Most academics today have little dif­fi­culty explaining academic freedom in broad terms. It is the right to pursue unfettered intellectual inquiry, regardless of its challenge to orthodoxy or autho­rity, without fear of reprisal. In fact, CAUT’s policy statement on academic freedom is salutary in this regard. Yet in practice, academic freedom is a slippery concept.

In CAUT’s recent book, Academic Freedom in Conflict, contributing authors James Turk, David M. Rabban, Len Findlay, Joan Scott and Jamie Cameron, among others, paint a picture of academic freedom as contested and complex. Indeed, academic freedom, while the right of all professors, is most vulnerable to violation precisely when its protections are most necessary. This vulnerability was recently brought home to faculty at St. Thomas University in the form of poorly exercised anagement rights that threaten free intellectual inquiry and the free speech that guaran­tees it.

In September, New Brunswickers headed to the polls to cast their ballots in a provincial election. In the lead-up to election day, one of two leadership debates was live broadcast from St. Thomas University. Leadership debates remain, for better or worse, an important instantiation of the idea of representative democracy in Canada. Their content always fails to inspire, but what is essential about them is that all legitimate voices be given the right to a hearing.

But on Sept. 18, St. Thomas University — a publicly funded institution — denied that right when it supported CTV News Atlantic — a private media corporation — in its decision to exclude two of the five political parties from the debate. The Progressive Conservatives, the Liberals, and the New Democrats were given a seat at the table, while neither the Green nor the People’s Alliance parties were invited. It’s worth noting that earlier in the New Brunswick election campaign Premier David Alward attempted to limit a CBC debate to the three main parties, but failed.

Naturally, faculty and students were outraged over the exclusions. The subsequent protests that ensued included the faculty as­sociation calling for university president Dawn Russell to either insist CTV include all the parties, or withdraw the use of univer­sity space.

Her response was both telling, and chilling. She began by suggesting that “…the issue is outside of faculty contracts,” and that “…short of behavior which would involve breach of human rights or amount to hate speech, the University administration refrains from interfering with the format, content, and choice of speakers.” Furthermore, “…the restraint exercised by the University administration in this regard is rooted in a profound respect for academic freedom, freedom of speech, and freedom of association.”¹

Russell’s response needs to be construed in the context of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada’s academic freedom statement. Their once-robust statement was gutted three years ago and now makes no mention of intramural and extramural speech rights.

What appears at first glance to be a simple, if specious, prescription of the limits of the collective agreement is in fact a spurious delegitimation of the intramural right of a faculty member — be they a union president or a new contract academic hire — to critique decisions of the administration. The broad implication, that no speech beyond the collective agreement is legitimate for union members, is particularly troubling.

But it’s even worse than this. Russell’s rebuke is undertaken precisely in the name of academic freedom. It is academic freedom that guarantees the legitimacy of non-interference in both on-campus and off-campus organizations’ use of publicly-funded university space, and in faculty critique. The problem is that this non-interference extends, it appears, to private corporate entities whose comprehension of, and respect for, the purposes of a university — the defense of free, fair and open debate chief among them — is nonexistent.

Thus, the administration defended the democratizing of university space by denying a voice to two of New Brunswick’s five registered political parties. When our administration uses academic freedom to deny free speech, it sends an “unsavoury message”² about not only the principles of knowledge dissemination and freedom of access to it, but also democracy itself.

To use academic freedom to deny its conditions of possibility: this must number among our faculty associations’ most urgent concerns, and I submit that so-called “institutional,” rather than individual, academic freedom must be met with concerted scrutiny. It is a difficult task, made more difficult still in a managerial moment when administrators are less interested in defending the guiding principles of the institutions they purport to lead, and more concerned, as Len Findlay has said, with “…conceal(ing) the contradictions of their own practice…” as they shift their loyalties to dubious government and market agendas.³

But attempts to silence can back-fire. Free speech and academic freedom were attacked — precisely in the name of free speech and academic freedom — at St. Thomas University on Sept. 18. Four days later Green Party Leader David Coon won his seat in my riding of Fredericton South, the riding where St. Thomas University is located, and where the Green Party was denied a voice.

Could it be that by not allowing the Green and the People’s Alliance parties to participate in the televis­ed debate, CTV and St. Thomas University gave them a voice after all? Administrators might do well to ponder the possibility.

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Dennis Desroches is a past president of the Faculty Association of the University of St. Thomas and the Federation of New Bruns­wick Faculty Associations. He is the 2013 recipient of the Prix Nicole Raymond for distinguished contribution to post-secondary education in New Brunswick. He teaches lit­erary theory in the Department of English at St. Thomas University.

The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily CAUT.

Comment
CAUT welcomes articles between 800 and 1,500 words on contemporary issues directly related to post-secondary education. Articles should not deal with personal grievance cases nor with purely local issues. They should not be libellous or defamatory, abusive of individuals or groups, and should not make unsubstantiated allegations. They should be objective and on a political rather than a personal subject. A commentary is an opinion and not a “life story.” First person is not normally used. Articles may be in English or French, but will not be translated. Publication is at the sole discretion of CAUT. Commentary authors will be contacted only if their articles are accepted for publication. Commentary submissions should be sent to Liza Duhaime.

Notes

¹ Memo to Mary Lou Babineau, president of the Faculty Association of the University of St. Thomas, Sept. 18, 2014.

² Letter from Jean Sauvageau, president of the Federation of New Brunswick Faculty Associations, to CTV, Sept. 12, 2014.

³ Findlay, Len. “Institutional Autonomy and Academic Freedom in the Managed Uni­ver­sity.” Academic Freedom in Conflict: The Struggle Over Free Speech Rights in the University. Ed. James L. Turk. Toronto: Lorimer, 2014. 50.