The CAQ government has just tabled a bill to “protect university academic freedom”. Among other things, the law will require that universities establish a policy to ensure this freedom in their institution.
Posted yesterday at 9:00 a.m.
This is good news, but we cannot think that the subject of the free circulation of ideas at the university is closed. In fact, two problems, which are not the least, still remain despite the promises of this bill.
Self-censorship
The first is that it is not because a law legislates in the sense of this freedom that self-censorship suddenly disappears.
It should be remembered that among the respondents to the questionnaire commissioned by the Commission on the recognition of academic freedom, 35% claimed to have practiced self-censorship by avoiding certain subjects.
It is of course the pressure of peers and students that causes self-censorship, and we can think that the law will not change anything.
In fact, professors and teachers at all levels censor themselves on a fairly simple calculation that has nothing to do with any piece of legislation: are the problems a sensitive subject will bring worth ‘to land ? But above all: will broaching such a subject harm my reputation as a “scientist”?
Those who have a somewhat romantic conception of education will defend the importance of broaching the sensitive subject at all costs. The more cynical, on the other hand, will simply seek to give their lesson in relative peace. Let us be sadly realistic in recognizing that it is cynicism that very and too often takes over romanticism.
A selection process that promotes homogeneity
The other problem that impedes the free flow of ideas at the university is the faculty selection process. It is that the candidates are chosen by a selection committee made up of other professors.
The selection committee can therefore select only applications that subscribe to certain ideas. We can see this with the issue of “equity, diversity and inclusion” (EDI) criteria that we recently discussed with Université Laval. To give just one example, adherence to the idea of racial representation and quotas, although far from achieving consensus, is now mandatory in Canada Research Chairs.
It therefore goes without saying that an academic who is strongly critical of such measures would become virtually excluded from the selection process.
Once hired, we will certainly recognize the new professor’s right not to adhere to the EDI criteria, several professors have in fact done so in recent weeks at the risk of being considered pariahs in their department. But the fact remains that we will have selected it on the basis that it adheres to it. It would therefore be surprising, to say the least, for the new professor to turn around and criticize the criteria that allowed him to be hired.
At a time when we are constantly talking about the famous unconscious biases that would favor the selection of candidates who share similarities with the selection committee, we cannot ignore this process which tends to homogenize the teaching body on the ideological level.
A truly free institution?
There is no doubt that academic freedom wins out from this bill. However, the lack of diversity of opinion continues to be a glaring problem in the university and this is the nerve of the war when it comes to academic freedom. For the institution to be truly free, it is necessary that professors from all ideological horizons carry out their research on the most varied subjects.
Otherwise, we can have all the laws we want on academic freedom, but if no professor takes the prerogative of it by questioning the dogmas and the fashionable ideologies, as well say that these laws are non-existent. Academic freedom is void if not used.