Canadian profs pledge to boycott events in U.S.

TORONTO — Canadian intellectuals are in the thick of a global movement to protest the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump by boycotting academic conferences on U.S. soil.

Hundreds of professors at universities across the country have joined more than 6,200 academics from around the world in pledging to stay away from international conferences held in the United States.

Some Canadian groups have gone further, either rescheduling previously booked conferences or breaking ranks with counterparts in the U.S. who discourage such boycotts.

Participating Canadian academics said their decisions were prompted by Trump’s executive order temporarily banning travellers from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.

They said the executive order, which has been stayed for the moment by U.S. courts, puts intellectual freedom at risk by silencing the voices of those who cannot enter the country.

The issue has triggered passionate debate in academic circles, with one striking example playing out between a major American association and its Canadian chapter.

The International Studies Association, an interdisciplinary organization focused on global affairs that has 7,000 members worldwide, is holding its annual convention in Baltimore this month.

The association has expressed sympathy for those affected by Trump’s executive order, but also urged people to attend in the interest of allowing academic research and discourse to continue without restrictions.

This position drew a rebuke from its Canadian chapter, which urged members to boycott the Baltimore meeting and is arranging an alternate time for people who choose not to attend the main conference to present their research in Canada.

Another Canadian organization, the Western Division of the Canadian Association of Geographers, rescheduled a conference that had originally been booked at a university in Washington state.

The University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford said the March conference will now take place on their campus “in solidarity with those affected by current discriminatory U.S. border laws.”