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Universities need to be places where faculty can follow the evidence wherever it might lead, rather than being told what to believe by their employer
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By Andrew Irvine, Special to National Post
Published Apr 24, 2025
Last updated 1day ago
4 minute read
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The petition I and others filed earlier this month asking the Supreme Court of British Columbia to require administrators representing the University of British Columbia to stop engaging in political activity has begun to generate discussion.
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According to a press release from the BC Civil Liberties Association, the lawsuit “is a perverse interpretation of the prohibition of political activity under the University Act.” The authors go on to assert wrongly that we are using our submission as part of a “hidden agenda” in an attempt to “override” rights of Indigenous self-governance.
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According to a press release issued by the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, our case in favour of academic freedom represents “outdated and regressive views” and that “There is no academic value in debating the validity of First Nations’ basic human rights.”
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These organizations misunderstand our position. We take no position on land acknowledgements, other than that they are political in nature. Our case in no way attempts to override or diminish Indigenous rights.
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It is also worth emphasizing that we in no way attempt to diminish Indigenous presence on either of UBC’s two campuses and that nothing in our petition is intended to prevent UBC from continuing to engage with local First Nations, from continuing to promote awareness of Indigenous history, or from negotiating agreements about land or financial management with First Nations.
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Instead, the case focuses on a single, separate issue: the extent to which a public, taxpayer-funded university whose statutory goal is the advancement of knowledge may also engage in overtly political activity. The issue is fundamental, since Section 66 of the B.C. University Act states that “A university must be non-sectarian and non-political in principle.”
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Our case is not politically partisan. It is not intended to support one side of any political or religious debate. Instead, we are simply asking for judicial confirmation that a clear line needs to be drawn between a university’s administrative and governance activities on the one hand and its academic activities on the other.
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We are asking the court to remind the university that administrators have no mandate to take political positions on behalf of the university. They have no mandate to try to influence the academic work of professors, instructors, lecturers, scholars, researchers, artists, performers, librarians, archivists, curators or students as they engage in research, scholarship, teaching and learning about political and religious issues. Simply put, this is a case about academic freedom.
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A plain-face reading of Section 66 tells us that universities are not permitted to introduce religious or political tests for the admission of students or the hiring of professors. It tells us that universities are not permitted to introduce religious or political criteria for the evaluation of academic work done by students, faculty and other members of the academic community. It tells us that the use of an administrative land acknowledgement to begin a university examination is no more appropriate than the use of a university-encouraged public prayer.
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Whether one agrees with a land acknowledgement, or with a university statement about the Middle East or about diversity issues, is not the issue. What is at issue is whether university administrators violate the University Act when they engage in partisan political advocacy.
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Academic freedom is the freedom academics have to pursue their work as they see fit, evaluated only on the basis of academic rather than non-academic criteria. Having academic freedom means that student, faculty, professional and creative work will be judged without reference to non-academic considerations, without reference to a person’s religion or lack of religion, a person’s political or sexual beliefs and preferences, a person’s national origin, or the religious and political views of one’s colleagues. Academic freedom is what makes universities inclusive.
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In our submission to the court, we give examples of how DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hiring requirements, land acknowledgements and official university statements have been abused, encouraging and often requiring faculty to accept and promote one politically partisan position rather than another.
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Universities have been down this road before. During the Cold War, multiple American universities instituted a “sign or resign” anti-communist loyalty-oath requirement for faculty teaching in California and New York. Eventually, the requirement was struck down by the courts. No less than a loyalty-oath requirement, today’s hiring requirements — which regularly include requirements for job applicants to “strongly commit” to announced political values — effectively bring with them the diminishment of academic freedom.
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Groups and individuals regularly lobby universities to help them promote their preferred social, political or religious causes. Students and professors need to be free to participate in such causes if they wish to do so. Universities rightly encourage their members to investigate important questions of their own choosing and to make public the results of their findings.
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But once people speaking on behalf of a university become partisans in the ongoing social, political, religious, legal, scientific, historical or public-policy debates of their day, it becomes more difficult for the members of a university to fulfill their statutory mission.
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Universities need to be places where faculty can follow the evidence wherever it might lead, rather than being told what to believe by their employer. They need to be places where students can hear from a wide variety of voices so they can make up their own minds about the complex issues they care about.
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This is what is at issue in our court case. Nothing else.
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Special to National Post
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Andrew Irvine teaches at the University of British Columbia.
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