Newsletter

April 2002

Nancy Innis Interviews Doreen Kimura

Could
you give us your recollection of the factors that led to the decision to
establish SAFS?

A number of us at the University
of Western Ontario had become concerned at the intimidation of professors
by both students and the administration in several Ontario universities.
Besides myself, I recall Professors Ian Hunter from Law, Kenneth Hilborn
from History, Douglas Jackson from Psychology, and from outside Western
there were Professor John Furedy from Toronto, and Professor Judy Wubnig
from Waterloo, to name only a few.

Examples of such intimidation
included a professor at University of Toronto who had been hounded out
of the university after an exhibit she had done on life in colonial Africa.
The exhibit was deemed to be offensive to black students, though she intended
it simply as an accurate pictorial portrayal of the times.

Another professor at York
University had an official observer stationed in a class he was teaching
on behavioural differences between men and women – the aim presumably being
to ensure that women were not being offended.

At the University of Western
Ontario, a professor who studied race differences was harassed by students,
was not allowed to teach his classes live, and was singled out for proposed
“firing” by then Ontario Premier Peterson.

These and other examples
were clearly incompatible with the values of academic freedom. Other worrisome
developments were the establishment at many universities of extra-legal
tribunals concerned ostensibly with curbing sexual and racial harassment.
However, the policies guiding these tribunals were so broadly worded that
if taken literally, many traditional academic courses could not have been
taught. As it happened, these policies were precursors to the infamous
“Frameworks” document later promulgated by the NDP government, originating
from Stephen Lewis’ 1992 recommendations. The latter urged “zero tolerance”
of many activities in the academy, including the creation of a nebulous
“negative environment”, which could be done by “comments” or “remarks”,
largely unspecified. Almost any controversial statement could have been
so interpreted according to that document.

Did
the NAS play a role in getting SAFS going? What is the relationship between
the two organizations?

Yes, the US-based National
Association of Scholars was very helpful to SAFS in its fledgling stages,
giving both useful advice, and financial help. Many of the original organizers
of SAFS were already members of NAS. NAS, along with the Fraser Institute,
helped us sponsor the 1993 “University in Jeopardy” conference in Toronto,
which gave us the needed publicity to enlarge our membership and further
our aims. There were no ties attached to this help by either organization.
NAS has also helped organize sessions on academic freedom and the merit
principle at other meetings, such as the Society for Neuroscience. SAFS
and NAS are independent organizations with similar goals. SAFS, unlike
NAS, has followed John Furedy’s advice and welcomed non-academics to our
organization.

How
easy – or difficult – was it to attract members to the society?

At the beginning, while the
academic freedom issues were foremost, it was relatively easy to recruit
members. There were, nevertheless, many faculty who told us they sympathized
with our views, but were uneasy about joining because they felt there might
be negative repercussions for them. Most of these were tenured faculty!
We initially had a surprising number of non-university members, who seemed
to understand the importance of these issues somewhat better than many
faculty did. Over the years our membership has waxed and waned. Whenever
there is a critical issue, we get some new members, but between crises,
people tend to become complacent. An added factor may be that some faculty
are willing to endorse our goal of supporting academic freedom but, although
again secretly agreeing with the merit principle, are uncomfortable about
taking a stand on it. Unfortunately, I think too many university faculty
have become part of what Furedy called “the culture of comfort” and fail
to see the long-term consequences of academic decisions based on group
identity.

How
do you think the issues facing SAFS have changed over the past 10 years?
What was its initial major focus?

Although the importance of
academic freedom is no less than it was originally, some of the most flagrant
threats have been defeated, in part I do believe because SAFS was often
the first, and sometimes the only, organization to raise the alarm. In
recent years, we have focussed on maintaining the merit principle, in the
face of employment equity or affirmative action campaigns. However, recent
world events have again underlined the necessity for defence of free discussion
in universities. We now hear of instances in classrooms and in campus writings,
where criticism of repressive Islamic fundamentalism is effectively not
allowed, in case it offend some people. In the early years of SAFS, I gave
a talk on the occasion of receiving an honourary degree, in which I emphasized
that offending students in an academic sense was part of the learning experience
at a university. We need to be constantly reminded of that.

What
do you think is the most important area of concern today?

I think that our two goals
are of equal importance, but their salience will vary with the occasion.
We cannot have excellence in the academy without academic freedom, nor
can we have it without excellence being the primary goal.

In
what areas do you feel that SAFS has been most effective?

It is very difficult to judge
one’s own performance. Some members may become discouraged by the size
of the mountain we have to climb, but we should not judge our impact by
the immediate results. It takes time for ideas to circulate and become
openly discussed, and I believe SAFS has been instrumental in initiating
many of those discussions in this country. We simply must be willing to
engage in the rational critique of objectionable practices, in the hope
that a seed will be sown that ultimately will bear fruit. But there will
never be an end to the battle – eternal vigilance is indeed the price we
must pay.

How
was the name for the society determined?

Originally, we called ourselves
the Ontario Association of Scholars, but when in 1992 we incorporated as
a non-profit organization, the term “association” could not be used because
it had certain legal connotations. So we chose Society. Since at that point
we thought we should indicate the aims of the organization, and our purpose
went beyond the boundaries of Ontario, we finally came up with the name
Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship, naming both our major goals.

Do
you have any suggestions for the future development of SAFS?

I don’t have any specific
suggestions, but I think that the Society is in good hands, judging by
the present Board.