April 2008
In
the last issue of the SAFS Newsletter, (January, 2008) I described a threat to
academic freedom resulting from the efforts of anti-military campaigners to
restrict research that might be potentially useful to Canadian or allied armed
forces. Even before my article was published, this threat had receded, though
perhaps only for the time being. (It was an early version of the article that
appeared in print, though an updated version soon replaced it on the SAFS website.)
At
the University of Western Ontario, anti-military agitators had obtained an
assurance that the Vice-President for Research was attempting to “raise
awareness” in other institutions about “issues” related to research of possible
military value — an attempt that did not seem entirely consistent with
President Paul Davenport’s public defence of faculty members’ right to undertake
“controversial” research projects. Fortunately, the Vice-President’s initiatives
met with a cold reception from other university administrations. In due course
he announced that he had received a letter from his counterparts in the G-13
group of universities rejecting the idea of setting up “ethical review” bodies
to screen the research in question. The Ontario Council on University Research
had adopted a similar position.
Though objections to military-related research had been raised also on other
campuses, the G-13 group explicitly recognized the difficulty of distinguishing
between research that would lead to “harm” and research that would not. On this
ground the G-13 refused to endorse even an attempt to set national guidelines.
In the spring of 2007, citing the lack of such guidelines, Western’s University
Research Board judged the creation of an “ethics” review body to be “premature,”
and after the G-13’s response the Vice-President reiterated this conclusion.
Such repeated use of the term “premature” — rather than something like “bad
idea in both principle and practice” — is not entirely reassuring. Neither is
the G-13’s implied acceptance of the notion that rendering assistance through
research to Canadian and allied armed forces may be harmful. It might be better
viewed as a service tosociety, which the armed forces of a democracy also
serve.
What can we expect in future? It
is significant that the particular target of the anti-military campaign at
Western was a project involving materials intended to provide greater protection
from mines and rocket-propelled grenades — in other words, research aimedat
reducing casualties among Canadian and allied military personnel. The
campaigners’ evident desire to prevent a reduction insuch deaths and injuries
suggests a high degree of fanaticism. Since fanatics rarely take “no” for an
answer, and may even be encouraged by a term like “premature,” we have to fear
that the enemies of free choice by researchers will try to revive the issue of
“military-related” research in future, and make new attempts to put pressure on
university administrations.
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