Academic Freedom

Unlike universities, Ontario’s colleges have resisted making explicit commitments to academic freedom for academic staff and to affirming the foundational importance of freedom of expression for the work of the college.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has carried through with his promise to require universities to develop, implement, and comply with free speech policies that meet his government’s minimum standard in the next 120 days or face the possibility of a reduction in their operating grant funding.

At a time when academic freedom and university integrity are under widespread attack, University of Alberta President David Turpin has courageously defended the university as an institution founded on the principles of freedom of inquiry, academic integrity, and independence. His institution is under siege for deciding to offer an honorary degree to David Suzuki, the eminent Canadian geneticist, science broadcaster, environmental activist and human rights advocate.

There’s more interest in campus free expression than we have seen since the Great Student Revolts of 1968, or even further back in the last century, in the arguments of the 1930s and 1940s over fascism, social democracy, war and peace.

In the general public sphere, expression is subject to relatively few legal restrictions. Canadian law includes ‘content’ restrictions on obscenity, hate speech, defamation, and false advertising. There are also laws that regulate the time or location at which expression may occur and are concerned with coordinating expression with other activities in public spaces.

(Co-written with Anver Emon, Professor of Law, University of Toronto) Everyone can get hurt. We are complex beings, with multiple attachments, and so we naturally are offended by insults, degrading comments, and uncivil speech. If such wounds hurt, should they be the subject of penalty or public censure? For intractable disputes, it is naïve to think that speech codes can serve to dampen, or even resolve, conflict.