My office door and the campus free speech crisis that never was
For reasons of naiveté or worse, the media and the public have been taken in by the view that there is a free speech crisis on campus.

If you are reading this column, you probably know that the Government of Ontario has mandated that all postsecondary institutions in the province must have a free speech policy in place by January 1, 2019 – just a couple of weeks from now. So, let’s talk about free speech on campus. But first let me tell you about my office door.

I have one of those iconic office doors. You know the kind. Every university department has a couple of professors whose doors are plastered with flyers and clippings and stickers. In my department, that’s me. Visiting speakers sometimes photograph my office door. Colleagues send me stuff to post on it. Students go ahead and post stuff there themselves.
A couple of years ago, a senior high school student shyly knocked on my door and introduced herself to me. She’d been visiting my building every December throughout her high school years for an annual event, and apparently she had gotten into the habit of visiting my door to read the stuff on it. Over the years, she had found some of the feminist and LGBTQ-positive stuff on my door helpful. On this, her last visit, she wanted to meet the person behind the door. Another time a student from a nearby university came to talk to me because he had noticed on my door a comic strip poking gentle fun at libertarians. He wanted me to know that he thought I was wrong, but he also wanted to hear my side. I invited him in and we spent an hour cordially discussing the stuff we disagreed on but also some stuff we agreed on. I gave him my email address so that he could follow up if he wanted to.
All of this is to say: I wear my views on my sleeve and my sleeve is my office door. The stuff on my door provokes varied responses – both negative and positive – but no one at the university has ever interfered with what I post there.
I am telling you this because I think that my office door nicely emblematizes just how much free expression is valued on university campuses. Very few professionals outside of academe have office doors like mine. But doors like mine are a familiar feature of university academic buildings. That’s because we expect professors and students to tell us what they think, and we expect them to do it in ways that go beyond articles, books and lectures. Indeed, it is very difficult to imagine anyone with greater freedom of speech protections than university professors.
Free speech on campus extends well beyond the rights that all members of the public enjoy. University personnel have standard Charter protections, of course. That is, for professors as for anyone else, the state may not without good reason limit our expression. Unlike state colleges in the U.S., Canadian universities are not regarded as agents of the state. The question has come up in a number of court cases over the years, and Canadian judges have consistently found that universities are not agents of the state and therefore do not have Charter obligations toward their employees and students. So, like other non-state employers, universities have the right to limit their employees’ expression in various ways. (For example, a McDonald’s employee may be disciplined for recommending to customers that they go to Burger King instead. If McDonald’s were an agent of the state instead of a private organization, things would be more complicated.)
While they are thus not obliged by the Charter to do so, universities typically extend to their employees and students considerable freedom of expression. The reason that universities extend greater expressive freedom to their employees than McDonald’s does is that such freedom, while unnecessary for selling burgers, supports the scholarly mission of the university.
The founding document for my university is the University of Waterloo Act. The Act lists the “objects” of the university as “the pursuit of learning through scholarship, teaching and research within a spirit of free enquiry and expression.” Language of this type is pretty common in the founding documents of Canadian universities. And most universities have additional language reinforcing these objects in other policies and in collective agreements.
Since the extraordinary free expression enjoyed on university campuses is tied to the scholarly mission, it is the scholars themselves – professors and students – who have the greatest freedom of expression. Thus, there are often limits on how freely non-academic staff members and senior academic administrators (like deans and vice-presidents) can express themselves. The reason for this asymmetry is that while scholarship requires a spirit of free expression, administration often requires discretion and strategic, coordinated communication. (For a recent illustration of this, see the case of Robert Buckingham, formerly of University of Saskatchewan. Dr. Buckingham was fired from his position as dean for criticizing the university, but was quickly reinstated as a tenured professor because, unlike deans, professors have the right to publicly criticize their employers.)
For rank-and-file professors and students, though, expressive freedom is virtually unmatched anywhere else in society. As part of their academic freedom, professors have not only freedom in inquiry, but also the freedom to criticize their employer and the freedom to engage in full-throated extramural expression. Last April, I published a widely-read criticism of my university president’s approach to free speech. I was never subject to any discipline for having publicly called out my president in this way. Moreover, he and I remain on very good terms. There are very few sectors that work this way.
Likewise, as part of the freedom to learn (the student side of academic freedom), university students are free to publicly criticize their professors and institutions, and to engage in protest to a much greater degree than most people outside of universities are. Student protests are a regular occurrence on university campuses. Again, it is difficult to think of any other type of private institution besides universities where protest is so much a part of the normal order of things. This is all to the good. Critique is an important part of scholarship, and protest is one form that critique can take.
Despite the unparalleled expressive freedom enjoyed by university personnel, in recent years, the media and the public have grown increasingly credulous of the view that there is a free speech crisis on campus. There are two main reasons for this – one more sinister than the other.
The innocent reason is psychological. Human beings pay more attention to anecdotes than they do to other kinds of data, including statistical, and are more riveted by negative anecdotes than positive ones. For this reason, we tend to think that there is more violent crime than there is. Rather than attending to declining rates of violent crime, we fixate on the stories we read in the news about horrible crimes. Likewise, we pay more attention to periodic campus free speech violation stories than we do to the overall evidence that campus free speech is healthy and getting healthier.
Of course, with thousands of students, professors, courses, and campus speakers across the country, free speech violations occur from time to time. But these are outliers. Unfortunately, they are the only stories we hear about. A controversial speaker whose talk doesn’t get shut down doesn’t make for much of a headline. A few days ago, in a heroic and carefully documented Twitter thread, Acadia University politics lecturer Jeffrey Sachs highlighted the media silence on the many controversial campus talks that proceed without incident.
The more worrisome reason for the campus free speech panic is political machinations aimed at undercutting universities’ institutional autonomy. In recent years, the American Association of University Professors has tracked the role that the Goldwater Institute (a conservative and libertarian think tank) has played in constructing a campus free speech crisis in aid of so-called campus free speech legislation in state governments. As of March of this year, campus free speech legislation had been approved in nine states and introduced in seven more.
It isn’t clear at this point whether the Ontario government’s intervention is the product of guileless credulity in a crisis that doesn’t exist or whether it is the offspring of a more sinister parent. And it isn’t yet clear whether the policies that many Ontario universities are still scrambling to approve on time will have deleterious downstream effects on campus free expression, not to mention collegial governance and institutional autonomy. Much will hang on the implementation.
Over the coming weeks, as you wish people a Happy New Year, cross your fingers that the new campus free speech policies that take effect in 2019 will support rather than harm the robust free expression that has always been enjoyed at Ontario universities.
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13 Comments
I agree that the freedom of speech crisis is much exaggerated and that the intervention by the Ford Conservatives is misguided and dangerous for academia. But I’m not sure that your examples demonstrate particular openness to diverse ideas given they are pretty mainstream among the most vocal critics of free speech, namely those in the humanities and some social sciences. What do you think would have happened if you had posted critiques of feminism, along the lines of Sommers or Patai & Koertge? Or perhaps other positions of speakers who have been protested on campus?
Perhaps some of the other postings than those mentioned are more controversial among those challenging free speech, but I could not read them. You definitely have some topics at issue in the current climate (e.g., safe spaces).
I have a psychotherapy practice an hour and a half from the nearest university in one direction and an hour from another university in another direction. In the last year, have had two graduate students from different universities seek my services because they felt unsafe doing so in their cities for fear of word getting back to their faculties. Their reason for seeking services was that they felt unsafe speaking their minds in their classes because their perspectives did not fall in line with the popular discourse in the classes. One reported being shouted down by other students when presenting empirical evidence to support his standpoint, while the professor sat back and did not intervene or say anything. The other reported incidents where faculty reprimanded the student for expressing ideas that would cause the student to be marginalized.
In both cases, the students presented me with the empirical evidence they used to inform their opinions. To be honest, although their perspectives did not align with my own values, they both presented fair arguments, motivated by compassion and cited rigorous research to support their perspectives. In fact, their positions were sufficiently compelling that in both cases, after they left, I started looking up the topics in question and learned a lot.
When it comes to a point that students are seeking out psychotherapy (an hour away for fear of academic sanctions if they pursue it closer to home, no less), there is a freedom of expression crisis.
Since this time, I have spoken to professors at a few universities about freedom of expression and they agree that less popular perspectives, regardless of how well substantiated by empirical research, can result in marginalization of faculty and students. One professor told me that as his students cotton on to the fact that he does not push the status quo, many open up to him and report feeling threatened by the university climate because their values don’t align with the popular discourse at the university.
It is wonderful that people are able to explore ideas and feel safe doing so at post-secondary institutions. It is also terrific that we have created safe spaces for those who often feel stigmatized. We need to make sure though, that in doing so, we’re not creating unsafe spaces for those whose ideas do not fall in line with popular discourse. Part of achieving this is for instructional staff to model respectful disagreement and discussion of controversial perspectives. Another part is for instructional staff to correct abusive responding to controversial perspectives when those perspectives do not reflect hate or abusive ideas.
Just because your opinion is heard without sanction, it doesn’t mean everyone experiences that same privilege. I would urge the author to question whether she is making the same assumptions about others that were once made about the those who share her perspective, making universities (and society) an unsafe place for those others.
Why is it then that, as a contract teacher at a Canadian uni, I feel a great need to watch every word that comes out of my mouth…?
Thank you for this column. I appreciate the sentiment and I agree that the issue of free speech on campus is not at crisis level (yet). I must say that your office door would have been controversial some 20 years ago, but now is the safe mainstream. I don’t believe anybody is protesting AGAINST any of the materials posted to your door. It’s actually a pretty kickass office door!
I have been wondering lately why we have such a knee-jerk resistance to the Ontario government’s request to formalize free-speech policies? Lots of comments online (and at my institution) about how this is just going to erode free speech and become “chilling”, but I never hear a cogent argument as to why that is. We all marched in lockstep when the governments requested policies for protecting personal information, violence and harassment, health and safety, and so on. But in all of those issues academic institutions were likewise less problematic than in many public sectors…and the government was liberal. I didn’t hear much public consternation against requirements for sexual harassment policies. Nobody said that it was a nefarious ploy by the government that would ultimately lead to increased sexual harassment. Why is this different?
Is the requirement for free-speech policies pointless? Maybe. Time will tell. Is it nefarious and harmful? There’s no reason to believe it is.
Great comment, Alison Acheson, particularly given that there’s an article in this issue of UA warning professors to be careful about what they tweet. Freedom of expression, no?
This article reminds me of that old Henry Ford adage ‘you can have any colour automobile you want as long as its black.’ The updated, university version is “you can have ‘extraordinary freedom of expression’ on campus as long you adhere to leftist orthodoxy.” To this we can add a dash of Orwell: ‘on campus all speech is free, but some kinds of speech have more freedom than others.’
The office door does indeed “emblematize” the prevailing climate on most Canadian university campuses but not in the way that the author suggests. Far from being a measure of intellectual ‘freedom,’ the door represents the kind of boiler plate, leftist identity politics that dominates campus culture. Such doors are common on university campuses however there is nothing daring or risky about them. They all amount to the same thing: a show of one’s leftist credentials and commitment to the prevailing wisdom.
A far more telling indication of where free speech on campus is at is the relative absence of any opinion that could be construed as even mildly conservative. In most departments in the humanities and social sciences voicing a conservative opinion on any of the ‘hot button’ topics can be very costly to one’s career. Having a conservative version of the office door described in this article would be even riskier and in some institution’s probably career ending. I say this based on over twenty-five years of working on several university campuses (this pressure has gotten much more intense in the past 5 years).
One last point. Freedom of speech on campus is as much about the zeitgeist as it is about official codes and regulations. Faculty will self censor if they know they will be destroyed on social media or undermined in various ways by colleagues. They will also self censor if they know there is no support among their colleagues for the ideals of free debate and diversity of opinion. Unfortunately this article typifies the indifference/contempt that many faculty on the left now feel toward diversity of opinion. They are quite happy to see others censored and shut down in various ways as long they can push ever more extreme forms of identity politics.
Free speech is not a campus problem. It’s a problem of Canada in general. If you can get sued for saying anything (and you haven’t explicitly promised not to say this), then there is no free speech. Sadly, there is no free speech in the world – every government made up some “illegal” things to say.
Around my university, this door would be utterly conventional. As someone else pointed out, it might have been controversial 20-25 years ago, but not now. I will concede that it is unusual that the door is almost entirely covered and this would certainly draw attention to it. Most faculty members do not wallpaper their doors.
I invite the author to tour her campus and see how many faculty members post on their doors anything that does not fit the current orthodoxy expressed on her door. Does anyone post any prolife messages? Anything about misandry? Anything challenging indigenization? A pro Rob Ford button? I highly doubt this would be the case as it would invite a torrent of personal attacks and threats, social media condemnation, and no doubt everything would be torn off the door as a means of no-platforming. The absence of these opposite views actually emblematizes the lack of free expression on campuses.
When you are in a position of power with respect to your ideology it is easy to declare no need for additional protection and to cavalierly dismiss those who have dared to express contrary views and paid the price (e.g., Rick Mehta) as“outliers”. I submit that there are more “outliers” than she thinks, but they are keeping silent out of fear of reprisal from their colleagues and from students. Many of these individuals no doubt support the Ford government mandating free speech policies, but I wonder how easily they could express this support publicly on their campuses?
The author has a door that is plastered with far left ideology and works in a unionized setting where most of the members are also oriented towards the left to far left part of the political spectrum, and wants me to believe that she is in a tolerant work environment where all views can discussed.
I wonder if Dr. Dea is familiar with my case at Acadia University in which the union president signed a confidentiality agreement with the administration that waived the rights that I had under the collective agreement at my institution. This, in turn, allowed the administration to dismiss me under the guise of the collective agreement. And now this same union – the one that undermined the rights I had as a tenured and unionized professor at a Canadian university – is going to be representing me as my case goes to arbitration.
The university system in Canada has become a joke. Perhaps it’s not surprising why public trust in our institutions is politicized and arguably at an all time low.
Not to make light of the argument or the issue, but the accompanying photo seems to show that Dr. Dea’s adornments cover a window in her office door. This is a near-ubiquitous practice among instructors lucky enough to have a private office. They use many kinds of material, not all of them inspired by political philosophy. (I hung my academic gown on the inside.) The main purpose is to obscure the view of the interior, in favour of privacy and against interruption. From the tiny portion visible, Dr. Dea’s window glass appears to be frosted, but you can tell through frosted glass whether the lights are on and the office probably occupied. All of which raises a question: why, in new construction or renovations, do universities not save money by installing windowless office doors?
Come on, seriously? This is like an academic in the Soviet Union insisting that he has freedom of speech because he’s allowed to praise Stalin as much as he wants. The Establishment isn’t going to come after you for _agreeing_ with it!
Hello! Thank you for sharing this article. I myself am a student, a legal immigrant, and I guess what others would call a conservative. I just wanted to say on a personal level I was very happy to hear about these changes. In order to maintain a 4.0 GPA I have found it necessary over the past few years to augment all my opinion work in a dishonest way for a handful of professors in order to achieve a good grade. It sounds like you are an open minded person but many teachers are not. As a specific example, I failed an assignment that had asked me to compare Republicans to a group of wolf tribesman in Indonesia who use drugs to rape women. My thesis states that that there really were no similarities between the two. I received a 0 and was told I missed the point of the assignment. When I took my assignment to the course director I was told “as an immigrant I was told once again that it seemed I did not grasp the concept of the assignment and that I should work with the teacher next time to understand it. I have never received a grade lower than 85. Distraught, in tears, I went to a counsellor I trusted who sent me to the dean who personally marked the assignment. The next morning I was sent an email informing me that my work had been regarded and it has now actually has been published in a school paper. I should not have to be told that my political views are wrong and that I missed the point of a an assignment when my position simply disagreed with the stance of the paper. There are not many teachers who act this way but a student has the right to protection. If my brother who is homosexual were told my his teacher that he did not understand the concept of an assignment that asked him to compare homosexuals to something horrible I would be just as angry. I think the underlying message in this article is good, but I also believe it misses the point of these changes. All students deserve to be protected. The views you have posted on your door all seem to be very mainstream and I actually enjoy the concept of what you have created there, but every student deserves that respect regardless of what they believe. I think you will be surprised how many students will now start to speak up with opinions that may shock you. I promise you they were just too afraid to speak up before. The view you have of this situation has the same issues as the view that the world had on homosexuality 30 years ago. It’s tunnel-vision and it is self serving. I agree that all opinions that I see on your door are and have been protected at least in recent memory but that unfortunately does not extend much further right.
I would think, as an academic, the author would be familiar with the concept of an “echo chamber.”