Carleton students received an email from university administration on Oct. 23, informing them that the university has opened up public consultation on its free speech policy draft.
The draft policy is available on the university’s website, and it reiterates the university’s commitment to open discussion and free inquiry.
The draft has been put forward in response to the Ontario provincial government’s free speech directive under the leadership of Premier Doug Ford, in which universities will have to implement free speech policies by Jan. 1, 2019 or risk possible funding cuts.
Carleton’s Senate discussed the process of developing the policy during its September meeting, the result of which was the creation of a task force to create a policy draft.
There were no public consultations with the Carleton community preceding the development of the policy draft, unlike the Sexual Violence Policy during the 2016-17 school year.
Emily Grant, president of the Carleton Academic Student Government (CASG), is the undergraduate student representative on the task force. CASG vice-president (internal) Matt Pelletier said not all students were consulted in the process of creating the draft because of time constraints.
“There is a specific directive from the province that we have a policy by a certain date,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of time for the broader consultation on the consultation process that we are able to enjoy with other issues that are being discussed right now for the community.”
The email asking students for their feedback on the draft policy came out during the fall reading week.
Pelletier said the timing of the email is a “double-edged sword.”
“On the one hand, students aren’t present on campus,” he said. “On the other, they’re not as bogged down by their other, regular commitments that at least it allows for some reflection if they have time during reading week to look at it.”
The university is currently looking into updating four of its policies: the Sexual Violence Policy, its Indigenous strategy, coordinated accessibility strategy, and free speech policy.
Students received emails asking for feedback on each of these policies except for the Indigenous strategy, for which a consultation committee is currently being developed. Pelletier said engaging students in the consultations for multiple policies has a positive effect.
“Once a student is primed to a big policy issue being debated at Carleton, they’re now aware enough—their attention is there enough—that they can gravitate into other ongoing discussions,” he said.
“When free speech as an issue becomes a big lightning rod for debate and discussion, it can allow other windows to open up for these different policies and these different frameworks that are being developed,” Pelletier added.
Kieran Moloney, president of the Carleton Campus Conservatives, said the content of the draft policy is a more important issue.
“It’s important that the university outlined a commitment to free speech which it has done,” he said. “But words on paper delineated from substantive and binding requirements from the university to enforce them.”
Moloney said he found three problems in the draft policy, which includes its wording implying the university has the right to determine the time, place and manner of speech; the lack of a clearly identified process to determine the merits of complaints; and the use of university administration as arbiters of said complaints.
“For instance, the draft policy talks about hate speech laws, but there’s no provision in the draft policy to address who will be the arbiters and what the process will be if a student levels a complaint that another student is engaged in hate speech,” he said.
“If I go to the university administration and say ‘I don’t like what you’re saying because it’s hate speech,’ what happens with that complaint? By the wording of the university policy, it’ll be the ‘edu-crats’ who determine the legitimacy,” he added.
Students can review the policy and provide feedback till Nov. 6.
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