If you thought UBC was actually investigating the charges its board chairman breeched the academic freedom of a professor, you’d be wrong.
Following the University of British Columbia Board of Governors’ secret meeting on Monday, Angela Redish (Provost Pro Tem) and Martha Piper (Interim President) released a statement on academic freedom.
This statement was widely reported as an announcement that UBC was initiating an active investigation of the charges made by Professor Jennifer Berdahl against UBC Board of Governors Chair John Montalbano for breeching her academic freedom in his response to her analysis of the sudden departure of Arvind Gupta as UBC’s president. Details here and here.
Sample headlines:
UBC statement: “Serious” allegations of breaches of academic freedom to be investigated [Georgia Straight]
UBC to investigate Prof. Jennifer Berdahl’s claim she felt ‘gagged’ [CBC]
UBC to investigate complaint over blog post about former president [Globe and Mail]
Problem is the Redish/Piper statement does not actually say that there is or will be an investigation.
The Redish/Piper statement only describes the existing UBC policies on academic freedom and grievance and arbitration procedures.
Redish and Piper state,
UBC has rigorous processes in place – established with the agreement of the Faculty Association – to investigate any allegation of breach of academic freedom. It is imperative that we follow this impartial process embedded within and protected by the collective agreement before pre-judging unproven and untested allegations at this time.
The high and mighty tone of the statement regarding UBC’s commitment to the principles of academic freedom and “rigorous processes” is a misdirection from the fact that this statement does not announce an investigation of Berdahl’s complaints that Montalbano breeched her academic freedom.
All the bluster about academic freedom is followed by a non-sequitur describing a non-existent investigation.
The facts will be gathered and all parties will be heard before reaching any conclusion. We welcome this process and it would be entirely inappropriate to comment further on the allegations until this process has been concluded.
Presuming the process would actually ever start.
It is curious that the Redish/Piper statement focuses on the university’s collective agreement with faculty and does not mention the UBC Board of Governors Policy 3 on Discrimination and Harassment.
Investigation of the academic freedom charges via the collective agreement requires an individual faculty member (or the UBCFA) to file a complaint. This raises interesting questions: Why would Professor Berdahl file a grievance via collective agreement processes? What kind of remedy could she possibly receive as a result of the process?
Berdahal’s blog post on academic freedom says as much, that is, as a tenured full professor she can continue to exercise her academic freedom, albeit in an hostile environment. And, as she points out, the most deleterious of the effects of Montalbano’s meddling will be on faculty and students who do not have the protection of tenure, creating a chilling effect on critical discourse.
Indeed, today’s announcement by the UBC Faculty Association describes how the usual collective agreement processes have been already ben undermined by Montalbano and the university:
… the University itself has sidestepped standard protocols for handling grievances. More specifically, the Chair of the Board of Governors, the Board’s chief spokesperson, gave public, personal testimony related to the case in a University media release. We were shocked that this happened in a formal University media release posted on a University website. (This media release seems to have been removed from news.ubc.ca late Tuesday evening. We have a downloaded copy.) Mr. Montalbano has confused personal interests with the University’s interests. …
While the University has publicly said that a grievance involving Mr. Montalbano could be managed under our usual collective agreement processes, this no longer seemed possible.
So, if UBC leadership is serious about investigating the alleged breech of academic freedom in the Montalbano/Berdahl case they could and should proceed via Policy 3 on Discrimination and Harassment, which is what they should have done in the first place.
Policy 3 begins with this statement,
The University of British Columbia has responsibility for and is committed to providing its students, staff and faculty with an environment dedicated to excellence, equity and mutual respect; one that is free of Discrimination and Harassment; and one in which the ability to freely work, live, examine, question, teach, learn, comment and criticize is protected. Academic Freedom and freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression carries with it the expectation that all Members of the University Community will conduct themselves in a responsible manner so as not to cause, condone or participate in the Discrimination or Harassment of another person or group of persons.
There is no doubt Policy 3 is relevant in this circumstance.
The fundamental objective of Policy 3 is prevention discrimination and harassment on grounds protected by the B.C. Human Rights Code, and it provides procedures for handling complaints, remedying situations, and imposing discipline when such discrimination or harassment does occur.
The responsible executive for initiating an investigation under Policy 3 is the Provost and Vice-President Academic, Angela Redish.
UBC is making a quite a name for itself as a result of its lack of transparency in governance and administration.
The shroud of secrecy around the departure of Arvind Gupta is at the heart of the current crisis. And the lack of clarity about the actions of the Board and the administration in responding to Professor Berdahl’s academic freedom charges only compounds how the university’s leadership crisis is undermining academic integrity at UBC.
UBC needs to makes clear if there is an active investigation on Berdahl’s complaint and what the terms of reference are for that investigation. Or, admit that the university is not as dedicated to preserving academic freedom as they have claimed to be.
Just to be clear #UBC has *not* said there is an active investigation of Berdahl’s allegations of breech of academic freedom #ubcbog 1/3
— E Wayne Ross (@EWayneRoss) August 19, 2015
It is unknown if Berdahl has or intends to file a grievance via #UBCFA collective agreement on breech of academic freedom #UBC #ubcbog 2/3
— E Wayne Ross (@EWayneRoss) August 19, 2015
Neither #UBC or #ubcbog has released terms of reference for any investigation of breech of academic freedom in Montalbano/Berdahl case 3/3
— E Wayne Ross (@EWayneRoss) August 19, 2015
Related posts:
How not to run a university (Part 2): Intimidation, bullying & harassment at UBC
How not to run a university (Part 1): Secrecy at UBC
Arvind Gupta: Known knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns …
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