Newsletter

April 2013

Doreen Kimura: Simon Fraser University convocation address

Editor’s Note:

Doreen Kimura, SAFS founding president, died on February 27, 2013, at age
80. Doreen loved research and relished debate. She was a courageous and strong
advocate for academic freedom and excellence in scholarship. We reprint below
the convocation address Doreen gave at Simon Fraser University in 1993, about a
year after SAFS was formed. In this address, Doreen talked about the importance
of academic freedom, the need to offend students with new ideas, and the
excitement of creating knowledge. The address also offers a window into her
resolute and optimistic character.

Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, 3 June 1993.

Madam Chancellor, Mr. President, distinguished
guests and graduates:

I am pleased and honoured to be here today,
and to be able to speak to you.

When I was about your age (many years ago), I went to McGill University in
Montreal as an undergraduate, from my small hometown in Saskatchewan. Up to
that point, it was the most exciting event of my life. McGill was at that time
an intellectually active and stimulating place to be, with, I am proud to say, a
very bad football team. I warmed to the fire of new ideas, lively discussions
with fellow students and professors, and the sense of striving for excellence,
which was everywhere apparent. Within the limits of common courtesy, there was
no bar to what anyone might say in the heat of discussion, and even the
beginning courses In Philosophy, English, Political Science, and so on were rich
in argument and controversy.

I
don’t recall anything sexist about that era, there was no demeaning concern
about a “woman-friendly” atmosphere, no-one patronized me or other women in my
classes, or made any special concessions to us as women. I was never insulted
by an avoidance of topics, which nowadays might be considered sensitive. There
was no Women’s Studies Programme, and no perceived need for any, since it was
assumed that women, like men, had an interest in studying human beings of both
sexes. I had the same opportunity and means for gaining respect from my
colleagues as men had, and nothing less was expected of me. I was, in other
words, an equal.

I
hope that you will later look back with similar pleasure on your years at Simon
Fraser, but I am also frankly concerned that the quality of university education
is now being seriously threatened by considerations, which should be alien to an
academic institution. I have therefore chosen today to say a few words on a
topic dear to me, and, I think, important to the basic mission of every
university. This topic is academic freedom. I choose this occasion, which of
course is a happy one for all of you, because the torch is now being passed on
to you, and the future of the university is in your hands. By alerting you to
the problem, I hope you will be enabled to do something about it.

Most universities have in their mission statements, a defence of the right to
academic freedom, usually a statement from the Handbook of the Canadian
Association of University Teachers. “Academic members of the community are
entitled, regardless of prescribed doctrine, (this is very important, it
means regardless of what the prevailing or popular opinion may be), to freedom
in carrying out research and in publishing the results thereof, freedom of
teaching and of discussion, freedom to criticize the university and the faculty
association, and freedom from institutional censorship.”

Why
is it felt necessary to explicitly ensure academic freedom in a university?
(And note that students are included in this academic community.) Again, the
Handbook makes a reasonable case: “Academic freedom and tenure exist…in order
that society will have the benefit of honest judgment and independent criticism
which might (otherwise) be withheld because of fear of offending a dominant
social group or transient social attitude.”

Parents here today who have been to university many years ago may not be aware
of the measures taken in recent years at most universities, which could
significantly undermine this most essential principle. There has been an
increasing tendency to become concerned with whether persons, as members of
certain groups, might be “offended”. I don’t mean offended by a personally
insulting remark, which of course we all agree is objectionable. I mean
offended by ideas, or even by the airing of indisputable facts. Policies and
tribunals aimed, for example, at eliminating sexual or racial discrimination,
have been put in place, usually with the best of intentions. Very quickly,
however, they have gone beyond questions of harassment or discrimination and
have extended their mandate to the content of courses, the content of
professors’ research, and have even attempted to dictate how adults in the
academic community should converse with each other. Clearly, then, they impinge
on areas where academic freedom is absolutely essential if we are to maintain
the ability to search for the truth, untrammelled by prevailing social
conventions.

Now
I have taught at a university for over 25 years, and I hope that in that time I
have offended many students; in the sense that I have suggested ideas to them
that they had not entertained before and which they therefore found disturbing.
George Bernard Shaw once suggested that all great truths begin as blasphemies.
As a biological scientist, I elaborate in my classes, ideas founded in
evolutionary biology, but which to certain religious fundamentalists might be
disturbing. I do research on brain and behaviour, and the prevailing assumption
here is that all behaviour is a function of the nervous system, not of an
immaterial soul. Some people might find that disturbing. I also do research on
how individuals differ from each other in their special intellectual talents,
and in the way their brains are organized. One of the contributing factors to
both of those things is the sex of the person, that is, whether male or female.
Some people do find that disturbing.

The
capacity to disturb and offend is by no means exclusive to science. Professors
of almost any discipline will, in the course of their legitimate research and
teaching functions, potentially offend. Philosophers may question the very
nature of our basis of knowledge and belief, for example; a professor in
Political Science might dispute assumptions we make about the advantages of
democracy. Yet both would be dealing with the abstract truths and emerging
ideas of their disciplines. Students may certainly argue with these ideas, they
are generally encouraged to do so, but arguments must be based on reason or
evidence. I see the offending of students in an intellectual sense as a
positive sign that coming to university has made a difference to them. In my
own classes, students may argue the issues, and they are permitted to have their
say. Whether they end up agreeing with my position or not, they have at least
understood it by the time they are finished the course. I consider that I am
doing my job best as a professor when I have opened the door to a point of view,
which has not been considered before. In the process, there may initially be
some confusion and distress but I hope also, in many cases, excitement about
ideas which are controversial. This is the only way to fulfil the mission of
the university, which is to pursue and create knowledge, as well as to
disseminate old wisdoms.

It
surely would be a tragedy and a paradox if controversial or unpopular ideas
could become censored by policies, which originally were intended only to
protect individuals from unfair treatment or harassment; if a potential source
of justice for some became a means of injustice to all. In fact if I were not a
woman, and a senior professor, I might myself in these politically correct times
have suffered from institutional harassment. I unfortunately know of colleagues
both within and outside my own university, who have had their courses invaded by
members of special interest tribunals, merely because they were socially
controversial. A professor at York University has had “observers” stationed in
his class on a day on which he discussed the evolution of behavioural
differences between men and women. A watchdog committee has been set up at the
University of Toronto to ensure that no reference is made in textbooks that
could be construed as unfavourable to any minority, no matter how factual or
well established such references are. These are not isolated events, but are
commonplace now, at least in eastern Canada.

The
graduands of today will be too young to recall the reports of invasion of
university classes by fascist partisans in Europe in the 30’s, but some of the
parents here today may recall such tactics. In fact, totalitarian regimes
typically begin with the suppression of free speech. Can we honestly claim that
there is any fundamental difference between the Communist or Fascist control of
academia in the past, and the suppression of ideas, which is spreading
throughout our campuses today? Intimidation against speaking freely is
reprehensible, whatever label we give it, and wherever it occurs. Alan Borovoy,
head of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, has warned, “One of the most
critical dangers to freedom of speech is the existence of laws that impel us to
look over our shoulders for engaging in normal democratic discourse.” Thought
police have no place in a free society, much less in a university.

Infringements of free speech, of which academic freedom is a special case,
generally operate out of fear. But the basic assumption of a rational society
is that we can hear and discuss opposing points of view, and ultimately make
intelligent choices. Surely then, we have nothing to fear from the truth? But
to ensure that the truth can be told, we have to allow a wide margin of error,
sometimes suffering the expression of ridiculous or even repugnant ideas, in the
certainty that if thoroughly discussed, bad ideas will fall by the wayside, and
good ones remain. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes of the United States perhaps
phrased it best many years ago when he said that freedom of speech means freedom
not only to speak the things we agree with, but “freedom for the thought we
hate”. Remember that we are never called upon to defend freedom of expression
for popular ideas. It is always for the right to utter unpopular ideas that we
must be on guard.

My
depiction of what has been happening in universities recently may sound rather
negative, but I have taken the trouble to do this because I believe that the
situation, although critical, can be reversed. And I believe that you can play
an important part in doing so, because today you become alumni of this
university, as well as citizens of the broader intellectual community. As
alumni, you will be asked to contribute financially and in other ways to the
maintenance of excellence at your alma mater. This gives you the
opportunity to influence university policy for the better. Either as an
individual, or through your alumni or other associations, you can express your
concerns about the maintenance of impartial standards of excellence, and of
academic freedom. University administrations do listen when money talks.

Today as you look back on the courses and professors you encountered over the
past few years. I am sure there will be some that come to mind that initially
outraged you, because of ideas that were new or even unacceptable to you at the
time. If not now, then in the future, you may find that these were the courses
that had the greatest impact on you, because you were forced to seriously
rethink your values or beliefs. Whatever your ultimate conclusions, the
intellectual and emotional challenge as you worked your way through, should have
been invigorating and instructive. This is the kind of educational experience
you would want the next generation to enjoy, that you would want your children
to have; and you can, and I hope you will, do something to ensure it.