What’s happening in Canadian higher ed with regard to open inquiry and viewpoint diversity?

Faculty across the provinces are raising concerns similar to those of their southern neighbors.

While we are all wondering how the coming change in U.S. governance is going to impact higher ed, Heterodox Academy just released a survey of over 1,500 Canadian university students demonstrating that, while many say they are worried about “speaking up in class” regarding their political views, a majority also believe “universities should ban hateful speech from campus.” (The survey did not provide examples of “hateful speech.”) 

Our survey also found that the most politically extreme students on the left and right are the most likely to feel comfortable speaking out on controversial topics. To be sure, extremist students can be a real problem for faculty, as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia - Okanagan and HxA member Renaud-Philippe Garner noted in a recent interview. 

“If you go into a classroom and it’s become an acceptable norm…to denounce your teacher or interrupt your class because you don’t like hearing something, then that’s a threat from below, where you’re trying to teach. And presumably why you’re credentialed and paid to teach is you know more than those in the class.”

Garner is not alone in his concerns. While we presently have no quantitative survey of Canadian faculty to offer, HxA does have plenty to report in terms of what has brought more and more of them to work with us. 

When we talk with Canadian faculty about what concerns them, we hear themes that will resonate with their southern neighbors: threats to open inquiry and academic freedom; the politicization of scholarly work; and the view that well-intended attempts to address historic racial, ethnic, and gender disparities are encroaching on faculty’s efforts to do their best work. This new video sums up the issues:

HxA member Alexandra Lysova, Associate Professor of Criminology at Simon Fraser University, studies intimate partner violence. She told HxA in a recent interview she came to Canada from Russia in part because she was seeking greater freedoms of inquiry and expression. But she worries that “we are starting to lose that freedom.”

The good news is that others share Lysova’s concerns. HxA’s Campus Community Network now includes seven Canadian campuses: Simon Fraser, McGill, University of Toronto, McMaster, UBC - Okanagan, Laval, and Wilfrid Laurier. Among other work, members at these institutions have been actively hosting Heterodox Conversations, including on the questions of the place of values in art and education (at Laval) and the purpose of today’s Canadian University (at Simon Fraser). 

In case you’re not familiar with the international series, Heterodox Conversations join two scholars with differing perspectives in a public conversation aimed at producing important insights about a specific topic or question. (Learn more here.) Our next Canadian Heterodox Conversation will be on December 9 at UT on the question, “How has postmodernism impacted truth and trust in higher ed?”

Talking with our Canadian brethren, we learn that a frequent topic of contention in Canadian universities is the role of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) initiatives. Indeed, this formed the central topic of a special HxA-supported conference this past spring. 

A group of over three dozen faculty led by Wilfrid Laurier’s Geoff Horsman (an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry) recently produced a policy brief on what they see as the problems relating to EDI initiatives in higher ed. These include concerns that “these policies disproportionately punish small institutions, are not supported by evidence, employ flawed metrics with no end goal, and are unpopular with the public who funds the research.” In a March 2024 HxA lecture at Laurier, Bruce Pardy argued EDI efforts are leading to censorship. 

Several Canadian HxA members are also interested in pushing for institutional statement neutrality in order to protect faculty’s academic freedom. The HxA chapter at Simon Fraser has worked on this issue, recently seeing their university president embrace the concept.

If you are employed at a Canadian institution of higher education and are interested in these issues, we encourage you to get connected with HxA. And if you want to learn more about the state of open inquiry in Canada, please join us for our public webinar on November 20.