BY HANK REICHMAN
The following is the text of a statement released yesterday by the Canadian Association of University Teachers.
The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) is giving a failing grade to a free speech policy developed by Ontario’s colleges without any consultation with faculty.
“The colleges’ so-called free speech statement is a classic example of what you get when you exclude the experts on the matter – the faculty. You get a simplistic and poorly thought-out policy,” says CAUT’s executive director David Robinson.
Robinson says the statement takes an overly punitive approach to campus demonstrations and protests, failing to recognize that the right to free expression is complemented by the rights of freedom of association and assembly.
“Ironically, the statement may have the effect of actually curtailing free expression on campus,” adds Robinson.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford directed universities and colleges in the province to establish free speech policies by January 2019, and threatened to cut funding for institutions that did not comply with the government’s diktat.
CAUT says the Ford government’s heavy-handed approach is a solution in search of a problem.
“The idea that free speech is being squelched on campuses across the province or across the country is grossly exaggerated and masks a thinly veiled political agenda,” says Robinson. “There’s absolutely no need for these policies, but at the very least colleges and universities should ensure that their statements don’t make matters worse. Including all stakeholders in the process of developing these statements is essential to meeting that goal.”
Robinson says the college statement, developed by 12 administrators and just one student, is symptomatic of a deeper problem in Ontario’s college system – the lack of collegial governance.
“The Ford government unilaterally cancelled a task force established to explore ways that colleges could be better governed to allow faculty a role in academic decision-making. To make the right decisions, and to avoid the problems we see with this free speech statement, you need the right people involved,” Robinson adds.
CAUT is the national voice of more than 72,000 academic and professional staff in 125 colleges and universities, colleges, and institutes across the country.
According to the Toronto Globe and Mail, the Ford government “said the free-speech policies should be modeled on the University of Chicago’s “Statement on Principles of Free Expression” and should enshrine a handful of principles, including that no one may obstruct the free-speech rights of others and that students mustn’t be shielded from ideas.” The policy says that colleges must be places where controversial ideas can be explored, even if those ideas conflict with the views of members of the community. Colleges will consider compliance with the policy when making funding decisions about student groups, it says. The Chicago statement has been criticized as “a marketing ploy” and as an “admirable effort” that provides “false assurance” to institutions that endorse it.
“There was absolutely zero faculty input,” RM Kennedy, college faculty division chair of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, told the Globe and Mail.
The province’s 21 universities, unlike the 24 colleges that produced the single statement, have very different governance structures and are all developing statements separately. They have chosen typically one of three paths: to have a statement issued by the administration; to bring a statement to the university senate for debate and approval; or to take it to the university’s board of governors. In some cases, the process has been open and collaborative, and in other cases less so, according to the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, the Globe and Mail reports.
At Ryerson University, a revised statement on freedom of speech but it hasn’t been completed, and a recent senate meeting that discussed the policy was disrupted by protests, according to the campus press.
Jim Turk, director of the Centre for Free Expression at Ryerson and former executive director of CAUT, said the colleges’ statement is very similar to statements produced by some institutions in the U.S. He said the focus on free expression on campus has nothing to do with a supposed threat to free speech and everything to do with politics. “It has to do with playing to [Ford’s] political base,” Turk said. “It’s very much a wedge issue.”
Danny Chang, president of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, said students also have concerns with the policy directive. He said he worries that the right to oppose controversial speech on campus may be curtailed. “There are marginalized students on our campuses concerned that this directive may inhibit lawful, constructive, dissent or opposition to speakers or groups on university campuses,” he said.
