...and then abandons the draft when it becomes clear it's really about all the reasons for suppressing speech:
The trouble is, many of the academics on the working group tasked with drafting this statement don't actually seem to believe in free expression. Only this can explain the hopeless, incoherent mishmash they came up with. (I am sorry to note that their grammar and syntax are hopeless, too.) No wonder the president, Santa Ono, wanted to shelve it.
"In my view this is a feeble and troubling document that is unworthy of a university that wants to be taken seriously," Paul Russell, a philosophy professor who has been involved in other speech debates on campus, said via e-mail.
(Amusingly, one of the drafters of the failed statement on freedom of expression was none other than our old friend Alan Richardson, the apparatchik posing as a philosopher at UBC, who tried to bully his colleagues into not communicating with me back in 2014, to no avail.)
In a follow-up editorial, a Canadian newspaper wrote:
The UBC draft statement subsequently asks the right questions, such as, "How can we equip students to tackle future challenges, if they are shielded from demanding, provocative thought?" Or, "How can we create significant breakthroughs if entire lines of inquiry are forbidden?"
But after citing these critical goals, it reaches the startling conclusion that the freedom of expression required to achieve them is not of paramount value.
"Freedom of expression does not trump all other rights," the draft says. "In the university community, freedom of expression can only thrive constructively when accompanied by other rights, including the equality rights of equity, diversity and inclusion."
The statement raises worries about "deliberate attempts to create a toxic environment." And it makes the claim that "freedom of expression rests on the potential of making positive, constructive contributions to the university community" – an implication that the school can decide which expression is positive and which isn't.
American universities that have wrestled with the issue have come to a different conclusion: that, as the University of Chicago puts it in its own statement on freedom of expression, "concerns about civility and mutual respect can never be used as a justification for closing off discussion of ideas, however offensive or disagreeable those ideas may be to some members of our community."
I reached out to the UBC philosopher Paul Russell, who kindly gave me permission to share his apt observations about the draft statement:
Apart from the heavy emphasis on considerations that serve to restrict and limit free speech, the considerations and claims cited are so loosely and vaguely described that they could well include claims not to cause distress, offend or even question and challenge the deeply held views of others. What constitutes being "threatened", "caused distress", or damaging a person's "wellbeing" has no significant content or boundaries. A massive wedge is opened up that could be seriously abused. The document may also be understood as suggesting that ideas and positions that are (subjectively) found to be "objectionable" (i.e. both in content and/or manner of expression) are prima facie subject to restriction - rather than protected unless harmful or disruptive under some clear interpretation.
Here are a couple of concrete examples that I think make clear that this document is dangerously vague:
- I teach both philosophy of religion and political philosophy at UBC and often take up controversial and sensitive issues and topics. Someone might make a remark to the effect that "Muslim belief gives little or no proper weight to the value of freedom of expression". Given the vague qualifications and conditions attached to free speech and the ways in which it may be restricted, this document could easily be read as suggesting that remarks of this kind should be condemned and prohibited in the context of the university. Whether one finds comments of this kind sensible and credible or not, it is plainly the right of students and faculty to express views of this sort - although they will certainly offend and cause discomfort to those in the Muslim community, among others. It is significant that many who would object to remarks of this sort would not object to remarks such as "the Catholic religion/ Christian Evangelicals/ Conservative Party gives insufficient value to the importance of free speech." The principles and boundaries here are arbitrary and a matter of a person's own ideological preferences and prejudices - the stance taken breeds and encourages hypocrisy of every kind.
- It is also ironic to find all the usual clichés about "reconciliation" with Indigenous people and other such marginalized groups inserted into this document. However, much one may sympathize with some of these ideals and goals, it misses the crucial point at issue. Not everyone shares these ideals and goals, much less how they should be interpreted and implemented. Even if these critics are mistaken and misguided about these matters they have a right to express their views (subject to doing no harm or injury or being merely abusive). The draft document leaves the door wide open for individuals and groups to challenge and suppress all such discussion and debate on the ground that it is disrespectful, offensive, and contrary to the goals and aims of “reconciliation”. The point of free speech is not primarily to achieve reconciliation but to allow divergent and contrary views to heard and considered so that each individual may decide and judge for themselves where truth and reason rests.
In sum, the document says too much and too little at the same time. It is, in my view, an Orwellian monument to everything that is confused and evasive about the current understanding of free speech issues on the university campus. It camouflages the real problems and lends itself to serious abuse by those who are all too willing to limit and restrict free speech for their own ideological ends.
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