{"id":5420,"date":"2016-04-21T11:56:01","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T19:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ross\/?p=5420"},"modified":"2016-04-21T16:58:02","modified_gmt":"2016-04-22T00:58:02","slug":"comments-on-academic-freedom-at-the-university-of-british-columbia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ross\/2016\/04\/comments-on-academic-freedom-at-the-university-of-british-columbia\/","title":{"rendered":"Comments on Academic Freedom at the University of British Columbia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comments on Academic Freedom at the University of British Columbia
\nDelivered at \u201cBreakfast with the Dean\u201d<\/a> panel April 21, 2016<\/p>\n

E. Wayne Ross, PhD
\nProfessor
\nFaculty of Education
\nUniversity of British Columbia<\/p>\n

First of all I would like to thank Dean Blye Frank for inviting me to participate on this panel and thanks to all of you for coming out this morning to participate in a discussion on academic freedom.<\/p>\n

On the surface, it\u2019s easy to be pro-academic freedom, kind of like being for mom and apple pie. But, academic freedom is a contested issue in universities (and schools, but that is a very different matter).<\/p>\n

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), describes a number of major academic freedom cases in Canada ranging from the University of Manitoba blocking a documentary film that reports findings of research on genetically modified crops; to irregularities that lead to the suspension of David F. Noble\u2019s appointment to an endowed chair at Simon Fraser University; to Mary Bryson, the Faculty\u2019s senior associate dean, and her battle with UBC over intellectual property rights. The arbitration decision in the Bryson case is described by CAUT as \u201clandmark in the struggle to insure that faculty, not administrators, determine the content of courses.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

In recent years there has been international attention given to the academic freedom cases of Professors Norman G. Finkelstein and Steven Salaita, who lost jobs as a result of social justice scholarship and activism, in particular, criticisms of Israel\u2019s policies toward Palestinians living under occupation.<\/p>\n

Threats to academic freedom are real and have a long history in Canadian postsecondary education and beyond.<\/p>\n

CAUT defines academic freedom, in part, as including:<\/p>\n

the right, without restriction by prescribed doctrine, to freedom to teach and discuss; freedom to carry out research and disseminate and publish the results thereof; freedom to produce and perform creative works; \u2026 freedom to express one’s opinion about the institution, its administration, and the system in which one works; \u2026 Academic freedom always entails freedom from institutional censorship.<\/p>\n

Academic freedom does not require neutrality on the part of the individual. Academic freedom makes intellectual discourse, critique, and commitment possible.<\/p>\n

Academic staff must not be hindered or impeded in exercising their civil rights as individuals including the right to contribute to social change through free expression of opinion on matters of public interest. Academic staff must not suffer any institutional penalties because of the exercise of such rights. [2]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In short academic freedom is essential to the mission of the university.<\/p>\n

Dean Frank asked the members of this` panel to focus on issues of academic freedom in light of the current search to fill the new UBC position of Senior Advisor to the Provosts on Academic Freedom.<\/p>\n

My first thought was that if we have provosts who need advisors on academic freedom, maybe they shouldn\u2019t be provosts, really. But, perhaps I\u2019m being too glib, even for a short breakfast talk.<\/p>\n

Of course the creation of this new advisory position is the result of controversy created by the former chair of the UBC Board of Governors, John Montalbano, when he interfered with the academic freedom of Sauder School Professor Jennifer Berdahl, after she blogged<\/a> about UBC President Arvind Gupta\u2019s \u201cresignation\u201d after 13 months in office.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Oh, wait a minute. Let me correct myself, like many of UBC\u2019s self-investigation exercises the external report on the Berdahl case, written by former justice Lynn Smith, did not find fault with any individual university administrators.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo individual intended to interfere with Dr.\u00a0Berdahl’s\u00a0academic freedom, or made a direct attempt to do so\u2026 However, sometimes several relatively small mistakes can lead to a failure of the larger system.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Despite whatever good intentions might lurk behind the creation of the new academic freedom advisor position \u2013 and I do believe that its existence is primarily a public relations effort \u2013 at best this position is a band-aid on a life-threatening wound and at worse it is yet another diversion \u2013 a manifestation of an ideological stance that is widely held in society and practically hegemonic in universities\u2014liberal neutrality. I\u2019ll briefly address both of these circumstances.<\/p>\n

<\/u>Corporatization of the University (The life-threatening wound)<\/u><\/p>\n

The corporate takeover of education at the K-12 and postsecondary levels, facilitated is by governments that might best be described as executive committees of the rich.<\/p>\n

The trouble begins when the framework for understanding the nature and aims of education and scholarship is as a tool vital for economic success. As Thomas Docherty argues in his book Universities at War<\/a>,<\/em> the university has become a servant of the national and provincial economies in the context of globalization. Its driving principles of private and personal enrichment are understood as necessary conditions of progress and modernity.<\/p>\n

Docherty sees this circumstances as a radical impoverishment of the university\u2019s capacities to extend human possibilities and freedoms, to seek earnestly for social justice, and to participate in the endless need for the extension of democracy. Docherty argues that we must take sides in this matter because market fundamentalists are on the march and the war is being fought not just for scholars but also for a more democratic, more just, more emancipatory way of life.<\/p>\n

The Problem of \u201cLiberal neutrality\u201d<\/u><\/p>\n

In her article \u201cWhy I\u2019m Not a Liberal,\u201d Robin Marie Averback argues that<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the liberal imagination, education and accommodation are self-evident solutions, since the problem can neither be understood as a matter of brute power struggles nor as a product of structural inequality fundamental to the functioning of entire institutions \u2026 You can\u2019t choose a side when liberalism insists there are no sides at all.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This notion, helps to explain how the Smith Report on the Berdahl academic freedom case creates a victim without a victimizer. This is a pattern played out in numerous instances at UBC in recently. See, for example, the reports on:<\/p>\n