antisemitic</a>, and as such, is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205221130415">marginalized, censored and erased</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Students seen sitting with sombre faces next to cutouts made to look like gravestones." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506153/original/file-20230124-23-30bymz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506153/original/file-20230124-23-30bymz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506153/original/file-20230124-23-30bymz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506153/original/file-20230124-23-30bymz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506153/original/file-20230124-23-30bymz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506153/original/file-20230124-23-30bymz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506153/original/file-20230124-23-30bymz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students sit silently among makeshift graves at a memorial for Palestinians killed in the Intifada, part of a show put on by a Palestinian association for human rights, at Concordia University, in March 2002.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(CP PHOTO/Paul Chiasson)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is indeed a form of anti-Palestinian racism. The Arab Canadian Lawyers Association <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/61db30d12e169a5c45950345/t/627dcf83fa17ad41ff217964/1652412292220/Anti-Palestinian+Racism-+Naming%2C+Framing+and+Manifestations.pdf">released an April 2022 report</a> outlining anti-Palestinian racism and its silencing impact on Palestinian people and their allies. </p>
<p>Another <a href="https://www.ijvcanada.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Unveiling-the-Chilly-Climate_Final-compressed.pdf">October 2022 report</a> by Independent Jewish Voices, a grassroots organization grounded in Jewish tradition that opposes racism and advocates for justice and peace in Palestine-Israel, details how Palestinian scholars and those critical of Israeli policies are silenced.</p>
<h2>Complying with international law</h2>
<p>Academic freedom is also severely limited in Palestine due to the fact that Palestinian scholars, students and universities are operating under a 75-year Israeli military occupation. Many now understand and experience this as apartheid.</p>
<p>In 2005, Palestinian civil society organizations named Israel as an apartheid state <a href="https://bdsmovement.net/call">and called</a> for a non-violent boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign. </p>
<p>A number of human rights organizations are unanimous in concluding Israel’s practices against Palestinians amount to the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/RS-Eng.pdf">crime against humanity of apartheid</a> under international law, including: </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.alhaq.org/cached_uploads/download/2019/11/12/joint-parallel-report-to-cerd-on-israel-s-17th-19th-periodic-reports-10-november-2019-final-1573563352.pdf">Palestinian human rights groups</a>;</li>
<li><a href="https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid">B’Tselem</a> (an Israeli human rights organization);</li>
<li><a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">Human Rights Watch</a>;</li>
<li><a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/">Amnesty International</a>;</li>
<li>and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/report-of-the-special-rapporteur-on-the-situation-of-human-rights-in-the-palestinian-territories-occupied-since-1967-report-a-hrc-49-87-advance-unedited-version/">the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied by Israel Since 1967</a>. </li>
</ul>
<h2>Restrictions affect Palestinian universities</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/01/23/west-bank-new-entry-rules-further-isolate-palestinians">In October 2022,</a> Israel imposed restrictions on access to the West Bank for foreigners. These impact the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/7/15/palestinian-universities-are-once-again-under-attack">ability of Palestinian universities</a> to hire international faculty and invite visiting academics and students to Palestine.</p>
<p>A director at the American non-profit Human Rights Watch notes the policy is “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/01/23/west-bank-new-entry-rules-further-isolate-palestinians">designed to weaken the social, cultural and intellectual ties that Palestinians have tried to maintain with the outside world</a>.”</p>
<p>These new restrictions vest <a href="https://embassies.gov.il/dublin/ConsularServices/Pages/new-procedures.aspx#">the Israeli Ministry of Defence</a> (the military) with <a href="https://www.gov.il/en/Departments/policies/judeaentry2022">discretion in</a> determining which and how many foreign academics and students will be allowed to visit Palestinian academic institutions. </p>
<p>These rules of movement affecting Palestinians have been <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/27/new-israeli-rules-on-foreigners-visiting-west-bank-stir-outrage">criticized</a> as impeding Palestinian academic freedom and for violating international law.</p>
<h2>Normalizes violation of human rights</h2>
<p>Against the backdrop of Palestinian academic freedom being reduced both in Palestine and in Canada, the university presidents’ trip to Israel, supported by <a href="https://twitter.com/CanEmbIsrael/status/1567476495362187269?cxt=HHwWioCzvark5cArAAAA">private foundations</a>, alone was an affront. </p>
<p>This stand is a clear indication Palestinian human rights don’t matter. A trip organized, led by and sponsored by CIJA serves to normalize Israel’s continued violations of Palestinian human rights.</p>
<p>It also damages the independence of universities and relations with Palestinian communities. This is particularly the case <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-u-of-t-law-school-under-fire-for-opting-not-to-hire-human-rights/">following national and international criticism</a> after September 2020 events at University of Toronto’s law school.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://thecjn.ca/news/canada/justice-david-spiro-judicial-council/">former board member of CIJA</a> interfered <a href="https://www.ijvcanada.org/independent-jewish-voices-celebrates-the-reinstatement-of-dr-azarovas-job-offer-at-uoft/">to prevent the hiring of an academic who wrote about Israel’s occupation of Palestine</a>. </p>
<p>This interference led to <a href="https://www.caut.ca/content/censure-against-university-toronto">the University of Toronto being censured</a> by the Canadian Association of University Teachers. </p>
<h2>Harms to universities’ independence, people</h2>
<p>Damage has been done by this CIJA-led trip to universities’ independence, academic freedom and its place in a democratic society. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/11/30/anti-palestinian-racism-on-canadian-campuses">Harms have been caused</a> to Palestinian students, scholars and their allies at Canadian universities. </p>
<p>Canadian university administrators have given permission for the State of Israel to continue its persecution of Palestinians living under its military occupation and in so doing have extended <a href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9569">second-class citizenship</a> to Palestinians.</p>
<p>In Canada, the trip has further solidified the Palestine exception to academic freedom and this undermines democracy itself. University presidents must be held accountable.</p>
<p><em>This is a corrected version of a story originally published Feb. 2, 2023. The original story said no Palestinian universities were included on the tour.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194954/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dyala Hamzah is affiliated with BDS-Québec.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jillian Rogin is affiliated with Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) as well as the Jewish Faculty Network.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Larry Haiven is affiliated with Independent Jewish Voices Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>M. Muhannad Ayyash does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When universities are seen as favouring one position on the Palestine/Israel issue, their ability to uphold academic freedom as a fundamental tenet of democracy is jeopardized.Dyala Hamzah, Associate professor of history, Université de MontréalJillian Rogin, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of WindsorLarry Haiven, Professor Emeritus, Management Department, St. Mary's UniversityM. Muhannad Ayyash, Professor, Sociology, Mount Royal UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1965492023-01-26T17:08:27Z2023-01-26T17:08:27ZWhat are universities for? Canadian higher education is at a critical crossroads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505191/original/file-20230118-12-zrgl8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C39%2C3782%2C2485&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The University College building at the University of Toronto. Government budget cuts and the race to attract more students are changing the function and purpose of Canadian universities. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In recent years, Canadian provinces such as Ontario and Alberta have been attempting to <a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/in-my-opinion/canadian-universities-are-quietly-being-repurposed">repurpose and reprogram our universities</a> to more narrowly serve the labour market. They’re doing so by adopting <a href="https://academicmatters.ca/the-ugly-side-of-performance-based-funding-for-universities-2/">performance-based funding</a> in the most profound changes the sector has witnessed in decades.</p>
<p>These profound changes are encapsulated by the statements of former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, who said his government was “<a href="https://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/alberta-taps-industry-heads-to-advise-on-post-secondary-needs">trying to retool the education system</a>.” </p>
<p>Last year, Kenney said government funding for universities should align with the needs of the labour market and criticized university <a href="https://education.macleans.ca/getting-a-job/yes-you-will-get-a-job-with-that-arts-degree/">arts programs</a> which he claimed provided “<a href="https://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/alberta-taps-industry-heads-to-advise-on-post-secondary-needs">very poor</a>” employment prospects for graduates.</p>
<p>It is unsettling to consider the long-term trajectory and the consequences of narrowing universities in their scope to more closely emulate technical and training colleges and the manner in which they serve the current labour market and industry.</p>
<p>Universities already feature a diverse mix of vocational and professional training programs as well as more broadly focused and flexible undergraduate and graduate degrees. There is little to be gained, and much to be lost, by attempting to turn <a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/ontario-blurs-the-line-by-expanding-degree-granting-options-for-colleges/">universities and colleges into lesser and more convoluted versions of one another</a>.</p>
<p>Both are necessary to provide a robust and diverse education system. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505705/original/file-20230121-15684-ifczsc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of people in graduation robes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505705/original/file-20230121-15684-ifczsc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505705/original/file-20230121-15684-ifczsc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505705/original/file-20230121-15684-ifczsc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505705/original/file-20230121-15684-ifczsc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505705/original/file-20230121-15684-ifczsc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505705/original/file-20230121-15684-ifczsc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505705/original/file-20230121-15684-ifczsc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Graduates listen during a convocation ceremony at Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby, B.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The university’s contributions</h2>
<p>Responding to similar debates in the United Kingdom, former English literature professor Stefan Collini provocatively asked, “<a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/182024/what-are-universities-for-by-collini-stefan/9781846144820">What are universities for?</a>” It is now time Canadians ask that same question. </p>
<p>In that spirit we at the <a href="https://www.uregina.ca/">University of Regina</a> have set to gather many national and international scholars, heads of funding agencies, administrators and policy-makers to engage in discussions on the topic at the appropriately entitled symposium: <a href="https://www.whatareuniversitiesfor.ca/">What Are Universities For? Exploring roles, challenges, conflicting tensions, and promising re-imaginings</a>.</p>
<p>The challenges facing academic institutions demand that we ask such questions, and that we start to grapple with what the answers might be and the legacy we are leaving the next generation.</p>
<p>The university is an entity like no other, and should perhaps be more accurately described as a “<a href="http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/22777">multiversity</a>.” Urban geography scholar Jean-Paul Addie has listed seven social and economic ways universities benefit society: Being economic engines, changing the face of a city, attracting global talent, building international connections, helping to address societal challenges, fostering creativity and open debate and improving people’s lives.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/seven-ways-universities-benefit-society-81072">Seven ways universities benefit society</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505706/original/file-20230121-7984-rn6w4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man speaks to a classroom of students." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505706/original/file-20230121-7984-rn6w4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505706/original/file-20230121-7984-rn6w4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505706/original/file-20230121-7984-rn6w4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505706/original/file-20230121-7984-rn6w4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505706/original/file-20230121-7984-rn6w4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505706/original/file-20230121-7984-rn6w4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505706/original/file-20230121-7984-rn6w4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Universities are about more than preparing people for the workforce. They foster important research and teach students how to think critically.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>What are universities for?</h2>
<p>At their core, universities are institutions charged with performing <a href="https://cou.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/COU-George-Fallis-The-Mission-of-the-University.pdf">teaching, research and service</a>. Universities are immensely diverse and quite adept at integrating a variety of conflicting demands and purposes: From fostering ground-breaking scientific research, to transmitting and critiquing knowledge, to supplying teachers for our schools and medical personnel to our hospitals.</p>
<p>Intriguingly, if you ask the students themselves about the purpose of higher education, the answer is: it depends. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2020.1830039">Research has found</a> the way students view universities is contingent on how much the education costs. </p>
<p>In countries like Denmark, Germany and Poland, where governments provide greater financial support for university students, there is greater emphasis on the social benefits of higher education. Universities are seen as contributing to a more enlightened and reflective society, and helping their country to be viewed more competitively worldwide.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-purpose-of-university-your-answer-may-depend-on-how-much-it-costs-you-151526">What's the purpose of university? Your answer may depend on how much it costs you</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>However, in England, Ireland and Spain, where students are expected to shoulder more of the financial cost of their university education, they were more likely to see it as a means to employment.</p>
<p>Canada should avoid pitting these conceptions of higher education against one another. We ought to respect the many and varied benefits of an inclusive, accessible and robust post-secondary education system.</p>
<h2>Canada’s crossroads moment</h2>
<p>Current trends in Canada are a great cause for alarm. <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220120/cg-c001-eng.htm">Ontario ranks last in the country for university funding</a> as a percentage of total revenue. The government of Alberta has recently <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-postsecondary-students-grapple-with-increased-tuitions-as-a-result-of/">slashed hundreds of millions in funding from the province’s universities</a>. Both provinces are the first to subject their universities to narrowly conceived funding metrics.</p>
<p>Canadians must realize that we are at a critical juncture. Canada’s universities should not be an arena for shortsighted and partisan politicking. We urgently need to ask ourselves what kind of society we hope to maintain, foster and create and link that to how universities can best serve that society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196549/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Spooner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Forcing universities to only serve the needs of the labour market undermines their abilities to educate students and conduct research.Marc Spooner, Professor, Faculty of Education, University of ReginaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1933892022-11-08T20:26:34Z2022-11-08T20:26:34ZTo solve society’s challenges, universities must engage with alternative ways of knowing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494267/original/file-20221108-15137-roymjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=73%2C81%2C5390%2C3243&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Universities must be the space where meaningful engagement with alternative ways of knowing and generating knowledge can take place.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Almost 50 Canadian universities and colleges signed the <a href="https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/principal/sites/utsc.utoronto.ca.principal/files/docs/Scarborough_Charter_EN_Nov2022.pdf">Scarborough Charter on Anti-Black Racism and Black Inclusion in Canadian Higher Education</a>. The charter, which emerged from a <a href="https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/principal/scarborough-charter">national conversation in 2020</a>, acknowledged the ethical responsibility of universities “to give voice to alternative ways of knowing.” </p>
<p>These tools for thought, or “ways of knowing,” are crucial to real problem solving. As the maxim says: <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/you-are-not-so-smart/201203/maslows-hammer">to a person with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail</a>. But as academics we must look beyond dominant frameworks and knowledge. We must look to alternative ways of knowing.</p>
<p>As experts in ways of knowing, we know that having too much confidence in the idea that particular truths are right, good or natural is a dangerous limitation to our ability to imagine. As education scholar <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/ersc/v6n1/02.pdf">Odora Hoppers writes</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When textbooks and formal institutions designated to produce and legitimise knowledge become cognitive regimes that acknowledge only the victor, and defeated knowledges are erased or condemned as unscientific, then we witness a system of complicity in withholding freedom from those who need it the most – those on the receiving end of knowledge apartheid.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whether it is gun violence, racial inequality, poverty or climate change, when people are exposed to a particular worldview because it is the predominant narrative around them, they lose the ability to see and solve problems in better ways. But, as human beings, we have the power to re-evaluate the way knowledge shapes what we come to know and create entirely different solutions to many of the challenges we face today. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493552/original/file-20221104-25-27t1j4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A bird's eye view of four people sitting at a round table with laptops and notebooks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493552/original/file-20221104-25-27t1j4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493552/original/file-20221104-25-27t1j4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493552/original/file-20221104-25-27t1j4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493552/original/file-20221104-25-27t1j4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493552/original/file-20221104-25-27t1j4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493552/original/file-20221104-25-27t1j4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493552/original/file-20221104-25-27t1j4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">By committing to develop alternative ways of knowing, universities can create better solutions to persistent problems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<h2>New solutions to persistent problems</h2>
<p>The commitment to develop alternative ways of knowing includes the important mandate to train students for a diverse world and job market, but it is also much broader. It is about giving them the tools to holistically understand the world we live in through nuanced perspectives on the challenges and opportunities we face.</p>
<p>For example, it is impossible to fully comprehend how employment can be exploitative without developing labour studies that understand the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-treat-migrant-workers-who-put-food-on-our-tables-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-4-153275">violence acted upon racialized and migrant workers</a>. If we want to invest in a stronger culture of care, it is necessary to value and invest in <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-womens-studies-programs-in-canada-are-more-important-than-ever-188570">women’s and gender studies</a> that have held this work and have interrogated it. </p>
<p>We should support a version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/enhancing-the-involvement-of-people-with-disabilities-in-disability-research-128228">disability studies</a> that stops considering the differently-abled as objects of saviourism and centres them as agents in their own lives and stories. </p>
<p>Canadian universities should place our nation within a larger American story that stretches from Patagonia to the Yukon, rather than presuming us to transcend both geography and our own colonial history. </p>
<p>We imagine universities that invest in these alternatives and necessary ways of knowing. Many well-resourced and respected university disciplines have an ongoing conversation about their lack of diversity and how difficult it is to stop replicating old, broken systems.</p>
<p>But what if change doesn’t come from within? </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493553/original/file-20221104-23-ngmzlt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="University students with backpacks walk along a pathway." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493553/original/file-20221104-23-ngmzlt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493553/original/file-20221104-23-ngmzlt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493553/original/file-20221104-23-ngmzlt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493553/original/file-20221104-23-ngmzlt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493553/original/file-20221104-23-ngmzlt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493553/original/file-20221104-23-ngmzlt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493553/original/file-20221104-23-ngmzlt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Workplaces, families and civic organizations are seeking meaningful ways to embrace diversity and inclusion. It falls to universities to be that space where meaningful engagement with alternative ways of knowing can take place.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Imagine flourishing</h2>
<p>Take Canadian struggles with anti-Black racism, for example. Along with accountability, mutuality and inclusive excellence, the Scarborough Charter <a href="https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/principal/sites/utsc.utoronto.ca.principal/files/docs/Scarborough_Charter_EN_Nov2022.pdf">identified Black flourishing</a> as a core principle of its work. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/afua-cooper-my-30-year-effort-to-bring-black-studies-to-canadian-universities-is-still-an-upward-battle-144401">Black Studies</a> should focus on the study of Black thriving and resilience, not Black deficiency and its remediation. By doing this, the disparities between Black and white Canadians — in professional achievement, educational attainment, family structures and criminal behaviour — are better understood as tensions between two alternative ways of knowing in which one of those ways has been given more social and political power. </p>
<p>But what if traditionally Black ways of working were valued so that outcomes and efficacy were valued over rule compliance? What if historically Black family systems that recognize the community’s responsibility for the child were seen as inherently worthwhile, rather than out of step with notions about the nuclear family? Would that not fundamentally change the landscape of what it is to be Black and what it is to be white in communities across Canada?</p>
<p>However, by merely looking to individual faculties and departments to model diversity, universities perpetuate a deeply limited way of knowing our present and imagining the future. Rather, the university itself must change. </p>
<p>At the University of Windsor, we have worked with faculty members, librarians, staff and senior administrators to reimagine and recreate institutional spaces for building alternative ways of knowing. We have worked to reimagine what solutions look like when they are not designed by the same thinking that created the problem. So we have created an <a href="https://www.uwindsor.ca/faculty/649696/interdisciplinary-and-critical-studies">Interdisciplinary and Critical Studies Department</a>, where we understand disability not as a deficiency in the body, but as a source of strength in the person. And where we theorize queerness in the spirit of pride. We challenge universities to include other perspectives on changing the world because there could be no other way but equitable inclusion.</p>
<p>By doing this, we can meet our <a href="https://www.uwindsor.ca/publicaffairs/2021-11-19/scarborough-charter-commitment-fighting-anti-black-racism-campus">Scarborough Charter commitment</a>, foster better scholarly conversations that include alternative ways of knowing and ultimately improve life for all of us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193389/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Through the Scarborough Charter, many Canadian universities committed to fostering alternative ways of knowing. But more must be done to realize that commitment.Natalie Delia Deckard, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminology, University of WindsorMita Williams, Law Librarian (Acting), University of WindsorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1831222022-06-01T19:29:17Z2022-06-01T19:29:17ZWhat is Québec’s Bill 32 on academic freedom, and why does it matter?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465847/original/file-20220528-25-dltnuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C116%2C5946%2C2550&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Quebec's bill may be seen as part of on-going 'culture wars,' and alongside Ontario and Québec conservative governments' grandstanding about 'free speech' on university campuses.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the wake of the controversy over the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-professor-uses-derogatory-word-1.6214139">suspension of a professor at the University of Ottawa for using the n-word in a 2020 lecture</a>, the Québec government hopes to pass Bill 32, <a href="http://m.assnat.qc.ca/en/travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/projet-loi-32-42-2.html">a proposed act “respecting academic freedom in the university sector</a>.” </p>
<p>The bill was <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/academic-freedom-bill-tabled-1.6410128">tabled April 6</a> and is under committee review.</p>
<p>In addition to undermining the autonomy of universities and faculty, and creating myriad implementation problems, the bill blurs the important distinctions between free expression and academic freedom. Most troubling, it signals that politicians are turning academic freedom into a political weapon.</p>
<p>All Canadians should be concerned about the shift in the meaning and control of academic freedom this bill could usher in. </p>
<h2>What’s the bill calling for?</h2>
<p>Bill 32 aims to define and control the principle of academic freedom that is now under the jurisdiction of universities. The bill redefines university <a href="http://www.assnat.qc.ca/Media/Process.aspx?MediaId=ANQ.Vigie.Bll.DocumentGenerique_181435en&process=Default&token=ZyMoxNwUn8ikQ+TRKYwPCjWrKwg+vIv9rjij7p3xLGTZDmLVSmJLoqe/vG7/YWzz">academic freedom</a> as, “the right of every person to engage freely and without doctrinal, ideological or moral constraint in an activity through which the person contributes, in their field of activity, to carrying out the mission of an educational institution.” </p>
<p>As scholars whose combined work engages with the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108684804.005">politicization of language</a> and <a href="https://utorontopress.com/9781442610163/multiculturalism-within-a-bilingual-framework/">language, race and belonging</a>, we share concerns with other anti-racist scholars that the bill prioritizes the right to speak without consideration for ethical ramifications. The bill would <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12120">overshadow issues of justice for racialized members of the academy</a>.</p>
<p>Currently, complex questions about <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-universities-not-safe-space-1.6285400">creating “safe spaces” or issuing “trigger warnings” in classrooms</a> are addressed within universities. Commentators argue that the bill <a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/university-community-reacts-to-quebecs-new-academic-freedom-bill">“spells the end of ‘trigger warnings’ and "safe spaces’ in the classroom</a>.”</p>
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<h2>Rejected by students, university teachers</h2>
<p>The bill has sparked significant controversy and ignited criticism from students and university teachers for its <a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/university-community-reacts-to-quebecs-new-academic-freedom-bill/">overreach into university autonomy</a>. </p>
<p>The bill’s Article 6 would give the minister of higher education the power <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/student-association-asks-quebec-to-scrap-bill-32-on-academic-freedom">to “order an educational institution to include, in its policy, any element indicated by the minister” or “have the necessary corrections made</a>.”</p>
<p>Québec student unions and <a href="https://www.caut.ca/node/11501">Canadian Association of University Teachers</a> have opposed the bill. The head of Concordia’s Black Student Union notes the bill would traumatize racialized students by reaching into university jurisdiction to permit derogatory language without concern for its effect, and calls it a “<a href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-s-academic-freedom-bill-a-slap-in-the-face-says-concordia-black-student-union-1.5850864">slap in the face</a>.” </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/academic-freedom-cant-be-separated-from-responsibility-175026">Academic freedom can't be separated from responsibility</a>
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<p>Given that the suspended professor did not work in Québec, one might wonder why the province has proposed the bill. In March 2021, when Danielle McCann, Québec’s minister of higher education, announced a committee to examine academic freedom, she said <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/quebec-announces-committee-to-examine-academic-freedom-censorship">recent events had convinced the government to take action</a>.</p>
<p>One might wonder how Premier François Legault’s <a href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-university-classrooms-are-not-safe-spaces-says-academic-freedom-committee-1.5706817">criticism of the suspension of a professor who did not work in Québec</a> has culminated in a bill that attempts to radically transform the definition and control of academic freedom. Perhaps the extent of this reaction reflects anxieties specific to Québec’s nationalist articulations of its identity.</p>
<h2>U.S. and Canadian contexts</h2>
<p>The bill imports American principles by blurring the distinction between academic freedom and free expression or free speech, similar to other Canadian conservative government manoeuvres, discussed below.</p>
<p>The Canadian and U.S. legal frameworks for academic freedom differ. One fundamental difference is that in Canada, Charter rights <a href="https://canliiconnects.org/en/summaries/31312">do not apply to universities</a>. By contrast, in the United States, the First Amendment, the source of equivalent rights, does apply to <a href="https://www.aclu.org/other/speech-campus">public universities</a>. </p>
<p>The U.S. Supreme Court decisions concerning First Amendment free speech rights have a <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/17/academic-freedom">long history</a> of including academic freedom. This connection is non-existent in Canada. </p>
<p>In Canada, academic freedom is <a href="https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/constitutional_forum/index.php/constitutional_forum/article/view/29398/21395">grounded in collective agreements</a> or memoranda of understanding negotiated between faculty associations and university administrations. It usually includes the autonomy of the university and its faculty from outside pressures including provincial and federal governments. </p>
<p>In the U.S., <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.t03.htm">the rate of unionization</a> at universities is far <a href="https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/constitutional_forum/index.php/constitutional_forum/article/view/29398">lower than in Canada</a>, making collective agreements less viable as the guarantee of academic freedom. </p>
<p>The Alberta Court ruled that the Charter right to free expression applies to campus anti-abortion <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.3138/9781487529314-015/pdf">protesters in Alberta</a> and that students at the University of Calgary were merely expressing themselves when they denigrated <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12120">their professor on Facebook</a>.
But no court has ruled that the Charter applies to universities’ classrooms or university teaching.</p>
<h2>To further confuse matters</h2>
<p>But Bill 32 focuses not on freedom of speech, but on academic freedom. The only other province to legislate on issues concerning academic freedom to our knowledge is Manitoba. </p>
<p>Manitoba’s <a href="https://web2.gov.mb.ca/laws/statutes/ccsm/a006-3e.php">Advanced Education Administration Act</a> merely states that the minister responsible for post-secondary education, “respects the appropriate autonomy of educational institutions and the recognized principles of academic freedom.” </p>
<p>But the goal and functioning of Bill 32 is to define and control the principle of academic freedom (now under universities’ jurisdiction). </p>
<p>The Québec government claims it can do better than universities in protecting this core principle of academic freedom. More substantially, this bill politicizes complex questions of how professors do their work at the university.</p>
<h2>Ignores right to criticize government</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/university-community-reacts-to-quebecs-new-academic-freedom-bill/">Commentators have criticized the bill</a> for omitting what is usually considered a fundamental dimension, that is, the right for academics to criticize their own universities as well as government.</p>
<p>University collective agreements are clear in granting academic freedom to faculty members based on them having fulfilled years of education to become experts in their fields. </p>
<p>But the bill ignores these standard definitions of academic freedom and presents it as if it is like the right to free expression: universal, applicable to everyone regardless of their qualifications. </p>
<p>As American historian Joan Wallach Scott argues about the American right-wing: by “<a href="https://www.amacad.org/news/free-speech-and-academic-freedom">collapsing the distinction between academic freedom and free speech, they deny the authority of knowledge and of the teacher who purveys it</a>.”</p>
<h2>Potential problems with scope</h2>
<p>Since the bill does not restrict itself to academics but speaks of “the right of every person … in their field of activity,” concrete problems for implementation are evident. </p>
<p>For example, if a professor gives a student a C in a course, could this be challenged as restricting the student’s academic freedom from “doctrinal” constraint? </p>
<p>Could not the offence of plagiarism be argued as a “moral” constraint and thus against a student’s academic freedom? </p>
<h2>Joins Ontario and Alberta ‘culture wars’</h2>
<p>The purpose of this bill seems comparable to the influential statement issued by the <a href="https://freeexpression.uchicago.edu/">University of Chicago</a>, known as the <a href="https://provost.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/documents/reports/FOECommitteeReport.pdf">Chicago Principles of Free Expression</a>. Those principles nowhere mention academic freedom. But, they were also <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/university-chicago-we-don-t-condone-safe-spaces-or-trigger-n637721">the grounds for the university to speak against “trigger warnings” and the notion of the university as a “safe space.”</a> </p>
<p>The Chicago Principles have been adopted by many American universities, although not without <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/12/11/what-chicago-principles-miss-when-it-comes-free-speech-and-academic-freedom-opinion">controversy</a>. </p>
<p>When <a href="https://www.thestar.com/calgary/2019/05/06/alberta-and-ontario-premiers-campus-free-speech-policies-a-dog-whistle-blow-for-the-right-expert.html">Alberta Premier Jason Kenney</a> and <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/develop-free-speech-policies-or-face-funding-cuts-ontario-tells-colleges-1.4074727?cache=lxaherxk%3FclipId%3D375756">Ontario Premier Doug Ford insisted</a> that universities in their respective provinces adopt freedom of speech policies, they referenced the Chicago Principles.</p>
<p>Québec’s bill may be seen as part of the on-going “culture wars,” along with Ford and Kenney’s grandstanding about free speech crises on university campuses.</p>
<p>As in those cases, maybe this is just political posturing <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-ucp-promises-threaten-academic-freedom-of-speech">with little genuine concern</a> for the quality of university education. </p>
<p>In sum, even if this bill is revised or fails, its very proposal signals a move towards using academic freedom as a political weapon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183122/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Ives is affiliated with the University of Winnipeg and is a representative-at-large to the council of the University of Winnipeg Faculty Association. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eve Haque has received funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada for an Insight Development Grant on 'Reconciling Academic Freedom and Equity in Canada'
</span></em></p>In addition to undermining universities’ and faculty members’ autonomy, the bill blurs distinctions between free expression and academic freedom, and turns academic freedom into a political weapon.Peter Ives, Professor, Political Science, University of WinnipegEve Haque, Professor, Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1444012021-04-04T12:00:46Z2021-04-04T12:00:46ZAfua Cooper: My 30-year effort to bring Black studies to Canadian universities is still an upward battle<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391160/original/file-20210323-15-bpgq0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C0%2C4750%2C3837&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Adding Black studies to university curricula in Canada has been an upward battle.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since my time as a graduate student to my present appointment as professor at Dalhousie University, I have been involved with championing and developing Black studies in universities and beyond.</p>
<p>Previously, within Canadian universities, not many scholars who work in creating knowledge about Black people called it Black studies. For many, “Black studies” was something that happened in the United States. In the 1990s, as a doctoral student conducting research <a href="https://doi.org/10.7202/1065793ar">in Black Canadian history</a>, I developed and taught courses that consciously used the terms “Black” or “African Canadian.” Such courses included “African Canadian History,” “Black Ontario” and “Black Feminist history.”</p>
<p>As a result, I have come face-to-face in dealing with the resistance to implementing Black studies, and the pitfalls involved in the process.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/tv/CB6K2bNjXo0","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>Classroom encounters</h2>
<p>I learned very early on that teaching Black and African Canadian history was dangerous. During my doctoral years at the University of Toronto, I taught a course called “400 years of African Canadian history.” It was the late ‘90s, and during the third class of the semester, in the middle of my lecture, a white man, who always sat in the front row of the class suddenly got up and began abusing me with the n-word. He then proceeded to lambast all immigrants as people ruining the country, and that we “all should go back to where we came from.”</p>
<p>It was one of those moments where time stood still. I marked the man’s distance from me, and checked to see if he had a weapon. The students reacted immediately. Several surrounded the man, and campus police were called. The racist was escorted from the building and the police took our statements. We were all shaken. I was escorted to my car by a security officer, who informed me that the matter would be reported to the Toronto Police.</p>
<p>The university’s response was to change the location of the class twice during the rest of the semester. Students and professor were not notified of the new location until a day or so before class, and by telephone. For the rest of the term, a plainclothes undercover Black policeman sat in my class. At the end of each class, he escorted me to my car, checked the car and the trunk, and he would leave once I got in the vehicle, locked the doors and drove off. If I took the train or bus, he would ride with me for at least two stops. </p>
<p>The student who attacked me was never charged. But what was it that made him pay tuition to register and attend classes, only to respond in such a way?</p>
<p>That wasn’t the only time I received a hateful response: Another semester when I offered the same course, I received hate mail in my campus mailbox. The letters were filled with racist diatribe from anonymous senders who were upset that the university was offering Black history.</p>
<h2>Introducing Black studies</h2>
<p>As a doctoral student, I was told by a senior academic that, “Black history was not at the cutting edge of Canadian social history.” Another senior male historian told me that I was wasting my time in pursuing Black Canadian history because there were very “few” Black people living in Canada during the time period I was focusing on. I mentioned to him that only a few people relative to the population were involved in the Upper Canadian Rebellion and yet volumes upon volumes have been written on this topic. The response of these two senior scholars to my attempt to research and write Black history was emblematic of that of the department as a whole.</p>
<p>After completing my PhD with a focus on Black Canadian history, I later taught Caribbean history and studies at Ryerson University, where I helped set up <a href="https://jis.gov.jm/toronto-launch-of-visiting-with-miss-lou/">the Caribbean Research Centre</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392864/original/file-20210331-19-z6t4b8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="book cover of THE HANGING OF ANGELIQUE" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392864/original/file-20210331-19-z6t4b8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392864/original/file-20210331-19-z6t4b8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392864/original/file-20210331-19-z6t4b8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392864/original/file-20210331-19-z6t4b8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392864/original/file-20210331-19-z6t4b8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392864/original/file-20210331-19-z6t4b8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392864/original/file-20210331-19-z6t4b8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘The Hanging of Angélique’ examines slavery in Canada through the trial of an enslaved woman in 16th-century Montréal. Cooper’s seventh book is a historical investigation of slavery in Canada.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820329406/the-hanging-of-angelique/">(University of Georgia Press)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I did additional tenures at Simon Fraser University, York University and the University of Toronto. At these places, I taught, created and designed new courses on women’s studies and Black history and studies. I thought deeply about <a href="http://www.sfu.ca/%7Ewsweb/documents/RWWPFinalReport-AfuaCooper.pdf">how to bring Black studies into the universities</a>, while being keenly aware that Black history, for example, was viewed as an important and legitimate branch of scholarly inquiry.</p>
<p>In 2009, I chaired an international meeting of Black studies scholars — historians, community activists, artists, students and workers — in a conference called “Knowledge Production and the Black Experience.” One outcome of this conference was <a href="https://www.africancanadianstudies.com/about">the establishment of the Black Canadian Studies Association (BCSA)</a>, which has served as a site of Black studies mobilization within and beyond Canada. </p>
<p>In 2011, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/afua-cooper-james-r-johnston-chair-in-black-canadian-studies-1.3423853">I received the James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies at Dalhousie University</a>, the only named Black studies chair in Canada. There, I threw myself into knowledge mobilization: teaching, researching, designing and developing new courses, community outreach and establishing a new research agenda with a focus on slavery and freedom. I led efforts to investigate Dalhousie’s relationship to slavery and race, the findings which were published as a report, “<a href="https://www.dal.ca/dept/ldp.html">Lord Dalhousie’s History on Slavery and Race</a>.”</p>
<p>I eventually established a minor in <a href="https://www.dal.ca/academics/programs/undergraduate/black-african-diaspora.html">Black and African diaspora studies</a>, which at present is being turned into a major. The flagship course, which I designed and taught, “<a href="https://academiccalendar.dal.ca/Catalog/ViewCatalog.aspx?pageid=viewcatalog&entitytype=CID&entitycode=CANA%202005">Introduction to African Canadian Studies</a>,” began with a full complement of 70 students. The launching of the minor was a milestone in my journey to establish Black studies within Canadian universities.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A CBC roundtable on Black history in Canada.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Countering biased assumptions</h2>
<p>Why are Canadian universities reluctant to establish Black studies program? The fundamental reason has to do with the belief that Black scholarship and knowledge are unworthy and inferior, and therefore do not matter. </p>
<p>Anti-Black racism has been an integral part of the Canadian intellectual tradition. This tradition has actively denied Blacks a role in history and nation building, erasing Black people and their history from the Canadian historical canon.</p>
<p>Including Black studies within the curricula of universities and colleges would mean not only rolling out an interdisciplinary program from social sciences and humanities, but also employing a transdisciplinary approach that would cut across faculties such as law, social work, the hard sciences, engineering and health fields. Public history and engagements with community and governments would also form part of this effort. </p>
<p>This would help to advance several urgent equity and diversity imperatives with respect to learning, teaching and research.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144401/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Afua Cooper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It has been an uphill battle to make the case for Black studies courses and programs in Canadian universities.Afua Cooper, professor of Black Studies, Dalhousie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1429602020-08-03T11:58:32Z2020-08-03T11:58:32ZCOVID-19: Don’t make university students choose between education and legal rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350431/original/file-20200730-23-1jt1e80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3600%2C2559&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A person bicycles past the University of Toronto campus during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto in June 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When U.S. President Donald Trump held a rally earlier this summer in Tulsa, Okla., expecting thousands of supporters to gather in close quarters, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/12/trump-rally-supporters-sign-coronavirus-waiver">he had them all sign COVID-19 liability waivers</a>. This meant they couldn’t hold him or his campaign responsible if they contracted COVID-19 at the event.</p>
<p>At the time, we were amused by the irony, but COVID-19 waivers are becoming commonplace. The city of Halifax has <a href="https://www.halifax.ca/recreation/programs-activities/summer-camps">one for its summer camps</a>, as do <a href="https://www.4-h.sk.ca/covid19preparedness.html">Saskatchewan 4-H clubs</a> and some dental clinics and <a href="https://modoyoga.com/vancouver/studio-policies-covid-19/">yoga studios</a>. </p>
<p>Several American universities make students <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-06-25/op-ed-covid-colleges-fall-waivers">sign waivers before participating in sports</a>.</p>
<p>There’s every reason to think that if or when students return to campuses in the fall, Canadian universities will seek to limit their legal risk. We urge them not to. </p>
<h2>COVID-19 liability waiver</h2>
<p>St. Francis Xavier University, in Antigonish, N.S. — known colloquially as StFXU — recently announced its students would have to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/legal-expert-says-covid-19-liability-waivers-could-become-more-common-1.5646901">sign COVID-19 liability waivers</a>. StFXU is offering most of its courses in person this fall.</p>
<p>Under StFXU’s proposed waiver, students won’t be allowed to return to campus or participate in <a href="https://twitter.com/tiffmaclennan/status/1281656838669434881/photo/1">any activities</a> — including online activities — unless they first sign it.</p>
<p>By doing so, students would have no legal recourse against StFXU if they contracted COVID-19 due to the university’s negligence or wrongdoing.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man's hand grasps a pink pencil and prepares to sign a liability waiver." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350427/original/file-20200730-27-1xeut1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350427/original/file-20200730-27-1xeut1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350427/original/file-20200730-27-1xeut1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350427/original/file-20200730-27-1xeut1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350427/original/file-20200730-27-1xeut1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350427/original/file-20200730-27-1xeut1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350427/original/file-20200730-27-1xeut1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students will be barred from taking part in any campus activities unless they sign the waiver.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In response to <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7172148/students-stfx-waiver-covid-19/">concerns raised by the university community</a>, StFXU <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/st-francis-xavier-university-waiver-wording-1.5652189">reconsidered the specific wording of its waiver</a>, but <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7236541/stfx-moving-forward-with-controversial-waiver-students-disappointed/">ultimately decided to proceed.</a></p>
<p>Even without a waiver, StFXU wouldn’t be financially responsible for all COVID-19 infections — it’s only liable for those infections caused by its unreasonable acts or omissions. But the waiver meant that even if StFXU acted unreasonably, students couldn’t recover compensation.</p>
<h2>COVID-19 waivers are wrongheaded</h2>
<p>StFXU and other universities would be wrong to impose this risk on their students. Moreover, such waivers might not even be enforceable.</p>
<p>Liability waivers are contracts — agreements between parties committing to some kind of exchange. They allocate risks and rewards. If you want a company to provide you with scuba lessons for $500, for example, it will insist you sign a waiver so that you bear the risk of injury. </p>
<p>In theory, you could pay the company (or a competitor) $600 for those lessons and the scuba company could insure against losses. The ability to allocate risk and voluntarily agree on terms is fundamental to contract law, and <a href="https://lawjournal.mcgill.ca/article/contracting-out-of-access-to-justice-enforcement-of-forum-selection-clauses-in-consumer-contracts/">Canadian courts have generally enforced liability waivers</a>.</p>
<p>University COVID-19 waivers, however, are different. Students don’t have the ability to negotiate the terms of a waiver or to pursue their post-secondary education elsewhere. These waivers are take-it-or-leave-it: if you want to be a university student this fall, you’ll have to sign away your legal rights. If you don’t, you can’t have access to your education.</p>
<h2>Public policy concerns</h2>
<p>There are several reasons why universities would be wrong if they sought to impose the financial risk of COVID-19 on their students as insurance companies stop covering losses due to the pandemic.</p>
<p>First, post-secondary education is a public good. Like all education, it benefits not only individual students but society as a whole. If liability rests with universities, compensation will come partly from governments, <a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/2018-provincial-budget-highlights-universities/">which still provide a significant portion of university budgets.</a></p>
<p>Second, universities that unilaterally choose to offer in-person education this fall shouldn’t be allowed to shift the financial risks of their choice onto their students.</p>
<p>Third, liability waivers remove an important incentive to ensure campus is safe. Though universities will undoubtedly continue to take all appropriate measures to protect their students, the risk of legal liability helps encourage institutions to prioritize safety measures.</p>
<h2>Legal concerns</h2>
<p>There’s no “freedom of contract” here. Instead, there’s a significant inequality of bargaining power. University students will be forced to either accept the waiver or forego their education — at least for now. This isn’t a bargain students enter into willingly, as <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7172148/students-stfx-waiver-covid-19/">concerns over the StFXU waiver</a> show.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A domed church tower with orange and yellow fall foliage in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350306/original/file-20200730-33-19y5a1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C3456%2C1769&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350306/original/file-20200730-33-19y5a1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350306/original/file-20200730-33-19y5a1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350306/original/file-20200730-33-19y5a1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350306/original/file-20200730-33-19y5a1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350306/original/file-20200730-33-19y5a1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350306/original/file-20200730-33-19y5a1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Xavier Hall at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, is seen from Nicholson Tower. The university is going to issue COVID-19 waivers this fall to students.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Brendan Riley/Creative Commons)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, waivers like the one initially imposed by StFXU may not be legally enforceable. The Supreme Court of Canada’s <a href="https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/18406/index.do">recent decision in the <em>Uber Technologies Inc. vs. Heller</em> case</a> emphasized that contracts won’t be enforced when they’re unfair. </p>
<p>For example, if your doctor said she would only take you on as a patient if you waived your right to sue her for negligence, such a waiver wouldn’t be enforced, any more than a promise made with a gun to your head would be.</p>
<p>The law in Canada on unfair or “unconscionable” contracts <a href="https://cbr.cba.org/index.php/cbr/article/view/4482/4445">depends on the specific facts of each case</a>. The initial StFXU waiver was an entirely one-sided, take-it-or-leave-it deal in the context of access to higher education and the risk of serious illness. There are reasonable grounds to believe it wouldn’t be upheld in court.</p>
<p>While it’s not inconceivable that a university could craft an enforceable COVID-19 waiver, the law is unlikely to tolerate a contract effectively compelling students to choose between their education and their health. </p>
<h2>Universities must ensure student safety</h2>
<p>We sympathize with institutions whose insurance companies will soon stop covering losses due to COVID-19. That puts them in a difficult position, and for many organizations, like summer camps and yoga studios, waivers may be appropriate. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Students carrying bags and suitcases walk in a group on a grey sidewalk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350428/original/file-20200730-23-1ofofrc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350428/original/file-20200730-23-1ofofrc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350428/original/file-20200730-23-1ofofrc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350428/original/file-20200730-23-1ofofrc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350428/original/file-20200730-23-1ofofrc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350428/original/file-20200730-23-1ofofrc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350428/original/file-20200730-23-1ofofrc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Queen’s University students move out of residence in Kingston, Ont., in March 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lars Hagberg</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But universities are different. They have a higher calling than merely protecting the bottom line. Universities have a duty to provide a safe learning environment for their students.</p>
<p>If they fail in this duty and students contract COVID-19 as a result, universities should be legally responsible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142960/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Students won’t be allowed to participate in activities at St. Francis Xavier University this fall unless they sign a COVID-19 waiver. That’s forcing them to make a difficult and unfair choice.Jason MacLean, Assistant Professor of Law, University of New BrunswickHilary Young, Associate Professor, Law, University of New BrunswickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1291662020-01-14T15:40:51Z2020-01-14T15:40:51ZUniversities should stand up for integrity and public trust in university teaching<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308464/original/file-20200103-11924-1lwca0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C229%2C1959%2C1033&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Controversy erupted after a lecturer at the University of Alberta posted on Facebook in November that the Holomodor is a "myth." Canada recognized the Holomodor — the death of millions of Ukrainians in 1932–33 due to Soviet policies — as an act of genocide in 2008. Here, the Holodomor Memorial, Kyiv, Ukraine.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Flickr/Matt Shalvatis)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent events at the University of Alberta called into question expectations for those who teach in universities. </p>
<p>The university’s student journalism society, <em>The Gateway</em>, reported Nov. 27 that an assistant lecturer, Dougal MacDonald, “<a href="https://thegatewayonline.ca/2019/11/offensive-comments-by-u-of-a-professor-spur-student-backlash/">made a Facebook post on November 20 … where he said the Holodomor is a ‘lie’ and perpetuated ‘myth</a>.’” The publication also captured screenshots of Facebook posts and a published a statement from MacDonald. </p>
<p>The Holomodor — “<a href="https://holodomor.ca/">death by hunger” in Ukrainian</a> — refers to the death of millions of Ukrainians in 1932–33 due to Soviet policies under the Josef Stalin regime. Canada recognized <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/u-0.4/page-1.html">the Holomodor as an act of genocide in 2008</a>, as have the provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, Ontario, Québec and most recently <a href="https://ucc.ca/2019/10/30/british-columbia-adopts-holodomor-memorial-act/">British Columbia</a>. </p>
<p>On Dec. 6, the deans of arts and education at the university issued a statement saying MacDonald’s claim of the Holomodor as a myth “is not true. It is not a statement based on historical evidence.” </p>
<p>There was public outrage <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/we-were-just-hurt-ukrainian-students-call-for-uofa-to-fire-lecturer-who-denied-holodomor">about the Facebook post</a> <a href="https://www.su.ualberta.ca/about/news/entry/346/statement-on-genocide-denial-by-a-university-of-alberta-lecturer/">by students</a> and community groups, and a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/UofAUSS/photos/rpp.464526086960030/2721420734603876/?type=3&theater">call for MacDonald’s dismissal</a>. </p>
<h2>Freedom of expression?</h2>
<p>The Toronto Star reported that in an emailed statement, the University of Alberta said “<a href="https://www.thestar.com/edmonton/2019/12/02/dont-tell-this-holodomor-survivor-that-the-genocide-isnt-real-i-was-born-there.html">MacDonald had a right to express his opinion and said his views did not represent those of the university</a>.” </p>
<p>Forty-three current and former faculty members from the University of Alberta signed a <a href="https://artssquared.wordpress.com/2019/12/02/letter-to-student-union-president-re-dougal-macdonald/#comment-6691">letter of support</a> for MacDonald. They <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/alberta-professors-cite-free-expression-in-defending-lecturer-who-called-holodomor-a-hoax">claim MacDonald’s views are protected by his rights to free speech</a> and cited the University of Alberta’s new <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/provost/our-initiatives/freedom-of-expression/statement-on-freedom-of-expression.html">statement on freedom of expression</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309531/original/file-20200111-97134-wc20ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309531/original/file-20200111-97134-wc20ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309531/original/file-20200111-97134-wc20ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309531/original/file-20200111-97134-wc20ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309531/original/file-20200111-97134-wc20ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309531/original/file-20200111-97134-wc20ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309531/original/file-20200111-97134-wc20ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Those teaching in publicly funded universities should be held accountable for denying historical and public-record facts, whether in their classrooms or beyond.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Discussions about what university instructors or professors can say often invoke themes of freedom of expression or <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/jordan-peterson-fires-new-salvo-in-already-fiery-academic-freedom-battle">academic freedom</a> as it pertains <a href="https://working.usask.ca/agreements/usfa/usfa-6-academic-freedom.php#61">to both faculty</a> <a href="https://working.usask.ca/agreements/cupe-3287/cupe3287-20-academic-freedom.php#2001">or sessional lecturers</a>. But what about their roles as teachers of undergraduate or graduate students in publicly funded institutions?</p>
<p>We are two educators at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Education involved in researching teaching and learning. We have designed provincial educational curricula, hired and mentored faculty and lecturers, trained teachers and developed material for broadening cultural awareness. </p>
<p>We believe those teaching in publicly funded universities — whether tenured professors or contract lecturers — should be held accountable for denying historical and public-record facts, whether in their classrooms or beyond. </p>
<h2>Denial of the public record</h2>
<p>The denial of the Holodomor by MacDonald is reminiscent of the Holocaust denials of the late <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/jim-keegstra-notorious-canadian-holocaust-denier-dead-at-80-1.2674372">James Keegstra, an Alberta teacher who was charged with hate speech in 1984 and stripped of his teaching licence</a>. His “<a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/keegstra-case">conviction under Canada’s hate propaganda laws was upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada</a>.”</p>
<p>In New Brunswick, teacher Malcolm Ross was removed from teaching due to his <a href="https://canliiconnects.org/en/summaries/33061">anti-Semitic behaviours</a>. The Supreme Court ruled that “removal from his teaching position was necessary to ensure that no influence of this kind is <a href="https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1367/index.do">exerted by him upon his students and to ensure that the educational services are discrimination‑free</a>.”</p>
<p>The teaching profession, regulated provincially, has deliberated on the topic of freedom of expression and has responded accordingly with clear guidelines. </p>
<p>Teachers are <a href="https://www.sptrb.ca/WEB/Documents/SPTRB_Standards-of-Conduct_Brochure_EN.pdf">provided with</a> <a href="https://www.oct.ca/-/media/PDF/Standards%20Poster/standards_flyer_e.pdf">standards of conduct</a> through their regulating bodies that act as guideposts for maintenance of a collective reputation in the public’s interests.</p>
<h2>Publicly funded education</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309532/original/file-20200111-97130-1y35dej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309532/original/file-20200111-97130-1y35dej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309532/original/file-20200111-97130-1y35dej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309532/original/file-20200111-97130-1y35dej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309532/original/file-20200111-97130-1y35dej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309532/original/file-20200111-97130-1y35dej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309532/original/file-20200111-97130-1y35dej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Publicly funded universities, like public schools, have a responsibility to inspire and uphold public trust.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We believe Canada’s <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/170713/dq170713c-eng.htm">publicly funded universities</a>, like public schools, also have a responsibility to inspire and uphold public trust. </p>
<p>This is especially true during these times across Canada <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-627-m/11-627-m2017028-eng.htm">when diversity is ever-increasing</a> and <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5061311/alberta-provincial-hate-crime-unit-islamophobia/">hate-mongering</a>, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-violence-racism-bullying-1.5328735">racialized or</a> xeonophobic <a href="https://thestarphoenix.com/opinion/columnists/collective-voice-dealing-with-racism-as-a-teen">bullying</a> or bullying those deemed different is a reality. </p>
<p>Such events are co-existing globally with a rise in <a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/10/21/analysis/memes-fake-news-and-partisan-ads">fake news</a> and ideological propaganda that discounts historical facts through social media, <a href="https://theconversation.com/unliked-how-facebook-is-playing-a-part-in-the-rohingya-genocide-89523">sometimes with terrible consequences</a>. </p>
<h2>Under public scrutiny</h2>
<p>Clear parallels exist between how society regulates K-12 teachers and what it expects from them and the work of university instructors. For example, both those teaching children and young adults are implicitly role models for the next generation in all aspects of their growth. </p>
<p>Universities have an important role in providing places of thought, reflection and learning. The work of <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/faculty-and-staff/my-employment/collective-agreements-and-handbooks.html">tenured professors and sessional instructors is governed by different collective agreements</a>. Regardless of the agreements that define their work and academic freedom, when they are teaching, these professors or lecturers become <a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/features/feature-article/endangered-public-intellectual/">role models for their students in how to communicate knowledge</a>. </p>
<p>They are also entrusted to instruct in service of the collective good of our societies, and this means their actions are under the scrutiny of many. From our point of view, they are in positions of public trust and visibility and are by default accountable at all times. </p>
<h2>Proactive guidance</h2>
<p>In our current political context, we are seeing <a href="https://theconversation.com/free-speech-on-campus-means-universities-must-protect-the-dignity-of-all-students-124526">advocacy for freedom of expression on campus, alongside a rise in polarized ideologies</a>. </p>
<p>In a recent ruling, Alberta’s superior court said students have <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/students-have-charter-protected-free-expression-rights-on-campus-alberta-appeal-court-rules">Charter-protected free expression rights on campus</a>. If a university instructor is also a PhD student, what could this mean for university and instructional classroom leadership?</p>
<p>To deal with that potential conflict, universities, like the professional bodies that oversee teachers in public schools, may need to provide more proactive guidance for instructors. One way to do this could be through the university’s <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/strategic-plan/overview/our-vision-mission-and-values.html">mission, vision or values</a> and related standards of behaviour.</p>
<p>For example, a learning charter at the University of Saskatchewan outlines <a href="https://teaching.usask.ca/about/policies/learning-charter.php">conduct for students, educators and other partners in higher education</a>. Such a charter doesn’t offer cut-and-dried answers, but speaks in concrete terms to the important value of a university as a learning, as well as a research and inquiry milieu. </p>
<p>It will become increasingly important for universities to consider how their responsibilities as learning and educational institutions that foster public trust can be upheld. We cannot be complacent to fostering public denials of the historic record through silence or fear of reprisal because of freedom of expression. </p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129166/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Those teaching in publicly funded universities should be held accountable for denying the public record, whether in their classrooms or beyond.Jay Wilson, Associate Professor and Department Head, Curriculum Studies, College of Education, University of SaskatchewanNadia Prokopchuk, Instructor, College of Education, University of SaskatchewanLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/912192018-02-08T00:15:44Z2018-02-08T00:15:44ZFreedom of expression is under attack at our universities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204961/original/file-20180205-14096-1e7rhb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=125%2C0%2C1775%2C1610&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters kick in the window at Concordia University as they try to stop a speech by former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Montreal in 2002. Netanyahu cancelled the speech citing security concerns.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tolerance is one of the most familiar words in the English language. By definition it is neither virtue nor vice and may be either, depending on context. Its subject matter is usually negative; we don’t tolerate things we like — we endorse or affirm them. We tolerate things we do not like but that we know we must not suppress or prohibit.</p>
<p>In our private lives, our tolerances may be closely aligned with our likes and dislikes. In our public lives, they must be informed by normative rules and values that frame our social order. Fundamental among these is freedom of expression, described by chief justice Beverley McLaughlin as <a href="https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1837/index.do">“the indispensable condition of nearly every other freedom.”</a></p>
<p>Freedom of expression is also an “indispensable condition” of the university “commons.” I define this as the space for the debate, discussion and collaboration that are both inherent in, and essential to, the idea of the university. </p>
<p>This commons has been tested so often in recent years that it is not hyperbole to describe it as a contemporary battleground over its boundaries.</p>
<h2>The battles over freedom of expression</h2>
<p>Some high profile examples of the battles that have occurred:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>At Concordia University, <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/israels-netanyahu-greeted-with-violence-in-montreal/article4139011/">the once and future prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, was silenced by protesters</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>At the University of Ottawa, <a href="http://old.ubyssey.ca/news/university-of-ottawa-rejects-ann-coulter/">a scheduled speech by controversial American commentator Ann Coulter was cancelled because of safety concerns</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>At the University of Calgary, <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/court-sides-with-anti-abortion-group-on-university-of-calgary-campus/article17860886/">anti-abortion demonstrators were subject to non-academic discipline and legal charges</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>At <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/costume-controversy-brock-students-in-blackface-win-halloween-contest-1.2086439">Brock University</a>, <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2009/11/12/how_a_halloween_getup_went_badly_wrong.html">University of Toronto</a>, and <a href="http://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2016-11-30/news/students-protest-admin-response-to-campus-party/">Queen’s University</a>, Halloween costumes touched off heated debates over racism.</p></li>
<li><p>At York University, a mural depicting a Palestinian protest was at <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/film-exec-pulls-support-for-york-university-over-pro-palestinian-mural/article28396804/">the centre of a controversy involving a donor</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Campaigns to link <a href="http://saiayork.org/">Israel’s policies on Palestine with apartheid in South Africa</a> generated controversies on more than one campus.</p></li>
<li><p>A yoga instructor’s free class at the University of Ottawa was cancelled <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/society/how-a-cancelled-yoga-class-stretches-the-point-on-cultural-appropriation/">upon encountering resistance from student leaders alleging cultural misappropriation</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>A Laurentian University professor was removed from a course for asking students to sign a waiver agreeing to transfer to another section of the same course <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/persinger-psychology-class-1.3389410">if they found his use of bad language in class to be offensive or uncomfortable</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>A University of Toronto professor was told that <a href="https://thevarsity.ca/2016/10/03/u-of-t-community-responds-to-jordan-peterson-on-gender-identities/">he must use genderless pronouns</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>A Ryerson professor and School of Social Work director was accused of <a href="http://nationalpost.com/opinion/christie-blatchford-incident-behind-ryerson-anti-racism-protests-hardly-black-and-white">“a violent act of anti-Blackness, misogyny and misogynoir</a>” when he left an anti-racism meeting on campus.</p></li>
<li><p>The director of McGill University’s Institute for the Study of Canada <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-premier-lashes-out-at-maclean-s-for-suggesting-province-is-in-state-of-serious-dysfunction-1.4034456">resigned in the wake of controversy precipitated by an article he wrote for Maclean’s magazine</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>What is going on?</h2>
<p>Members of the general public who hear of these events might well ask, “What on earth is going on in our universities?” Those within them would be wise to ask the same question.</p>
<p>Are these examples of tensions that must play out in the interests of inclusion? Or are they behaviours that diminish our commons and threaten its vitality?</p>
<p>So what <em>is</em> going on at our universities? Do the above examples represent the normal machinations of institutions committed to the search for truth struggling with new realities? Are some of them illustrations of political correctness run rampant?</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204958/original/file-20180205-14104-1cc49z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204958/original/file-20180205-14104-1cc49z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204958/original/file-20180205-14104-1cc49z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204958/original/file-20180205-14104-1cc49z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204958/original/file-20180205-14104-1cc49z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204958/original/file-20180205-14104-1cc49z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204958/original/file-20180205-14104-1cc49z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author’s new book ‘University Commons Divided’</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is no single answer, no one generalization that summarizes the collective. But there are themes to be drawn out from them.</p>
<p>First, freedom of expression is under attack in our universities — not a deliberate, organized attack, but an accumulation of episodes that diminish its significance in comparison to other considerations.</p>
<p>Second, the concept of universities as intellectual spaces is also under attack as a result of intellectual laziness accompanied by ideology and anger. The result, too often, is not a contest of ideas; it is a struggle for power.</p>
<p><br></p>
<h2>Behaviours undermining freedom</h2>
<p>Anyone who has worked for long at one or more of our universities will attest the examples listed above are not exceptional or unusual instances of attitudes and behaviours undermining freedom of expression on campus. This freedom is seen by many as one among competing values rather than the “indispensable condition of every other freedom” described by Chief Justice McLaughlin.</p>
<p>The concept of universities as intellectual spaces has suffered too, though not only because they interfere with freedom of expression.</p>
<p>Intellectual work is hard work, and those committed to it must take the time to inform themselves carefully, to think their way through complicated questions, and to test their thinking in the marketplace of ideas. This requires disciplined, patient effort and a determination to engage and listen to others.</p>
<p>The path of less resistance is an easier path. It features emotion over intellect and denunciation instead of argument, and is aggravated by quick and ready access to publicity and organization through social media.</p>
<p>The Economist was referring to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21706498-dishonesty-politics-nothing-new-manner-which-some-politicians-now-lie-and">when it wrote</a>: “There is a strong case that, in America and elsewhere, there is a shift towards the politics in which feelings trump facts more freely and with less resistance than used to be the case. Helped by new technology, a deluge of facts and a public much less given to trust than once it was, some politicians are getting away with a new depth and pervasiveness of falsehood. If this continues, the power of truth as a tool for solving society’s problems could be lastingly reduced.”</p>
<p>These words have wider import. Rather than yielding to this shift, or being complicit in it, our universities should lead in the struggle against it. </p>
<p>That struggle begins with a recommitment to freedom of expression as the first principle in their missions.</p>
<p><em>Excerpted from the new book “University Commons Divided: Exploring Debate and Dissent on Campus,” published by University of Toronto Press</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91219/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter MacKinnon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In his new book “University Commons Divided,” former University of Saskatchewan President Peter MacKinnon examines the attack on freedom of expression at Canadian universities.Peter MacKinnon, President Emeritus, University of SaskatchewanLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.