Academic freedom is a bit like “apple pie”.
This is what Alexandre Cloutier said on Tuesday, presenting the report of the Independent Scientific and Technical Commission on the recognition of academic freedom in academia.
No one is against it, all the universities in Quebec say they take the issue very seriously… but they have not been able to protect it effectively enough.
He is right.
We have seen it through the scandals reported in the media over the past few years.
And the report of the commission he chaired confirms it.
A serious report which, let us say it, turns out to be an essential contribution to this explosive debate.
It lists the main excesses (words that we no longer dare to pronounce, books that have been withdrawn, uninvited lecturers, professors challenged “because they did not display the right identity to deal with certain subjects”) and we mention various testimonies of victims.
According to the comments received, the fear of reprisals from faculty members manifests itself in several ways: works are excluded from corpora, citations are truncated and theories cease to be taught.
Extract from the report of the Independent Scientific and Technical Commission on the recognition of academic freedom in academia
It is also noted that “several people even mentioned feeling obliged to avoid certain texts or literary currents that they would nevertheless have liked to discuss in class, in part because they do not feel adequately protected by their establishment”.
This brings us to the heart of the problem.
No one is against academic freedom, except that …
The way we protect it varies in geometry in Quebec.
If all professors felt that they could count on the support of the leaders of their respective universities as part of this new kind of guerrilla warfare in the classroom, they would be much less inclined to give in to intimidation and threats.
The shyness of some leaders is dramatic both for the professors, whose way of teaching and doing research is compromised, and for the students, who would have the right to a university environment where “all ideas and all subjects without exception can be debated in a rational and reasoned way ”.
It has already been argued in these pages that the responsibility for finding solutions rests with the universities themselves.
But obviously, not all of them understood it.
And this is unacceptable.
If the status quo were to persist on the side of the universities, the commission is also doing useful work here. It gives the Government of Quebec a procedure for taking action.
On that, of course, she’s walking on eggshells; the rectors had already said they feared, as soon as the commission was announced, that their sacrosanct autonomy might be touched.
We understand these fears, but we note that the commission is very cautious on this subject, insisting that its work aims to support the mission of the university and not to undermine the foundations of its autonomy.
The report essentially recommends that the government adopt a law to define what university freedom is and its beneficiaries, but also and above all to force each establishment to adopt a policy and a committee on the issue (among others to follow up on disputes).
The Quebec Federation of University Professors welcomes such a recommendation. It’s reassuring.
Note: in February 2020, she had already suggested that Quebec legislate on the issue of academic freedom. Even before, therefore, the Lieutenant-Duval affair in Ottawa persuaded us of the urgency of taking the problem seriously.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, university rectors do not want to know about such a law. However, they have not all protected academic freedom with the same zeal, alas.
Dear rectors, there is a very simple way to convince the government of the pointlessness of legislating: do your homework!
It is one to midnight.