Supporters stand in front of a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the McGill University campus, in Montreal, on June 17.Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press
David H. Turpin is president emeritus of the University of Alberta and University of Victoria and the former vice-principal academic at Queen’s University. Anne Bailey is the principal of Anne Bailey Communications and Strategy and a former director of executive communications at the University of Alberta.
Why can’t universities stay out of the news?
We see images of protesters entrenched on campuses. We read about the federal government restricting research funding on projects involving certain topics and foreign organizations. We hear about the potential financial exploitation of international students. We see tensions arising from universities’ equity, diversity and inclusion policies and read about controversial speakers having their invitations revoked. We fear that the hyperpolarization of American politics has arrived on Canadian campuses. These issues, and many more, have played out in very public ways in recent months and years.
As a former university president and a past director of executive communications, we have had to deal with many of these issues. They are not easy to manage. Why? Because, as contentious as they may be, they emerge out of the friction between the fundamental values of the modern university. Understanding more clearly how these values both mesh and clash helps to answer the question of why universities are so often in the news.
What are those fundamental values?
The first is freedom of inquiry and freedom of expression. This requires that universities have a degree of independence and autonomy, which they then confer on faculty and students.
The second is intellectual integrity. Faculty and students may be free to explore their interests but they also have a responsibility to be honest and transparent in their work and research.
The third is equal rights and dignity of all people. This is fundamental to basic human rights and to attracting and retaining outstanding students and faculty to our communities and allowing them to achieve their full potential.
These three simple values are the tectonic plates upon which universities are built.
Just like the tectonic plates that make up the surface of the Earth’s crust, they collide. When that happens, it creates friction that generates heat. Sometimes the friction results in seismic events. From time to time, the destruction from these events is so great that fundamental rebuilding has to occur.
We contend that the friction points between these three values can explain many of the contentious issues that have emerged at universities today. Yet, to explain almost everything, you need to consider one other factor: money.
That money affects universities is not a new phenomenon. Universities have always had sponsors to which they have been beholden. Churches and guilds shaped universities for centuries.
Government funding for public universities is relatively new, and in Canada, has been in place for just over 100 years. While all Canadian provinces grant their public universities varying degrees of autonomy and independence, government funding comes with significant strings attached. Through tuition, domestic and international students and their families are another group of significant funders of the university. Importantly, business, industry and philanthropists have also contributed in major ways.
Each of these sponsors – along with their critics and other stakeholders – want to have a say. They each want to determine not just how their funds are used but how all funds are used, and they want a say in the future direction of their university. The tensions this creates cannot be ignored; preserving positive stakeholder relationships is critical to the success of any university.
Ultimately, however, to fulfill its core mission, the university must strive to protect its independence and autonomy. Otherwise, freedom of inquiry and freedom of expression are constrained.
Imagine a Venn diagram composed of the three core values.
The first circle in the Venn diagram contains freedom of inquiry and freedom of expression, two separate but related concepts. Freedom of inquiry is at the core of academic freedom and is a right that an institution grants to faculty. This ensures that they can pursue whatever avenue of inquiry they choose, even when a sponsor might want more control.
Bolstering this institutional right is freedom of expression, a constitutional right in most democracies, recognized by the state and held by every citizen. In Canada, the right to free expression is not absolute. Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it is subject to reasonable limits that can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. Those limits include Sections 318 and 319 of the Criminal Code, which prohibit the promotion of genocide and the incitement of hatred.
When it comes to freedom of inquiry and freedom of expression, universities allow for the pursuit and expression of ideas that are unpopular or even abhorrent. In theory, most people support this view until someone on campus introduces ideas they believe are repugnant. Then things begin to heat up. Speakers and professors with contentious ideas can provoke anger and elicit confrontations, demands for censorship, and debates about where the limits of freedom of expression should or should not be drawn.
Complicating this picture is the second circle of the diagram: intellectual integrity. This is about academic responsibility, the flip side of academic freedom. In theory, this value is an easy one to fulfill. As a student or faculty member, you should not cheat. You should not fabricate results. You should not plagiarize, and you must be transparent in all your dealings.
Unfortunately, from time to time there are cheaters, there are people who fabricate results, and there are people who plagiarize. And not surprisingly, there are also those who turn out to be just plain wrong. Each of these actions can result in issues bubbling to the surface and universities making the news.
The third circle pertains to the equal rights and dignity of all people. Universities have spent considerable effort focusing on this value, first and foremost because it is the right thing to do. But also to attract the best minds and uncover the best ideas, universities must be open to all people, perspectives and ideas. The development of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and federal and provincial human-rights codes has reinforced this focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.
At Canadian universities, significant efforts have been made to improve the participation and engagement of members of underrepresented, equity-deserving groups, and establish an inclusive environment where people feel safe and respected, regardless of who they are.
Challenges arise when safe spaces for people are conflated with safe spaces for ideas; a person’s ideas should not be protected from vigorous debate.
It is important here to be clear: verbal harassment, hate speech, threats of physical harm, violence, vandalism and other unlawful activity are not acceptable on any university campus. Questioning the ideas of others must be done respectfully (and lawfully). Universities should be a safe place for people, but not a safe space for ideas. Instead, they should be spaces where ideas are repeatedly tested and debated, then refined or discarded.
The tragic events that began unfolding in Israel and Gaza on Oct. 7 have ignited a maelstrom on campuses at the intersection of freedom of expression, human rights and dignity, and intellectual integrity.
Decisions about how and when to limit freedom of expression and the right to protest are being made differently on each campus. Governments at every level have weighed in, some demanding and applauding an end to protest and others advising tolerance. On some campuses, Palestinian and Jewish communities have come together to respond to the war, while on others, rulings have been needed to determine if protesters have promoted hatred and genocide. Universities have been expected to take positions. Some students are suing universities for not standing up to antisemitism, while others demand that universities publicly denounce the actions of the Israeli government. And, everywhere, universities have major public and private sponsors that have made it clear that they also have a stake in the issue and its resolution, and that their support for the university – and in some cases, their students – is at risk. The path to resolution is incredibly challenging and difficult.
These campus conflicts serve as a potent example of fundamental values in conflict, but there are many others. For example, concerns over researchers accepting funding from groups that are perceived to have a vested interest in the outcome of the research occur at the fault lines between intellectual integrity, freedom of inquiry and access to funding. Revelations of university researchers and leaders claiming unwarranted Indigenous identity occur at the confluence of intellectual integrity and the rights and dignity of all people. The recent controversy over university researchers accepting funding from foreign entities, and resulting federal government restrictions, is an example of the inherent tensions between freedom of inquiry and the limits of institutional autonomy.
This list goes on. The fault lines between the university’s values will never go away, nor will the interests of their sponsors. There will always be friction, at times resulting in seismic events. To think otherwise is to believe we could prevent the Earth’s tectonic plates from rubbing up against each other and thereby prevent earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes.
Under that fulminating surface of contention, we want to stress that universities are necessary and amazing places, where the core mission of research and learning continues to thrive. Universities endure these controversies, in part, because they may lead to new knowledge and understanding. Universities also endure because they matter to their communities. They attract exceptional people from around the world. They foster discovery and innovation that seed economic, social and cultural development. They prepare the next generation of citizens and leaders.
Universities bring these broad social benefits precisely because of the fundamental values on which they are founded. To preserve these benefits, universities must also allow – and endure – the conflicts that inevitably arise when those values collide.