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Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Canadian Civil Liberties Association defending the freedom of expression of campus pro-life clubs
With the University of Calgary's student union decision to eliminate club status for a Campus Pro-Life student club, and the club facing trespassing charges for a Genocide Awareness Project, a few commenters were wondering what the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) position on the issue was.
Kalim Kassam, general manager of the Western Standard, sent a request to the CCLA for comment on the issue. They obliged with much more than merely a comment, they sent us a copy of a letter they sent to the Canadian Federation of Students when they had decided that they would support student governments that chose to withdraw club status from pro-life campus groups.
The full letter appears below the fold:
Re: Freedom of Expression and Association on University Campuses
This is to express the concern of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) regarding a resolution adopted, not long ago, by the Canadian Federation of Students. According to this resolution, the support of the Federation would be provided to those "member locals that refused to allow anti-choice organizations access to their resources and space". In short, anti-abortion organizations would become ineligible for the kind of basic services and amenities currently available to a wide variety of political, social, religious, and ideological organizations on the university campuses of this country.
Before and since the enactment of this resolution, numbers of student governments across the country have moved to disqualify "anti-choice" organizations. Such student governments include those at Carleton, York, Memorial, Lakehead, Victoria, British Columbia-Okanagan, Guelph, and Capilano College.
The irrepressible question is: "Why?" Of the wide variety of philosophies and points of view whose organizations can obtain and retain such campus recognition, why should the anti-choice side of the abortion debate be singled out for such official stigmatization? On so many of these campuses, there are Conservative, Liberal, New Democratic, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim organizations conducting their respective activities. What is there about these anti-abortion groups that warrants such special denigration?
A fairly typical explanation came from the coordinator of the Sexual Assault Centre at the University of Victoria. She reportedly said that the anti-choice organizations "are asking to take away women's control of their own bodies, ...". A member of the national executive of the Canadian Federation of Students charged that anti-choice groups would "take away people's rights". She even compared them to the Ku Klux Klan.
These may be valid reasons to challenge anti-abortion organizations, but not to muzzle them. The proper response is argument, not censorship.
As for the comparison with the Ku Klux Klan, it is simply inappropriate. For these purposes, it is not necessary to resolve - or even to address - the issue of what, if any, limits can validly be imposed upon all campus controversies. Suffice it to acknowledge that anti-abortion organizations are not remotely similar to the KKK. The arguments against abortion engage the vexing issue of when life and/or personhood begins and the balance between the protection of such "persons" and the autonomy of women. This is certainly a legitimate subject for debate at the university and in general society.
Moreover, to whatever extent any organization operating on campus advocates the enactment of laws, they could well "take away [some] people's rights". In urging additional taxes on corporations, the New Democratic Party would "take away" the rights of certain investors. In promoting more effective human rights laws, many minority groups and their allies would "take away" certain rights of employers and landlords. In promoting the expansion or contraction of medicare, advocates would "take away" the rights of either medical consumers or providers, as the case may be.
Indeed, it's hard to imagine a current conflict that is not susceptible to such an analysis. On many campuses, for example, there are severe controversies regarding the Middle East. Each side would probably "take away" some rights from either Israelis or Palestinians. On the basis of their analysis, therefore, the student leaders who would restrict the anti-abortion groups would have to eliminate virtually all campus debates. The logical outgrowth of such an approach is the absurdity recently adopted by the Lakehead student government: only positive messages will be acceptable.
Despite the strongly pro-choice orientation of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, we are deeply disquieted over these developments in the university student community. At issue, in our view, is nothing less than the viability of free speech on the university campuses of this country. It appears that a great many students harbour an inadequate appreciation of this fundamental freedom.
Of all the freedoms in the democratic system, freedom of expression may be the most crucial. It is the vehicle through which any of us may attempt to mobilize public support for the redress of our various grievances. Experience has taught us that injustice is less likely to endure - or even to emerge - in an atmosphere of free public debate and controversy. Shine the spotlight of public opinion on an unjust practice and you have set the stage for that practice to wilt. In this sense, freedom of expression is a strategic freedom. It is the freedom upon which all other freedoms depend. A wise old trade unionist once described free speech as the "grievance procedure" of the democratic system.
But free speech is even more. It is also the means by which the quest for truth may be pursued. It enables a plurality of ideas to compete openly so that they might demonstrate their respective validity. Political, social, and philosophical questions are resolved, not by forced coercion but by free discussion. And that discussion is enhanced by the right to explore contesting ideas and alternate approaches.
Indeed, the pro-choice side of the abortion debate owes its many victories in this country to the availability of free speech. This right enabled free choice advocates to demonstrate, remonstrate, educate, and agitate on behalf of their cause. Like with so many other social issues, the campaigns for choice were waged on university campuses as well as in the community at large.
One of the central tenets of a university education is the adventurous search for truth. This means that faculty and students must be free to ask challenging questions and to express provocative opinions. As an institution, the university's commitment should not be to any particular ideology or point of view, but to the methods of intelligent inquiry itself.
The moment that universities and student governments depart from the principle of institutional neutrality on such questions, they incur a considerable risk that raw political power will determine the scope of permissible campus speech. Such an outcome represents the very antithesis of intellectual freedom. The right of effective participation in campus life would become dependent upon the vagaries of what ideology enjoyed political ascendency at any given time.
Thus, the best hope there is for a meaningful state of intellectual freedom is to promote as wide a consensus as possible that the university and its student governments must eschew ideological positions of this kind. Those pro-choice advocates who may be enjoying campus power today are being very short-sighted. They are paving the way for anti-choice advocates to behave similarly in the event that power alignments begin to change.
Whether, therefore, we be pro-choice or anti-choice, capitalist or socialist, religious or secular, federalist or separatist, it behooves us to defend, sustain, and promote a viable regime of free speech. We all have a stake in it. For these purposes, it is important to defend our opponents as well as our supporters.
In consequence, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association calls upon your student government to dissent from the position adopted on this matter by the Canadian Federation of Students. We ask that you apply your club recognition policy in accordance with the free speech principles articulated above and that you petition the Canadian Federation of Students to rescind its resolution. In our view, the action we recommend is vital to the restoration of the kind of principles that ought to prevail in university life -- and indeed in our democratic society as a whole.
We thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
A. Alan Borovoy
General Counsel
Noa Mendelsohn Aviv
Director, Freedom of Expression Project
Posted by P.M. Jaworski on February 11, 2009 in Freedom of expression | Permalink
Comments
Now, that's better. Good on them.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2009-02-11 6:49:58 PM
Can anybody dig up and put on-line the following?:
John Sopinka, "Freedom of Expression," University Affairs, April 1994, p. 13.
The author is a former SCC justice.
Posted by: Grant Brown | 2009-02-11 10:56:08 PM
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