Zero tolerance: A new enemy of academic freedom?

Abstract

Recent provincial government policy proposals related to university governance and substantive and procedural autonomy has had the effect on Ontario university faculty members of throwing the cat among the pigeons. The policy proposals were based on an articulated need for “zero tolerance” of various forms of harassment, in the first instance voiced by interest groups representing gender, race, political affiliation, sexual orientation and a number of other concerns, and consequently transformed into a provincial government position by politicians.

As the province is the main funding agency for universities, the threat to a number of aspects of university integrity is a real one. However, there appears to be much more at stake than a simple threat to the fair treatment of different minorities in the university setting. Such proposals, if articulated as formal policy, have the potential to erode those very elements around which universities have been created and for which universities continue to exist, namely, substantive and procedural autonomy and academic freedom.

While in no way denying the rights of minority groups or humans in general as espoused by changing norms in a representative democracy, this article addresses the controversy, defines the freedoms at stake and extrapolates upon the implications of their erosion.