September 2009
Are Canadian
universities and students losing their tolerance for free speech?
It’s a question that
comes to mind these days, after a variety of restrictions have been enforced
against student groups’ activities on campuses across the country.
Some student groups
have been denied university club status or have faced limits on how they can
argue their opinions. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) has taken
to task both students’ unions and university administrations for what it sees as
censorship bowing to political correctness.
Often, these student
groups want to take an unpopular stand in very public places on campus. Some
highly publicized cases involve anti-abortion student groups prohibited from
displaying posters of aborted fetuses in prominent places on campus and refused
“student club status” by student unions.
University Affairs
decided to host an e-mail debate on the topic of academic freedom, from the
viewpoint of students. We asked Abby Deshman,
a CCLA staff member, to argue in favour of free speech, especially as it
concerns the rights of anti-abortion student groups. Her debating opponent is
Carolyn Cody, internal coordinator
of the University of British Columbia Okanagan Students’ Union, which
successfully defended its right to deny club status to an anti-abortion student
group in the B.C. Supreme Court this past winter. The opening volley begins with
Ms. Deshman.
While the Canadian Civil Liberties Association
always has been a strongly pro-choice organization, we have growing concerns
regarding the actions various students’ unions have taken against anti-abortion
groups on campuses. The rationale some student leaders have offered for refusing
to accord official club status to student anti-abortion groups has led CCLA to
conclude that many students may not fully appreciate the vital role freedom of
expression plays on university campuses. These concerns have not been limited to
student leadership; CCLA recently strongly criticized several university
administrations for banning controversial student materials reproduced in
connection with Israel Apartheid Week.
Some of the central tenets of a university education
are critical thinking, intense debate and the adventurous search for truth.
Faculty and students must be free to ask challenging questions and to express
provocative and even at times offensive opinions without fear of official
sanction or censorship. If university campuses become places where highly
controversial subjects cannot be vigorously debated and challenged through
words, images and non-violent actions, then where in society can we expect
freedom of expression to prevail?
That many students may find the material distributed
by some anti-abortion groups disturbing, offensive or misleading likely provides
valid grounds to challenge these groups. The proper response, however, is
argument – not censorship. To quote Noam Chomsky, “if we do not believe in
freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all.”
This debate is about the right of students’ unions
to govern printed materials that can be posted on their campuses. When it comes
to student groups that fall under the banner of the students’ union, then the
students’ union has absolute say over what can and cannot be said by those
student groups. How this responsibility is decided upon is of the utmost
importance.
No one, I suspect, is seriously suggesting that
there should be no restrictions on on-campus posting – for example, that
pornographic materials should be allowed to be posted in the campus daycare. If
you agree, then you agree in principle that there should be a process to
regulate what should be posted, and where.
On the UBC Okanagan Campus, a group wanted a venue
to display the Genocide Awareness Project. The UBC Students’ Union Okanagan
provided a classroom in which they could display the posters and the film. This
is still public space, but people could be warned that these are graphic images
which they could reasonably expect not to see on campus.
It is entirely reasonable of a students’ union, or
any other society with closed membership, to place restrictions on the use of
its resources, as long as judgments are applied fairly.
There is nothing any students’ union can do to
prevent people from organizing on campus, calling themselves whatever they wish
and representing any political position they choose. All the students’ union can
do is set a consistent, democratic standard for accessing its resources –
whether it be money, bulletin boards, space or any other form of support.
Your first statement, that students’ unions have an
absolute say over what can and cannot be said by those student groups they
recognize, sends shivers down my civil liberties spine. Let’s be clear, however,
about what we are debating. I may criticize the way students’ unions have
exercised their discretion. This does not mean that I would argue that this
discretion does not exist, or that it should be removed. I personally think
there is very significant value in student self-governance.
We should also be clear about what is at stake when
students’ unions exercise this discretion. At many Canadian universities,
students’ unions have the exclusive authority to recognize official student
groups. That frequently affects groups’ ability to book free rooms across
campus, post notices on university boards and advertise their existence through
university websites and club fair days.
This is not, then, about accessing students’ union
funding. It is about the ability of these students to function as a typical
campus group within the larger university environment.
Within this context, what’s truly of concern is the
criteria many students’ unions are using to exercise this discretion. Many would
seem to find it acceptable to deny ratification to a student group because they
disagree with the group’s message. In principle, I have no problem with
students’ unions, or university administrations, disciplining student groups
that knowingly contravene clear, objective, fair policies that recognize the
importance of freedom of speech. I do have concerns when the underlying policies
and criteria governing acceptable behaviour are unclear or overly subjective, or
when they allow student groups to be denied status simply because those in
power, or the majority of students, find the content of the groups’ speech
objectionable.
Ms. Cody:
If the membership of a student society decides not
to support a specific group, it is within its rights to do so. A problem arises
when people conflate our decision to withhold support for a given cause with an
attack on their free speech.
Freedom of speech has a very narrow definition: that
someone cannot be persecuted by the government or other institutions for
expressing his or her opinions. Free speech does not include the right to
display disturbing images without any warning. That is what many anti-choice
groups on campuses are doing; under the guise of “freedom of speech,” they are
publicly posting images of holocaust victims and other examples of genocide next
to aborted fetuses. The University of Calgary requested that the anti-choice
group turn their signs and images inward, to protect the general public from
accidentally viewing the graphic images. The group was allowed to voice their
opinions and engage the public in debate.
A violation of free speech occurs when someone is
denied something to which they would normally be entitled because of their
opinions. In this context, it could be penalties from the university, or it
could be a students’ union denying someone the baseline of services, to which
all members are entitled, because that individual criticized the students’
union.
When extra privileges are denied, that is not a
free-speech violation. We need to distinguish between real violations of free
speech and cases where individuals are suffering from a false sense of
entitlement.
You state it would violate freedom of speech if the
university levied penalties – academic or otherwise – on someone because of
their opinions. Indeed, I hope students’ unions would strongly criticize an
administration that refused student group ratification, or curtailed posting or
room booking abilities, solely because the administration disagreed with the
group’s message. If a students’ union has been delegated this authority,
however, this power must be accompanied by similar scrutiny.
With regard to graphic images, not all anti-abortion
groups should be penalized because some may have violated campus rules. In any
event, the principle of free speech would require allowing those groups some
reasonable opportunity to expose campus members to their material. It is
difficult to assess from a distance whether the restrictions imposed in
individual cases strike a reasonable balance. As others have noted, however,
such restrictions must not turn freedom of speech into freedom of soliloquy.
Freedom of speech encompasses not only your right to express but also my right
to hear: a university campus is not a nursery, and students should not be
coddled as though it were.
Ms. Cody:
Neither side in this debate has proposed that
students’ unions or universities should prevent individuals from using their own
resources to promote their own opinions, and yet that is the point to which we
keep returning.
Where I part company with these sorts of
quasi-libertarian arguments is when they suggest that the students’ union has a
responsibility to promote points of view with which its members disagree. If
it’s the case that any membership-based organization has the responsibility to
dedicate resources to every opinion of every member, then the whole system
descends into absurdity pretty quickly.
To sum up, this debate requires the resolution of a
key question – students’ unions’ role on university campuses. Students’ unions
often act both as representatives of student interests and as regulators through
which students access university-wide resources. Acting as the former, it would
be improper – indeed impossible – to require active support for every student
cause. Acting as the latter, however, they must have an overarching mandate to
protect freedom of speech. The issue is not, and cannot be, whether we agree
with their cause. Again, if we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we
despise, we do not believe in it at all.
Ms. Cody:
There is a process in place that determines who can
have access to the resources regulated by the students’ union. If people want to
flagrantly violate these regulations and still act within our system and have
access to our resources, we will not accommodate them. Any discussion of the
right to free speech must include our right to self-determination; otherwise it
is only a discussion of the rights of a few carefully selected stakeholders.
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