Martin Lockshin is a university professor emeritus at York University.
Acrimonious debates are taking place on campuses throughout North America about the apparent clash between the commitment of universities to preserving academic freedom and their commitment to creating a safe environment for all students and employees.
This moment has prompted many people outside the university environment to wonder: Does academic freedom mean that academics can say anything they wish, with no fear of consequences?
Actually, it does not.
When it comes to academic publishing, for example, freedom means that outside forces must not determine whether something is published. But the academic publishing system has many built-in consequences. If one’s peers decide that a published article is poor, the writer may end up not being hired for a job, or being denied tenure or promotion. They may be denied research grants that are critical for doing academic work. The checks and balances of the system may be imperfect, but they exist.
Virtually no academic journal would agree to publish an article anonymously. Academics should be free to publish, but they must also be willing to accept the consequences if and when their peers determine that the publication is inferior.
Campus culture wars are a teachable moment in how freedom of speech and academic freedom differ
With this in mind, let’s consider a recent Canadian issue regarding the alleged protection of the right of academics to freely express their views.
In the early hours of Nov. 10, 11 people – including academics from York University – allegedly vandalized an Indigo store in Toronto, spraying red paint on the store and hanging posters accusing the owner of supporting genocide. They were arrested and charged a few days later. The ones who are employed at York University were put on paid leave.
None of the charges has been proven in court. But in the meantime, a petition is circulating, initiated by academics who support the alleged actions of the 11 people. These academic signatories insist that the situation in Gaza “demands active protest” of this kind. The fact that the owner of Indigo has set up a charity, HESEG, that supports immigrants to Israel who have completed army service “implicates Indigo in the many crimes” that the signatories assert are being committed by the Israeli army. The petition calls on York University to return these academics from paid leave in order to “honour its commitment to substantive academic freedom and freedom of expression.”
There are many reasons to roll your eyes at this petition. And the wide range of what it suggests should be considered a legitimate target for anti-Israel action is frightening to me. (Full disclosure: Since retiring from full-time employment at York University, I have been living in Israel.)
But another aspect of this statement has, in my opinion, not been discussed sufficiently: that this cowardly action against Indigo’s owner took place in the middle of the night, and was done anonymously. Presumably because they knew that what they had done was wrong, the academics did not stand up the next day and proudly take responsibility for their “speech.” Their identities became known only once the police charged them.
Academic freedom has never meant either the right of academics to indulge in vandalism or their right to “speak” without owning up to doing it. Had these academics bravely picketed an Indigo store at 4 p.m., perhaps we could call it legitimate “speech,” which could then be subject to criticism and, in my opinion, ridicule, just like any other academic speech. But what kind of free speech takes place without an audience at 4 in the morning and involves breaking the law?
Do the people who signed this petition not realize that they are undermining the case for academic freedom, which is crucial for them and for me, by insisting that such freedom includes the right to “speak” by vandalizing a store in the dark of the night, when nobody knows that you have “spoken”?