The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) released their annual Campus Freedom Index Sept. 24 and have rated both Carleton’s administration and student union.
The index aims to measure and evaluate “freedom of speech” for publicly-funded universities in Canada. It gives a letter grade to each organization for both policies and practices.
“It’s a report card on how well universities and student unions are doing in terms of fulfilling their mission in upholding campus free speech rights,” said John Carpay, president of the JCCF.
Carleton’s administration didn’t change from last year and received a D grade for university policies. Last year the administration received an F for practices, which rose this year to a C.
“While it does have some notional support for free expression in its policies, Carleton’s Discrimination and Harassment Policies prohibit speech that the University considers disagreeable. It also lacks policies which compel the university to intervene in order to prevent the disruption of events by disorderly protesters or interference,” said Michael Kennedy, communications and development co-ordinator for the organization.
The report included previous actions by Carleton that influenced the overall grade. These included a controversy over a pro-choice group’s political protest, policies around Greek recruiting, and last year’s Free Speech Wall controversy.
“The university is aware of the annual rankings,” said Chris Cline, Carleton’s media relations officer. “Carleton did not receive a request for information from the Campus Freedom Index.”
The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) was among the top five for highest rated student unions.
They received a B rating in policies, an improvement from last year’s C.
According to the report, CUSA’s grade for practices dropped from an A to a B. One reason given for the lower grade in the report was that CUSA’s Chief Electoral Officer was given the ability to be able to determine, “all election campaigning be done ‘in a fair and respectable fashion.’ ”
Folarin Odunayo, president of CUSA, could not be reached for comment regarding CUSA’s grade drop.
Kennedy said CUSA could raise its grade if they, “repeal their speech codes and providing more clarity on how the university will act when faced with disruption, must end its discrimination against Greek organizations on campus to allow members the same access to recruitment space as every other fee-paying student group and to never again charge its own students with trespassing simply for wanting to express their views in a prominent location on campus.”
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