An arbitration panel has ruled that the First Nations University of Canada’s board chair violated the academic freedom of professor Blair Stonechild.

The University of Regina Faculty Association filed a grievance on Stonechild’s removal as a keynote speaker from the agenda of an Assembly of First Nations national symposium on post-secondary education held at FNUC in April 2005. Stonechild was advised he was being dropped “due to the fear I would use my presentation to make statements about the current dispute at First Nations University.”

The panel concluded that “by suggesting that his dispute with Dr. Stonechild should affect the opportunity for Dr. Stonechild to appear at the symposium to present his research, vice-chief (Morley) Watson (FNUC board chair) failed in his obligation to refrain from interfering in and to defend the academic freedom of a faculty member.”

The panel also noted that FNUC officials have a responsibility “not merely to refrain from any infringement on academic freedom, but ‘to defend the academic freedom of members from interference from any source.’

“We think that any finding that academic freedom has been infringed is a serious matter, and serves to emphasize the importance of the employer taking seriously its responsibility under the collective agreement to ‘safeguard and promote’ academic freedom.”

Stonechild, then head of indigenous studies at FNUC, was one of many academic staff at the Saskatchewan-based university who spoke out against Watson in February 2005 when he unilaterally suspended three senior administrators and ordered the seizure of computer files.

These actions plunged FNUC into a crisis that continues to this day and led to a number of firings and the resignations of the president and the vice-president of academics. The deans of the Regina and Saskatoon campuses were ousted, and a number of elders, administrators, faculty and staff were also ousted or have resigned.