Members of the University community who deliver professional experiential educational programs have a right to academic freedom, which is defined as the freedom to examine, question, teach and learn, and the right to investigate, speculate and comment without reference to prescribed doctrine, as well as the right to criticize the University and society at large.
Freedom of Expression and the Cromwell Inquiry
The University has consistently maintained that only academics and librarians are protected by freedom of speech, and not clinical directors or other non-academic personnel. This view was echoed in the Cromwell Report on the Azarova de-hiring. It is manifestly incorrect. Governing Council’s “Statement on Freedom of Speech”, of which senior University administrators must be aware, extends freedom of speech to all University constituents. Why the University continues to promulgate this palpable and overriding error remains an ongoing mystery. By Professor Jeffrey G. MacIntosh
Academic Freedom and Anti-Racism
As a Black faculty member at the University of Toronto who is outraged by the University administration’s actions in the Law School scandal, I was glad to read Masha Gessen’s recent analysis of it in the New Yorker. Most of it is excellent, highlighting core issues of human rights, donor influence and academic freedom that make this scandal so complicated and important. The more I thought about it, though, the more discomfited I became. My discomfort, I think, has everything to do with race... By Dr. Melanie Newton
Censure UofT 