I am surprised at the decision taken by CAUT Council at its November 2003 meeting to join Egale Canada, and that unanimously (Bulletin, Dec. 2003). "Group think" must have become rampant if a question such as the decision to join a controversial lobby is passed with no abstentions and no dissenting voice.

I am reminded of René Descartes: "Present institutions are practically always more tolerable than would be a change in them; just as highways which twist and turn among the mountains become gradually so easy to travel, as a result of much use, that it is much better to follow them than to attempt to go more directly by climbing cliffs and descending to the bottom of a precipice," (Discourse on Method).

Claudia Whalen
Retired Professor, St. Thomas University