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 May 11, 2020

Just doing their job: why we all need professors to exercise their academic freedom in Premier Kenney’s Alberta

Academic freedom, the “cornerstone” of the academy, is always under threat, often in subtle and invidious ways. But sometimes it is under threat in explicit ways, in the form of full-throated calls from members of the public demanding that academics who have publicly taken positions with which they disagree ought to be either disciplined or fired.
Carolyn Sale
Academic Freedom
Blog September 27, 2019

New Hotline to Assist Students Approached by CSIS Addresses a Problem Neither New nor Unprecedented

Co-Authored by Nader Hasan On November 12, 2018, the University of Toronto’s student newspaper, The Varsity, reported that Muslim Student Association executives had been regularly receiving surprise visits from RCMP and CSIS agents regularly since 2016. Since the events of 9/11 in the United States, security and intelligence officials have taken an interest in Muslim Students Associations (MSAs) across universities in both Canada and the United States.
Anver M. Emon
Academic Freedom, Privacy & Surveillance