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The past year has seen a groundswell of opposition to the abuses of the country's human-rights commissions. Long able to flex their politically correct muscle without scrutiny, these institutions are now rightfully being taken to task.
But while journalists, publishers, politicians and others have addressed the conduct of these star chambers, one constituency has been notably quiet.
Academics have been all but invisible in the backlash against Canada's human- rights commissions. And the handful of scholars who have waded into the ruckus have generally been supportive of this state-sanctioned trampling of free speech.
This comes as little surprise. The preferred targets of human-rights commissions are conservatives and Christian fundamentalists, hardly two favourite causes of traditionally left-leaning professors. But while Canadian academics have little concern regarding these kangaroo courts, the same cannot be said for their international colleagues.
As reported in the National Post, a consortium of U.S. professors is urging the prestigious American Political Science Association to cancel plans to hold next year's annual gathering of 7,000 members in Canada.
The group warns that our human-rights commissions are a threat to academic freedom, and are chilling scholars from addressing controversial issues.
Recent human-rights cases have targeted writers, preachers, magazines, cartoonists and even a politically incorrect comedian for presenting material some deem offensive. There's no reason to believe academics are forever immune from similar censorship.
Many professors raise controversial viewpoints. In-class debates on hot-button issues such as same-sex marriage or women's status in Islamic societies would clearly qualify as hate speech by human- rights-commission standards.
Course reading lists often include resources that could be considered offensive.
Personally, I've used Mark Steyn's book America Alone as required reading in a third- year class. For the alleged crime of publishing excerpts from this bestseller, Maclean's magazine is involved in a lengthy and expensive persecution by the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.
The human-rights brigade has made it quite clear that freedom of the press and artistic licence are non-issues when someone claims hurt feelings. It's dangerously naive to think they wouldn't trample academic freedom.
Hopefully, there's not a university administration or union in the country that wouldn't support a faculty member whom one of these commissions decides to target. But when the legal bills start hitting six figures, it will be tough for cash-strapped universities to keep up the good fight.
Once these commissions come after academics, Canadian professors will scream murder in defence of their academic freedom. So why aren't they speaking up now? Contact John Martin, a University of the Fraser Valley criminologist, at John.Martin@ucfv.ca.
John Martin, The Province
Published: Wednesday, August 27, 2008
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