CANADA: Universities fare poorly on free speech index

A new report contends that a "disconcerting" number of Canadian universities have failed in their mission to protect free speech and in the process are helping to erode open debate in the larger society, writes Charles Lewis for the National Post.

"If censorship is OK on a university campus, I think there is a spin-off effect that harms the health of free speech outside the university as well," Calgary lawyer John Carpay, one of the authors of The 2011 Campus Free Speech Index, said last week. "Taxpayers are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to these institutions that promise to be a forum for frank debate. It's disconcerting to see this."

Carpay has been defending anti-abortion students at the University of Calgary, a school cited in the report. It grades 18 secular universities in terms of their policies on free speech, their actions and practices, as well as student union policies and practices. None of the schools came out unblemished but the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and the University of New Brunswick fared the best as protectors of free speech. Carleton University, University of Western Ontario and University of Calgary were given the least flattering assessment.
Full report on the National Post site