September 2010
July 12, 2010
Dr. Elizabeth Cannon
President and Vice-Chancellor
University of Calgary
Dear President Cannon:
Congratulations on assuming your new position as President of
the University of Calgary.
We are a national association of scholars (www.safs.ca)
dedicated to academic freedom, free speech, and the merit principle in higher
education.
We are writing to you because of our continuing concerns
about the lack of commitment of your university to academic freedom and free
speech rights for those on your campus. The CAUT Policy Statement on Academic
Freedom states that academic freedom includes “…
freedomto express freely one’s opinion about the institution, its
administration, or the system in which one works; freedom from institutional
censorship…”
More than a year ago, we wrote to President Weingarten about
the abuse of students’ rights to protest concerning the issue of abortion,
http://www.safs.ca/issuescases/harveyweingarten.html. As you know, the
university’s actions in that case received wide and negative publicity, and
ultimately the university’s position was found to be legally untenable. At that
point, we had hoped the issue was over, and that the university would cease to
harass students engaged in lawful behaviour, whether involving social debate or
protest.
Thus we were gravely concerned to read a
Recent Editorial in the Calgary Herald, http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/violatesprocess/3180449/story.html?cid=megadrop_story
that begins as follows: “The University of Calgary’s
mishandling of a Facebook group critical of one of its professors is a black
mark on the institution.” We are astounded that, if true, the university would
involve itself in the manner and substance of student criticisms of a professor,
and go so far as to convict the students of a non-academic misconduct based on
the comments they posted on Facebook. We are also concerned about possible
administrative improprieties, which may have allowed the complainant’s spouse to
serve on an investigating committee.
We won’t repeat the other excellent
points raised in the editorial, except to say we agree that your university’s
actions appear, once again, to have been arrogant and contemptuous of free
speech and the right of all members of the university community to criticize.
But all this happened under someone else’s watch, and you should not be held to
account for other administrators’ violations of academic freedom.
As the new president of the University
of Calgary, we call on you to change course. We urge you, first, to reverse the
misconduct decision against the students, and, second, to recommit the
university, in action and expression, to academic freedom and free speech,
without which there can be no true Academy.
We look forward to your response, and we
will post it on our website along with our letter to you.
Sincerely,
Dr. Clive Seligman, SAFS President.
Help us maintain freedom in teaching, research and scholarship by joining SAFS or making a donation.
