Newsletter

April 2009

Apsa-Lute Freedom

Mark Steyn

In
Septemberthe American Political Science Association is supposed to be holding
its annual conference in Toronto — which isn’t actually in America. When it
emerged that it is, in fact, in Canada, Professors Robert P. George, Harvey
Mansfield, and some 60 other members issued a strong statement calling on APSA
to seek assurances from government up north that “the civil rights and liberties
of members to free speech and academic freedom will be secure”. (Matthew J.
Franck wrote about it over in the

Benchmemostan province of the NR
caliphate.) The gist of the argument is summed up here:

The
incident has given momentum to a U.S. petition arguing that the right to free
speech is threatened in Canada. The petition refers obliquely to this case and
two others: the human rights commission complaints against Mark Steyn/Maclean’s,
and the Christian pastor Stephen Boissoin, whose homophobic letters ran in a
local paper. Its 60 signatories include some of the world’s most respected
political scientists. In all three cases, says signatory Harvey Mansfield, a
professor at Harvard, Canada failed to give sufficient protection to people with
opinions that differ from the status quo.

The
APSA petition says that “while we know of no direct suppression of
academic freedom that has yet occurred in Canada” they’re concerned about the
pressure to avoid controversial topics. They might want to dispense with the
qualifier.Frances Widdowson is no right-wing nut like me but an impeccably
respectable Marxist who made the mistake of “differing from the status quo”:
Speaking at the 2008 meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA),
Widdowson, a policy studies professor at Mount Royal College in Calgary, argued
our Aboriginal reserve system isn’t working. It encourages unemployment and
alcoholism, since there are few jobs on reserves, she said. Policies that
encourage First Nations to live separate lives merely prop up a broken system;
the best way to help natives achieve health and prosperity is assimilation. Her
paper also criticized Aboriginal traditional knowledge, arguing that some claims
didn’t hold up to scientific analysis, and discussed a “development gap” between
natives and settlers, implying the Europeans were more advanced.

The
presentation got heated. Some of the political scientists started shouting at
Widdowson… Some members said her presentation was “hate speech,” and called
for her to be investigated under the criminal code. A few wanted McGill-Queen’s
University Press to be censured for publishing Widdowson’s recent book,
Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: the Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural
Preservation. Others wanted the chair of the lecture censured for hosting a
presentation where such ideas were voiced.

The
CPSA is “investigating the matter, and a committee will be formed to look at
hate speech” — in effect, to self-censor pre-emptively in order to avoid the
possibility of “human rights” complaints. Once a government gets comfortable
with regulating opinions, even institutions that exist for the very purpose of
examining ideas learn to get with the program. The difference between APSA and
its northern cousin is instructive, and the professors should make their
conference plans accordingly.

National Review Online, February 25, 2009.