The 2020 Campus Freedom Index shows a rise in censorship at Canadian post-secondary institutions but according to experts, the report may not provide an accurate picture of the state of free speech on campuses.
Since 2011, the Campus Freedom Index has served as a report card that assigns letter grades to Canadian schools based on the university and student unions’ policies and practices around free speech.
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) which issued the index, is a legal advocacy group in Canada. The organization has been criticized in the past for its conservative bias influencing university grading.
The JCCF was founded in 2010 by John Carpay, a lawyer and former candidate of the federal Reform Party which merged with the Conservative Party of Canada in 2003.
The JCCF has been endorsed by several right-wing organizations, including the Fraser Institute, which is a conservative education charity, and Ezra Levant, who founded right-wing commentary website Rebel News.
The JCCF website features articles from various right-wing publications, including the Western Standard and The Post Millennial.
This year, the index shows an increase in universities and student unions failing to protect free speech, with 13 schools and 21 student unions receiving F grades – an increase from last year’s report.
The report attributes failing grades to institutions applying speech codes, anti-disruption policies, and cancelling controversial events in the last four years.
This year, six universities received ‘A’ letter grades for protecting freedom of speech, a slight increase from four in 2019. There was an even bigger rise in institutions receiving failing grades, with 13 this year compared to the previous year’s eight.
The Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association is the only student union to receive an A letter grade in the report for its policies. The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) received a D grade for its policies and a C for its practices of protecting free speech.
The Simon Fraser Student Society for example, is one of the student unions that received an F grade. The report attributes this grade to the union revoking club status from student groups with a pro-life mandate, a common reason used by the Index to give student unions a failing letter grade.
Controversy surrounding the Index and JCCF
Lindsay Shepherd, co-author of the index and a free speech advocate, opposes claims that the JCCF and the index shows bias.
“We don’t approach our campus freedom index based on some sort of assumption that there is a problem,” Shepherd said. “We conduct the research, and then we see what results we get based on our methodology.”
Shepherd has often protested the censorship of right-leaning public figures. She is currently the campus free speech fellow at the JCCF.
Evan Balgord is the executive director at the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, a non-profit organization made up of Canada’s leading experts and researchers on hate groups and hate crimes.
“No educational institution should take [the index] seriously,” Balgord said.
Balgord said the JCCF is not credible because of its endorsements from right-wing organizations and the featuring of biased right-wing news articles on their website.
“There’s a reason why you don’t talk about [the JCCF] in the same breath that you might talk about the Canadian Civil Liberties Association or the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, because they are different entities with different objectives and goals,” Balgord said.
Carleton receives low grade
Carleton University and CUSA received C grades for all categories with the exception of CUSA’s practices.
Shepherd explains that one reason Carleton’s student union received a lower letter grade this year compared to last is because of the unions decision to be pro-choice.
“Often being a pro-choice union means they don’t want to defend pro-life clubs, they no longer want to provide pro-life clubs with resources, don’t want to give them room bookings,” Shepherd said.
Bryce McRae, a Carleton student and director of Campus Activism for the Carleton Conservatives, agreed with the grades Carleton received in the report.
“[The university isn’t] necessarily going out of their way to shut down speech. But they’re also not doing a great job at facilitating free speech on campus,” McRae said. “But as far as student freedom goes, I think that a C is probably an appropriate grade.”
James Turk, the director of Ryerson’s Centre for Free Expression was critical of the letter grading system that the report uses, stating that it is an oversimplification of a complex issue.
“Universities are very complex entities and there’s just no way you can capture the diversity of issues related to free expression with a single letter grade,” Turk said.
Protecting freedom of speech on campuses
When it comes to universities protecting free speech in the future, there are a few important factors that both Shepherd and Turk suggest.
Turk argued that universities need to promise academic freedom for the faculty and their teaching assistants to ensure that free expression in an academic setting can be protected. He said he believes universities should be making policy more aligned with the Charter.
“Fortunately most faculty associations across the country have been successful in negotiating quite strong protections for academic freedom,” Turk said.
Shepherd recommends that to improve policy grades, universities must make free expression part of the school’s policy.
A large reason why universities receive lower grades in the report is for shutting down a controversial guest from speaking on campus, a popular debate in recent years as universities continue to cancel right wing speakers like Jordan Peterson and Faith Goldy.
“What [universities] simply need to do when there are calls to cancel controversial events, is to say no,” Shepherd said.
However, Turk pointed out that the university, like a hotel or convention center, has no obligation to rent space out to speakers.
Balgord also disagrees with Shepherd, emphasizing that universities must find the line between hate speech and free speech.
“By not allowing hate speakers on campus, what you’re doing is making things safer for the kinds of people they target, whether it’s trangender people, Muslims, women,” Balgord said. “They’re actually able [to] exercise their freedom of expression more.”
Featured image by Spencer Colby
A previous version of this article misquoted Lindsay Shepherd. The quote has been adjusted for accuracy. The Charlatan regrets the error.
