Academic Freedom is Foundational
Most colleagues will agree with with this: academic freedom (AF) is foundational to free inquiry and instruction. Where we will disagree is on the specifics. Does academic freedom have boundaries? Are there types of research that should be restricted? Are there approaches to teaching we should/must avoid? Is causing offence permissible?
As with many things in life two opposed positions on AF can be found on campuses. One argues academic freedom has no limits. It draws from an ideology of radical free speech. The opposite view considers there are limits to academic freedom (in fact UBC’s AF statement limits AF to actions within the law). Within this latter view we find an uneasy alliance between administrative managers and social justice proponents who share a constrained view of academic freedom, but for different reasons.
Canadian universities have tended to avoid the more extreme individualist ‘anything goes’ approach to academic freedom. As noted, UBC’s own policy is explicit in constraining academic freedom to practices within the law. For the most part Canadian debates over academic freedom have been influenced by disagreements between proponents of the managerial and the social justice perspectives.
From the administrative side the constraints on academic freedom emerge from law, regulation, and university policy geared toward managing a large institution. Here we see constraints that focus on tone and civility and that label aggressive criticism as bullying and harassment. During my time on the Board of Governors I have observed occasions when senior management or administrative staff complained about faculty or student comments as lacking in civility, being out of context, or being inappropriate to the discussion. Typically this occurred when the senior manager’s statements or recommendations were challenged. In these cases demands of civility became a deflection, a tactic of suppression. I’ve also been witness to a senior staff person question whether academic freedom has any place in the world of a Governor; suggesting no latitude for public expression of disagreement or criticism. Managers focus on the institutional mission and how they see its repetitional capital connected to that mission. They tend to try to limit academic freedom accordingly.
Social justice proponents have a different conceptual framing of the constraints on academic freedom. As opposed to the law and order approach taken by managers, justice proponents focus on the conceptual framing of social/cultural oppression and structural inequalities that disadvantage specific collectivities (primarily defined through subjective experiences of race and gender). Here the constraint on AF is led by a directive to not cause harm defined as practices rooted in structural discrimination. Violations of this directive is understood to be rooted in a hatred or fear of the oppressed collectivity. Constraining academic freedom from this perspective is framed as a moral good and is not perceived by the social justice proponent as an actual infringement on academic freedom irrespective of whether the constraints are within the law or not.
Managers and justice proponents may pragmatically find themselves in agreement to constrain academic freedom, but they got there via very different pathways. And even as they use the same words I am unsure they really mean the same thing. I am concerned that in their agreement to restrict the academic freedom of those they take issue with, the managerial/justice alliance is ultimately enabling the growth of radical free speech advocates.
Academic Freedom at UBC
UBC’s official academic freedom statement arose out of a faculty member protesting a lecture by a visiting Apartheid era politician. Law librarian Alan Soroka disrupted the lecture of South African politician Harry Schwarz.
UBC's initial response was to discipline Soroka and used the discourse of academic freedom to do that. That is, then UBC President Kenny wrote a letter of discipline implying that Soroka's employment was in question. Kenny's letter to Soroka followed the receipt of letters from the University Librarian and the Dean of Arts, both of whom argued that Soroka had violated Schwarz's academic freedom. Neither academic administrator considered that there may be a counterbalancing issue of academic freedom of protest or dissent. For the administration the issue of academic freedom went only one direction - the right of a formal speaker to speak unmolested. There was no consideration of the right of a dissenting voice to actively protest or even disrupt. Ultimately Soroka kept his job. UBC’s senate adopted the now current academic freedom statement.
The members of the University enjoy certain rights and privileges essential to the fulfilment of its primary functions: instruction and the pursuit of knowledge. Central among these rights is the freedom, within the law, to pursue what seems to them as fruitful avenues of inquiry, to teach and to learn unhindered by external or non-academic constraints, and to engage in full and unrestricted consideration of any opinion.
This freedom extends not only to the regular members of the University, but to all who are invited to participate in its forum. Suppression of this freedom, whether by institutions of the state, the officers of the University, or the actions of private individuals, would prevent the University from carrying out its primary functions.
All members of the University must recognize this fundamental principle and must share responsibility for supporting, safeguarding and preserving this central freedom. Behaviour that obstructs free and full discussion, not only of ideas that are safe and accepted, but of those which may be unpopular or even abhorrent, vitally threatens the integrity of the University’s forum. Such behaviour cannot be tolerated.
UBC’s senates are in the process of changing the academic freedom policy to bring it more inline with a managerial perspective. A sore point in the managerial view is when members of the university community invoke academic freedom to criticize governance decisions. The proposed policy takes the position, in effect, that academic freedom does not include the freedom to criticize the governance of the University.
UBC faculty have called out university leadership. In other workplaces publicly criticizing one’s employer can lead to termination. Academic freedom generally protects faculty from such summary termination. UBC’s most recent public attempt to silence an outspoken prof ended in the resignation of the Chair of the Board of Governors and in a finding by the honourable Justice Lynn Smith that the faculty member’s academic freedom had been infringed upon and said faculty member was within her rights to call out the university leadership publicly without risk of sanction.
Smith argues the positive obligation to support academic freedom at UBC means commentary on university governance falls within the ambit of academic freedom. She further bolsters her position by noting that academic freedom is premised on the idea that faculty will self-regulate and participate in university governance.
Smith’s finding on academic freedom floats in between the managerial and social justice perspectives. Her analysis is a careful, thorough legal read on the history of academic freedom in Canada and it’s specific applicability to UBC. It is the needed counter balance to both those who wish to choke down academic freedom or want to open the anything goes pandora’s box.
Collegial Governance isn’t warm & fuzzy governance
Smith ties faculty rights to speak out on governance matters to the institution of collegial governance. This is a term I to often hear managers (and at times, colleagues) gloss as warm and fuzzy, civil, friendly, and polite. But they are wrong. Here collegial means governance by colleagues; it’s a form of self-governance. UBC is not an hierarchical command organization. It is a decentralized alliance of independent decision making bodies rooted most fundamentally in the grassroots department level faculty committee. Paradoxically it is also a centralized command structure wherein the centre has control of finances which grants it power and influence over a wider area.
But collegial governance does not mean quietly complementing each other for participation. It means debate, disagreement, dissent and, yes, agreement and support as well. Feathers can be ruffled, feelings hurt, but at the end of the day it should be tied to the good faith obligations we hold as part of the right of academic freedom.
As Justice Smith observes our academic freedom is rooted in a duty of honesty and good faith, thus:
all university faculty members remain subject to a duty “inherent in their academic freedom … to base their research and scholarship on an honest search for knowledge with due respect for evidence, impartial reasoning and honesty in reporting”. Impartiality in this context should not be confused with neutrality: faculty members remain free to adopt and proffer their own opinions and perspectives on all matters, including those relating to the standards governing their particular discipline. Indeed, it is essential to the “full and unrestricted consideration of any opinion” that faculty at UBC are active participants in the “full and free discussion, not only of ideas which are safe and accepted but of those which may be unpopular or even abhorrent”.
Without academic freedom there is no university. This freedom is not an open door to radical individualist free speech where any opinion is allowed, but neither is it a freedom held hostage by the moral sensibilities of the dominant. It allows us to self-govern our workplace without fear of reprisal. It enables our ability to purse research and teaching into areas that may well make others uncomfortable. At the same time we are responsible to act in good faith and not mask attacks on others within a veil of academic freedom. It also gives us the obligation to protect the academic freedom of our colleagues, even if we disagree with them.
If we don’t use it we will lose it
We each have a positive obligation to use our academic freedom. We have an obligation to speak with the courage of our convictions, tempered by Smith’s notion of good faith and honesty.
I close by citing the concluding lines of a report on academic freedom by Neil Guppy:
UBC continues to work through many new, modern complexities presented around academic freedom. These include new dilemmas posed by streams of, and standards for, public communication and the proper role of public intellectuals. There are as well new pressures surrounding knowledge mobilization and commercialization. The balance of rights and responsibilities is ever-more complicated as different scholars in different fields have divergent views on ways forward. However, at root the academy is a place of intellectual criticism and supporting, safeguarding, and preserving that right is core to our collective mission. As an institution we have not always done that in ways with which everyone agrees, but it is up to us all to work toward advancing academic freedom.