Returning free speech to universities

The Ontario government announced late last month that taxpayer-funded colleges and universities must henceforth create and enforce policies to protect free speech on campus. While imperfect, the plan is a welcome departure from the deafening silence of all provincial governments, of all stripes, about the sad state of free speech at Canadian universities.

When was the last time that a provincial minister of advanced education even complained (never mind did something) about the abysmal state of free expression at public universities? When last did a government official explain that freedom of expression does not include a right to disrupt, obstruct or interfere with the right of other people to express their opinions?

It is a huge step forward for Ontario to require that universities incorporate into their own policies the University of Chicago Statement on Principles of Free Expression. Universities must now state expressly, in their own policies, that they are a place for open discussion and free inquiry, and that they have no obligation to shield students from ideas or opinions that students disagree with or find offensive. The government will now require universities to discipline students who obstruct or interfere with the freedom of others to express their views. Each Ontario university must also prepare an annual report on its own progress in complying with its free speech policy, and submit it to the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO). Best of all, the government has declared that a university’s failure to introduce and comply with free speech policies may result in funding cuts, proportional to the severity of noncompliance.

Premier Doug Ford and Merrilee Fullerton (minister of training, colleges and universities) should be congratulated for making history.

They also need to go further, and address the problem of security fees being used as a tool to censor controversial speech on campus, at Wilfrid Laurier University and elsewhere. Such incidents are becoming more common place, and typically play out as follows: (1) a right-of-centre or “conservative” person is invited to speak or debate on campus; (2) left-wing groups declare that the invited speaker is “racist,” “hateful” or “homophobic” and therefore not entitled to speak at all; (3) feminists, LGBTQ, Antifa and/or other groups threaten violent or physically disruptive protests; (4) the university slaps event organizers with a large invoice (for example, $17,500 at the University of Alberta) for “security costs” that students can’t afford to pay; (5) the event is cancelled. In some cases, the university simply cancels the event as soon as it learns of “protests” (e.g. Ryerson University, August 2017), without bothering to try to extort money from innocent students.

The solution to security fee censorship is obvious and just: send the security costs invoice to those who threaten to violate the university’s rules against the physical obstruction, disruption and interruption of campus events. How is it fair to invoice those who seek only to exercise their legal and democratic right to express their opinions peacefully on campus? Universities can and should impose financial penalties for disruption of peaceful expression on campus, on those who are responsible for trampling on the ability of other people to express their views.

In addition to preventing universities from using security fees to censor speech, Ontario’s new policy should also clarify the government’s intention to ban “hate speech, discrimination and other illegal forms of speech.” It’s one thing for universities to uphold and enforce the narrow and specific Criminal Code prohibitions on promoting hatred. It’s quite another for universities to ban or restrict broad swaths of speech just because they are denounced as “hateful” by the likes of Antifa and other “social justice warriors.” Likewise, Premier Ford and Minister Fullerton need to define “discrimination” clearly and carefully, such that this term cannot be used to silence the expression of unpopular, controversial or politically incorrect ideas on campus.

Last but not least, concrete steps must be taken to defend free speech from student unions, which typically do more than university administrations. For example, student unions must be stopped from banning student clubs from campus solely because they advocate for controversial or unpopular opinions.

The Ontario government has its work cut out for it, and has also made a pioneering start on that work.

THE SOLUTION TO SECURITY FEE CENSORSHIP IS OBVIOUS AND JUST. — CARPAY