CAUT president Greg Allain presented a cheque for $100,000 to the University of British Columbia Faculty Association last month to ensure it will be able to keep up its fight for academic freedom and faculty rights in the face of unprecedented actions by the UBC administration.

The donation, only the second ever awarded by CAUT’s Academic Freedom Fund, was announced at a media event in Vancouver.

“This donation signals the determination of the academic community in Canada to assist UBCFA in its ongoing efforts to stand up to the university’s persistent legal challenges of basic faculty rights in three cases of national significance,” Allain said.

In all three cases, the university administration appealed the decision of independent arbitrators to the labour board and the courts. Two of the cases involved recommendations for promotion that were rejected by the university president, and one concerned the university’s attempt to require a faculty member to sign away her intellectual property rights to a course she was asked to develop.

Despite having lost every appeal in every case, the university’s intransigence has made the faculty association rack up huge extra legal costs, Allain said

“This donation will allow us to continue the fight to protect the rights of faculty at UBC and to take a stand for the academic freedom of all academic staff across the country,” said UBCFA president Brenda Peterson.

CAUT established the Academic Freedom Fund in 2001 to aid in the defence of academic freedom. The fund is a “catastrophic insurance” plan to guarantee sufficient resources for any local association when defence of academic freedom and rights takes extraordinary resources.