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.

Featured Blog Events
Blog March 11, 2025

Jangling the Bells: The Report of the Third-Party Investigation of the Clearing of the Palestinian Solidarity Encampment at the University of Alberta

On 11 May 2024, in the predawn hours, members of the Edmonton Police Service walked onto the campus at the University of Alberta dressed in riot gear to execute the direction of the University of Alberta’s president, Bill Flanagan, that they clear away a Palestinian solidarity encampment that had been set up just two days before. Flanagan’s choice to exercise coercive force against the protestors, whose encampment was peaceful, so outraged the University of Alberta community that there were numerous calls for Flanagan’s resignation.
Carolyn Sale
Academic Freedom, Freedom of Expression & Its Limits
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.
Natasha Tusikov
Blayne Haggart
Academic Freedom