A colleague in Canada writes about the continuing academic freedom scandal at York and its law school, Osgoode Hall:
York University in Toronto has done it again. As your readers will remember, the Senior Administration has been embroiled in a long-running dispute about academic freedom at the Osgoode Hall Law School. Two tenured faculty members organized a conference on the future of Israel/Palestine only to find themselves insulted and pressured by hecklers from the far-right of Toronto’s diverse Jewish community (one of them married to a senior member of York’s administration), and then from the funding organization. The University gave in to the hecklers, and pressured the organizers to change their whole approach to the conference, or to add hand-picked Zionist invitees --‘for balance’-- or else be sent off-campus. The conference was in the end tolerated, but then subject to inquisitorial review by the University (led by former Canadian Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci). In response, the Canadian Association of University Teachers struck their own Review to investigate allegations of improper pressure on the law school from the Administration and the Federal Minister. Both reviews are due out soon.
Fresh revelations now show that, in addition to whatever expertise Mr Iacobucci was imagined to have on academic freedom or on the middle east (subjects on which he has published nothing), he was useful in one way to the administration. Unbeknownst to most Osgoode Faculty, he actually was hired, not as an expert reviewer, but as one of the University’s lawyers! Claiming solicitor-client privilege, Iacobucci now says that his files are beyond the reach of freedom of information legislation. If that argument holds, a number of people will breathe a big sigh of relief.
Successful freedom of information requests already brought against the University have turned up evidence of a close collaboration between the former Dean of Osgoode, Patrick Monahan, and then Chair of the Board, Mickey Cohen , a collaboration aimed at getting the organizers to change direction, to accept that pre-vetted panelists should be added to their roster, or failing that, that they should be moved off-campus. On 15 April 2009, the Cohen wrote to Osgoode’s Dean Monahan:.
“I wId seriously consider moving the venue off campus. If this blows up on us then it occurring on campus will overwhelmingly exacerbate the impact on York. There are lots of "reasons" we can come up with to justify the decision.
Two days later, on learning that the conference organizers had begun to yield to pressure, Cohen further congratulated Dean Monahan in these words,
“I can only assume that you put the fear of all 3 gods involved here into them! Good work”
No doubt the Iacobucci report will prove interesting reading. It doesn't sound well-designed to explore academic freedom, however. But watch to see whether it contains advice to administrators, for instance, on how to trump up 'reasons' for unethical decisions, or on how to 'put the fear of god' into annoying faculty, or on how to use solicitor-client privilege to gather evidence that will never have to face contradiction, or even see the light of day.
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