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Academic Freedom

Academic freedom is the right of post-secondary academic staff, without restriction by prescribed doctrine, to use their best professional judgment in their teaching and research; to be able to disseminate the results of their research and scholarship; to acquire, preserve, and provide access to documentary material in all formats; to express their opinions about the institution in which they work; and to exercise their rights as citizens without institutional sanction or censorship.

Blog December 9, 2024

Canadian universities and faculty must continue to push back against the speech-stifling IHRA antisemitism Working Definition

In January 2024, we wrote a blog post (and one of us, Blayne Haggart, wrote a companion piece) for the Centre for Free Expression raising concerns about the weaponization of antisemitism to stifle academic and political speech in the context of Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. We wrote it in the context of the then-upcoming and now proposed Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act.
Blog July 23, 2024

What to Make of the Controversy over the University of Windsor Agreement to End the Encampment

Earlier this month the University of Windsor reached an agreement with the occupants of a pro-Palestinian encampment on the university’s grounds. The agreement brought a peaceful end to the protest. Several of the leading Jewish organizations in Canada have been harshly critical of the agreement. Their principal complaints (listed 1 to 5) are that: