CAMPUS NO PLACE TO CENSOR
The Calgary Herald (Alberta)
March 29, 2006 Wednesday
Final Edition
It’s been some time since institutions of higher learning have been
incubators of free expression and dissent from orthodoxy. Quite
the opposite.
When universities are not busy creating speech codes, they are
otherwise engaged in thumping on opinions they deem unsuitable.
Consider Harvard University’s recent harassment of its own now
ex-president, Lawrence Summers, after he mused on why women have not
garnered more awards in science and mathematics.
In a laudable exception this week, the University of Calgary’s
administration showed good judgment. It allowed the campus pro-life
association to set up a display with graphic images of aborted fetuses
(albeit under pressure from the association’s lawyers, noting the
constitutional grounds for such displays).
Less admirable was the attempt by the university’s students’ union to
restrict it. Since the display was to be on union-leased property,
the students’ union agreed to allow it to stand only if the graphic
posters were turned inward. A SU spokesman called it a reasonable
compromise. (The club chose instead to set up the display on non-SU
controlled grounds.)
One wonders whether the students’ union would make such a demand to
a group that wanted to publicize, say, pictures of the East Coast
seal hunt, or Armenian genocide. Indeed, one SU spokesman said he
was unaware of any similar demand on other groups.
If all controversial exhibits were asked to self-censor, competing
campus factions would be left to debate today’s weather forecast.
The issue at stake is not one’s position on abortion, or who finds
what disturbing — it’s about the right to dissent. That’s something
many university students fancy themselves in favour of.
The students’ union might recall the words Abigail Thernstrom,
vice-chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, that universities
are “islands of repression in a sea of freedom.”
The students’ union should try not to live up to that quip.