D’Amato’s view

WLU failed to protect free speech

Wilfrid Laurier University was put to a test Tuesday, and it collapsed.

Its credibility as an academic institution was already in question after the Lindsay Shepherd episode of a few months ago.

Since then, it affirmed its commitment to protecting the free expression of ideas on campus, even unpopular ideas.

But when the rubber hit the road on Tuesday, the university failed to carry out that simple, yet most essential, role.

This is not about whether Faith Goldy’s ideas are odious. Clearly, they are. She is a former host with Rebel Media, who was let go after appearing on a podcast affiliated with a neo-Nazi, white supremacist website. She was to speak on “Ethnocide: Multiculturalism and European-Canadian identity.”

But if you can’t distinguish between despising an idea and defending the right for that same idea to be heard and challenged in the bright light of public scrutiny, you really don’t belong in a university.

The real losers in all this were the hundreds of students who had lined up in hopes of challenging Goldy.

“I just want to see the discourse,” said Andre Mass.

Tuesday began shamefully, when Communication Studies instructor Neil Balan tore down posters advertising the event, then boasted about it on social media. It ended shamefully, when the talk was cancelled because someone pulled the fire alarm.

More dignity is to be found in a middle-school lunchroom.

What went wrong?

• Laurier did not have enough security at the event. Impatient students waiting to get into the too-small room pushed and jostled in the packed foyer. It was a dangerous place to be. No one was keeping order.

• When the fire alarm was pulled and the room had to be evacuated, I assumed we would wait outside while the fire trucks came, then we would return to resume business. That’s what happens everywhere else.

Instead, the event was taken to a public park across the street, where it clearly couldn’t proceed because it was too cold and noisy.

Laurier later issued a statement saying the organizers “chose” to take the event outside.

That’s disingenuous. In fact, there was no choice. They weren’t able to return to the room. That decision “had to do with safety (the size of the crowd, both in and out of the room). This was discussed with and agreed to by an organizer of the event prior

to the start of the talk,” said Laurier representative Kevin Crowley.

• Laurier has conspicuously not committed to enabling a return visit for the speaker with better space and security.

How could it have been done better? You just need to look down the street at the other university in town.

In 2012, University of Waterloo held a lecture with controversial speaker Charles Rice, a legal scholar who referred to homosexual behaviour as a “moral disorder.” Protesters stood silently outside as he spoke.

In 2010, author and journalist Christie Blatchford came to University of Waterloo to speak about her book, which was critical of Indigenous people occupying land near Caledonia. Student protests disrupted her talk.

The university apologized and invited her back at a later date when security would be better. She returned to speak in peace.