September 2007
Suppose that you and others at your university are upset and embarrassed by a
colleague’s bad behaviour. Why not sign a petition expressing that
embarrassment?
“We, the undersigned faculty members at St. Francis Xavier University, while
adamantly defending the academic freedom of our colleague, Dr. Shiraz Dossa, to
espouse any views that he pleases, are nevertheless profoundly embarrassed by
his participation in the Holocaust-denial conference held in Tehran, a gathering
whose premise has been condemned by the governments of Canada, Germany, France
and Britain among others, as well as by the Vatican.”
This particular petition can be criticised on three grounds. 1) There’s little
evidence to justify the description “Holocaust-denial conference,” though indeed
some Holocaust deniers were present at it. 2) The petition is about Dr. Dossa’s
attending the conference, not about anything he said there, and yet it contains
the phrase “to espouse any views that he pleases.” One might hear in this
phrase the suggestion that Dr. Dossa himself denies that the Holocaust occurred,
which is false. 3) The petition gives no reason for thinking Dr. Dossa should
not have attended the conference nor does it give any justification for anyone’s
being upset or embarrassed that he did, except to say that the premise of the
gathering has been condemned by various governments and the Vatican. If we are
ever right to be embarrassed by what a colleague does, we are right to be
embarrassed by a colleague’s indifference to justification or, worse, by her
blandly citing authority (poor authority, in this case).
I
mention these grounds of criticism merely to set them aside. I want, rather, to
explain why academics should never sign a petition to express their displeasure
or embarrassment at what a person says or does.Of course we are free to write
petitions and to participate in petition drives, whichever ones we like. Had an
official at St. FX stepped in to halt the drive, he would have violated the
academic freedom of those involved in the petition. The petition drive itself,
however distasteful it was, did not violate Shiraz Dossa’s academic freedom.
And yet signing the petition is entirely contrary to respect for academic
freedom or, rather, to respect for the ideals of the university on which
academic freedom rests.
Ideally, a university is a place at which people pursue inquiry seeking to
determine how things are. It is also a place at which people communicate to
others, as clearly and directly as they can, their thoughts about how things
are. And it’s a place at which people teach others, as effectively as they can,
how to inquire so as to determine how things are. Inquiry that aims at
uncovering how things are is inquiry guided by and answerable to evidence and
argument, and answerable to evidence and argument alone. A central purpose of
academic freedom, then, is to remove or, at least, to limit whatever pressures
apart from evidence and argument might come to bear on inquiry, communication,
and teaching.
The
point of a petition drive, though, is precisely to put social or political
pressure on people. Even if, unlike the one at St. FX, a petition contains
evidence or argument, it is still an instrument of social or political pressure,
for whatever work it does as a petition it does in virtue of the number or the
importance of the people who signed it. The work it does, of course, is to
create a climate of intimidation and fear. Having witnessed the petition drive
against Dr. Dossa, professors or students at St. FX wondering whether to
participate in this or that conference might now think twice–not about whether
participating in it will serve inquiry, communication, or teaching, but whether
participating in it will bring scorn and hostility to them personally.
A
person committed to minimizing those pressures on inquiry, communication, or
teaching that are not pressures of evidence or argument would not sign a
petition criticising a person for using this or that venue to express his or her
views. She would understand that such a petition is a political instrument the
point of which is to cow her colleagues and students to toe some preferred line.
Colleagues of Dr. Dossa upset or embarrassed because of his participation in the
Tehran conference may certainly state their anger or embarrassment–and, as
academics, they should be concerned to explain, and to explain well, why Dr.
Dossa should not have gone to Tehran. So, why should Dr. Dossa not have gone to
Tehran? The petition itself does not say, but from what the president of St.
Francis Xavier has written and from newspaper commentary, I find two lines of
argument. The first is that by attending a conference featuring Holocaust
deniers, Dr. Dossa has potentially legitimized Holocaust-denial. The second is
that Dr. Dossa’s attendance hurt St. FX’s reputation.
That neither line is at all well developed by those who offer it is a scandal;
that this scandal isn’t recognized as such is a second scandal. (I’m reminded
of those who criticised Saint Mary’s University philosophy professor Peter March
for posting the Danish cartoons; they also cared neither to present arguments
nor to respond to criticism with arguments.)
Clearly, though, neither line of argument why Dr. Dossa should not have gone to
Tehran, however it is to be developed, has to do with what Dr. Dossa said at the
conference, either during his presentation or at any other time. Neither line
of argument has to do with the quality of Dr. Dossa’s research or the quality of
his discussion of either his research or the research of others. Whatever part
of St. FX’s reputation is in the mind of Dr. Dossa’s critics, it isn’t St. FX’s
reputation as a place of research, dissemination of research, or teaching, for
that reputation can be sullied only by poor research, ineffective communication,
or bad teaching.
This fact is disturbing, for it reveals that the many critics of Dr. Dossa’s
trip, and over one hundred members of the faculty at St. FX signed the petition,
hold to a different ideal of the university than the one I sketched above. On
this different ideal, the university is to serve one or another social good
directly, and not only indirectly by being the best place of research,
dissemination, and teaching that it can be. On this ideal, professors and
students are to ask not only whether their learning is good as learning, but
whether it fits well with one or another preferred value. We are right to apply
to colleagues and students pressures apart from the pressures of evidence and
argument, then, those who signed the petition must say, for doing so is an
effective way of pursuing those values.
This other ideal of the university, and the sense of the mission and purpose
of the university that it generates, is, I think, behind many of the assaults on
academic freedom we have recently seen in Canada and elsewhere. The thought is
that there are things more important than research and teaching and the life of
the mind, and, so, when they might interfere with our pursuit of these things,
research, teaching, and the life of the mind are to be suppressed or abandoned.
Now one question here is whether protest marches, candlelight vigils, petitions,
boycotts and the rest do in fact serve whatever political or social ends they
are enlisted to serve. It’s difficult to see that they do, at least if their
ends are other than merely to proclaim to the world that one and one’s crowd
stand on the side of justice and light. But a more central question is what
these things more important than research, teaching, and the life of the mind
are. They cannot be the good liberal values of honesty, tolerance, reason,
respect for persons as individuals, and democracy, for research, teaching, and
the life of the mind cannot threaten these values–on the contrary.
The
optimistic view of the petition drive at St. Francis Xavier is that the
professors who signed the petition expressing embarrassment over Dr. Dossa’s
trip to Tehran didn’t really know what they were doing. The ugliness of
Holocaust-denial so clouded their minds that they failed to see that to sign the
petition was to express contempt for academic freedom. The pessimistic view is
that many of them knew exactly what they were doing. They saw in the petition
an opportunity to align themselves publicly with values they wish their
university to embody, values, I’ve argued, that must be at odds with the ideal
of the university as a place where people live the life of the mind.
Mark Mercer is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
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