A committee chaired by retired judge Michel Bastarache recommends a series of measures to protect academic freedom and warns against the temptation to censor “sensitive subjects” at the University of Ottawa, which has been the scene of debates virulent on these issues.
“There is no right not to feel offended since academic freedom protects controversial and hurtful remarks,” wrote Judge Bastarache in a 40-page report released Thursday.
The Committee chaired by the jurist recommends that the University “affirm the need to protect academic freedom and freedom of expression for the purposes of fulfilling the University’s mission in teaching and research. The Committee therefore disagrees with the exclusion of terms, works or ideas in the context of a presentation or a respectful discussion of an academic nature and for educational purposes and the dissemination of knowledge ”, adds the ex-judge of the Supreme Court of Canada.
The group “is not in favor of institutional censorship or self-censorship when it is likely to compromise the dissemination of knowledge and is motivated by fear of public disapproval. The Committee believes that students and members of the university community must be prepared to deal with a sensitive subject in an academic context. The advance notice of treatment of a subject considered delicate by some students, in order to avoid them being taken by surprise, is however useful in certain circumstances ”, specifies the report, ordered in the wake of an incident on the use of the n-word in a course at the University of Ottawa, in the fall of 2020.
Judge Bastarache’s team recommends the establishment of an investigation mechanism and clear definitions of the concepts of academic freedom and freedom of expression.
Further details will follow
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