Carleton’s Board of Governors (BoG) is under investigation by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) for potentially violating its principles of academic freedom.
The BoG recently amended its Statement of General Duties, Fiduciary Responsibilities and Conflict of Interest —the code of conduct that all board members have had to sign since its introduction in 2008.
The amendment states it is “not in the best interests of the University for a Governor to comment in any forum, including print, social or electronic media of any form outside a meeting of the Board or one of its committees.”
Carleton maintains the amended statement does not contain any major changes in comparison to the last one, but CAUT and faculty board member Root Gorelick dispute this.
“The policy is very specific about prohibiting blogging and anything in social media, which the old one never had,” Gorelick, who blogs about BoG meetings, said.
David Robinson, the CAUT’s executive director, said he thinks Carleton’s statement regarding the amended clauses is playing semantics. He said while it’s true the 2008 statement and the present statement only contain nuanced differences, the amended statement does tighten up clauses that formerly had leeway.
He added he finds the 2008 statement was problematic and that CAUT hadn’t been aware of it until now.
Carleton released a statement noting the new duties statement’s confidentiality adjustments reflect similar board regulations across the country, and that they only refer to the closed sessions, but the university has not yet changed the duties statement to clarify this.
“[Gorelick] never talked about closed sessions—all he blogged about was the open sessions. Their statement makes it clear that their notion of confidentiality applies to everything whether it’s discussed in the open sessions or the closed sessions, so [their statement is] demonstrably false,” Robinson said.
Gorelick is the only member of the board who has refused to sign the amended duties statement. He said he has been a board member for two and a half years, and was elected by the academic faculty union.
He added that because he is an elected member, it is his responsibility to report back to the people who elected him to the board.
“The new statement of duties precludes us from even talking directly to the people we’re supposed to be representing. Do members of city council, members of parliament get muzzled?” he said.
If Carleton does not alter the statement, Robinson said the university could be blacklisted by the CAUT. He added the association will encourage national and international academics to blacklist the university too.
That means not taking jobs at Carleton, not attending conferences or events, and not accepting honours like honorary degrees and awards from the university.
In their statement on Nov. 30, Carleton said one of the reasons for the confidentiality clauses is to allow other board members to speak freely without fear of being misquoted or misrepresented. They said Gorelick’s blog uses “posts to inaccurately describe members, meetings, discussions and decisions made by the Board.”
Carleton’s BoG open sessions have been growing more private since March’s student tuition protests interrupted a meeting.
In the aftermath of the protests, open board meetings became inaccessible to anyone without prior permission to attend and are now streamed in a different room, with campus security guarding the doors to board meetings.
Gorelick said he believes the protests gave the university the perfect excuse to make the open sessions more private.
“I think the board has always, not always but recently, wanted to be more closed and more private, and all of a sudden they found the perfect excuse to do that back at the end of March when there was student protests over raising tuition fees,” he said.
Gorelick said he thinks the streamed open sessions should be archived and made accessible to the public.
Carleton said it is open to discussing the matter with the CAUT further. The university also said it is reviewing the board’s bylaws and procedures through its Governance Committee and that until it is finished, the duties statement will remain as it is.
Robinson said all CAUT wants is for the board to make an amendment to its statement of duties to indicate only matters discussed in its closed session should remain confidential, and to take no actions against Gorelick for his blog.
Gorelick said the statement of duties should be scrapped entirely since the board functioned for a long time without it.
“It’s easier to be autocratic, but that’s not how universities work,” he said. “It’s not fair to impose a corporate model on a university. Especially a public university.”
