An open letter, signed by over 220 professors from across Canada — as well as the United States, Europe and Australia — is opposing proposed changes to UBC’s draft academic freedom policy, which is on the agenda for the upcoming April 16 Vancouver Senate meeting.
The draft policy is only listed as being for information on the agenda, meaning an update will be presented with an opportunity for senators to ask questions or raise concerns, but no motion to approve a draft policy is being put forward.
Signatures come from faculty from a variety of universities beyond UBC, including the University of Waterloo, York University, University of Toronto, University of Oxford, Yale University and Monash University to name a few.
The letter outlines nine critiques of the draft policy — the draft academic freedom policy is meant to replace the one introduced in 1977.
Some of the critiques include the draft policy failing to include specific language that academic freedom needs to extend across public speaking, social media and digital platforms. The letter expresses concern this could limit academic freedom to only traditional peer-reviewed publications.
Another critique is that the draft policy restricts academic freedom to “academic pursuits,” which the letter defines as an “ill-defined limitation” that does not account for the role scholars play in critiquing institutional governance, participating in public debate and engaging in political discourse. It also includes concerns around placing an “ill-defined evidentiary burden” onto members of the university to demonstrate their opinion is supported by a body of “established knowledge,” which could “be selectively enforced to chill dissenting views and marginalize emerging disciplines.”
The open letter also expresses frustration that the draft policy fails to recognize that UBC itself has a duty to protect and promote academic freedom.
In a statement to The Ubyssey, Clerk of Senate Christopher Eaton wrote “At this time the Okanagan and Vancouver Senate academic policy committees are still considering the proposed procedures for the policy and I expect that they will be bringing it to the May Senate meetings for consideration.”
The new policy draft was tabled for approval at the December 2024 Vancouver Senate meeting and was referred back to the Academic Policy Committee after Senators expressed dissatisfaction with the current draft. At the meeting, Senators sought clarity from Academic Policy Committee Chair Kin Lo on whether the policy took precedence over other Senate policies, how the updated policy would apply if it was not consistent with faculty’s collective agreement and how it would apply to university staff like adjunct professors — all concerns similar to those repeated in the open letter.
Work on updating the academic freedom policy began in 2019, and was initiated in response to a number of controversial speeches delivered at UBC by speakers who were not members of the university community. The Academic Policy Committee’s December memo says the speeches led to concerns that speakers “were likely to convey messages that were not in keeping with the institution’s core value of respect towards different people, ideas and actions.”
In 2019 and the years leading up to it, speeches at UBC by far-right influencer Ben Shapiro, anti-immigration and anti-multiculturalism figures Mark Hecht and Ricardo Duchesne and Jen Smith, a trans man who spoke against what he called “transgender ideology,” created significant public debate about academic freedom. The same happened with planned but later cancelled speeches intended to be delivered at UBC by white nationalist conspiracy theorists Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux.
In 2015, the then-Chair of the Board of Governors John Montalbano resigned after he suggested to professor Jennifer Berdahl that her blog writings were injuring the university's reputation and funding prospects. The scandal resulted in the findings and recommendations of the Smith Report on academic freedom.
In 2022, a draft of the new academic freedom policy was prepared and circulated for community consultation, but the committee said this “evoked polarized feedback during the consultation process” and a new working group was formed to further work on the draft. The revised draft presented in December is the result of that work.
State of academic freedom
The open letter comes at a time when academic freedom is the subject of contentious debate across campus.
In the last year, faculty have alleged their employment has been terminated for supporting Palestinian human rights. Many of the same groups have also called on the university to cancel partnerships with Israeli universities and exchanges to archeological sites in Israel — both calls which the Jewish Academic Alliance of BC said jeopardize academic freedom and have been part of a “disturbing pattern of harassment targeting Jewish faculty, staff, and students, and those who partner with Israeli institutions.”
Last March, the university and Faculty Association (FA) reached an agreement about academic units (faculty, departments, etc.) statements. In a press release, the FA said at the time the agreement was necessitated by “actions by the University, beginning in the fall of 2023, that would have curtailed the academic freedom and past rights and practices.”
On April 7, a group of professors and a former graduate student initiated litigation against the university, claiming land acknowledgements, a UBCO faculty statement and Senate resolution denouncing genocide in Gaza and equity, diversity and inclusion considerations in hiring restrict academic freedom and violate the University Act.
This March, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) issued a warning about American political interference in academic freedom in Canada, citing the distribution of a questionnaire received by Canadian researchers who received funding from the United States federal government.
According to a copy shared by the CAUT, the questionnaire asks researchers to confirm their work is unrelated to climate or “environmental justice,” equity, diversity and inclusion, does not ascribe to “gender ideology” and increases “American influence, trust and reputation” among foreign governments and citizens.
The CAUT also issued a statement in March expressing alarm at the Conservative Party of Canada’s campaign commitment to “put an end to the imposition of woke ideology in the federal civil service and in the allocation of federal funds for university research.”
The open letter concludes that “The UBC Senate must reject this proposed policy. It is not a protection of academic freedom—it is a framework for its erosion.”
At time of publication, there are signatories from at least 28 schools.
First online
Share this article
Submit a complaint Report a correction
