January 2001
The Board of Directors of SAFS is pleased to announce that we have received
a $100,000 grant from the Donner Canadian Foundation for a legal defence
fund to support individuals to defend their academic freedom and the merit
principle. The title of the grant is: Defending Academic Freedom,
Scholarship, and the Merit Principle: Legal Research and Defence Fund.
As you know, SAFS was founded in 1992 in response to threats to
both academic freedom and the merit principle in Canadian universities.
As our web page (www.safs.niagara.com) makes clear, we focus on promoting
reasoned debate on issues of academic freedom and scholarship, through
activities including encouraging the formation of local university chapters,
distributing information to the media, speaking out publicly in support
of our goals, and writing to appropriate officials when our principles
are in jeopardy.
One activity that we have not had the resources to undertake is supporting
individuals with material aid in those cases where there has been a clear
abuse of academic freedom and/or the merit principle. We have
been constrained by lack of funds to supporting individuals with collegial
advice and moral support only. In many cases, our organization would be
more effective in championing our goals, if we could directly help individuals
to pursue their rights to academic freedom or to defend the merit principle
by being able to fund legal research and, if necessary, the retention of
legal counsel. Now, because of the grant, we will be able to move
in this direction. We believe that the Society has enough experienced
senior members with the judgment to select those individuals and cases
for support that will have the greatest ultimate impact in setting precedents
for safeguarding academic freedom and the merit principle in Canadian universities.
We thank the Donner Canadian Foundation for their support and encouragement.
Help us maintain freedom in teaching, research and scholarship by joining SAFS or making a donation.
