Gulf remains between McGill, faculty
MONTREAL • A letter this week from McGill principal Suzanne Fortier has failed to allay concerns among faculty that their academic freedom is threatened following Andrew Potter’s resignation last month as director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada.
Eleven McGill academic administrators — professors who direct research centres and institutes — wrote to Suzanne Fortier on April 4 to say the university’s response to a controversial article written by Potter risks undermining academic freedom and stifling public debate.
Fortier ’s reply, dated April 20, said academic administrators “enjoy the full protection of academic freedom in the pursuit of their scholarly activities.” But at the same time they have “an obligation to ensure that administrative responsibilities are discharged effectively to the highest institutional standards.” She added there are no “bright- line rules” to resolve conflicts between academic freedom and the exercise of administrative responsibilities.
Daniel Weinstock, director of McGill’s Institute for Health and Social Policy and one of the signatories, said “a great distance” remains between the two sides’ understanding of the role of an academic administrator.
He summarized the McGill position as: “You have full academic freedom except when you don’t, and when you don’t is up to us, on the basis of fairly arbitrary, fuzzy lines, which may include our sense that what you have said puts you in an awkward position vis-a-vis politicians.” He stressed that he was speaking on his own behalf, not for the other signatories.
In a Maclean’s magazine article published March 20, Potter argued there exists a social malaise in Quebec and labelled the province “an almost pathologically alienated and low- trust society.” Quebec politicians denounced the piece, and the McGill administration used its Twitter account to declare that Potter’s views “do not represent those of McGill.”
Potter, former editor- inchief of the Ottawa Citizen, apologized for the article’s tone and its “sloppy use of anecdotes.” He resigned, saying it was in the best interest of “the credibility of the Institute.” He remains an associate professor in the faculty of arts, part of his original three-year appointment.
In the directors’ initial letter, they challenged the administration’s tweet, saying it should be taken for granted that academics do not speak for the university when they engage in public debate. Fortier said in “rare instances” ambiguity can arise when academics make statements in their capacity as administrators, and in those cases the university or the administrator may need to provide clarification.
“That was the intent of the ( tweet),” Fortier said, “but I recognize that it raised its own ambiguities about the University’s commitment to academic freedom ... I regret this ambiguity.”