Why SFU Should Have a Policy of Political Neutrality

Hi Nick,

1) SFU has various obligations mandated under Canadian law to respond to Canadian colonialism. Or so I understand the recommendations of the TRC to public educational institutions. It also has a moral obligation (I believe) to acknowledge that its activities take place on lands whose status remains unsettled under Canadian law. The nexus for these duties is Canadian law as that law applies to SFU.

There is no corresponding obligation for SFU to comment on international law as it pertains to crimes against humanity. There is no nexus whatsoever between those international laws and SFU's current activities.

2) I simply don't accept that the act of abiding by a policy of *not* commenting on international law expresses support for a particular state's policies. If I advertise to my students that my policy is not to comment on the clothes they wear to class, then I do not express *anything* by refusing to comment on the wardrobe of an especially messy student. SFU's refusal to express political partisanship on the occasion of the Gaza war might only express support for Israel if it is true that SFU has consistently condemned crimes against humanity and other violations of international law. But SFU has not done that. Indeed, its President pointedly avoided condemning Hamas on Oct. 7th (which was the correct policy in my view.)

In short, while there may be occasions where political neutrality is a "form of political action" this is not one of those occasions. It's an argument I've heard before in the context of the Gaza war and I find it very unpersuasive.

Best,

Sam

Sam Black

Assoc. Prof. Philosophy, SFU

This note is not AI-generated.

I respectfully acknowledge that SFU is on the unceded ancestral and traditional territories of the səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) and kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) Nations.

From: Nicholas Blomley
Sent: November 8, 2023 4:44:06 PM
To: Sam Black
Cc: academic-discussion; academic-freedom@sfu.ca
Subject: Re: Why SFU Should Have a Policy of Political Neutrality

Thanks for your thoughts, Sam. I appreciate your mention of the crimes against humanity directed at Uyghur people. I take your point regarding the need to be evenhanded. That aside, however, are there not many cases in which political neutrality, at its face, is a form of political action? In other words, surely we can conceive of situations in which the decision by the University to NOT address some issue may, in fact, serve to sustain a set of objectionable relationships that the university directly or indirectly is upholding? For example, it seems to me impossible for the university not to take a position on colonial reconciliation, given that it occupies stolen land. Political neutrality on this point would serve to maintain the status quo.

Perhaps I am mistaking your understanding of political neutrality?

Nick Blomley

On Nov 8, 2023, at 10:16 AM, Sam Black <samuel_black@sfu.ca> wrote:

Hi All,

Apologies in advance for the length of this post. But the urgency of the topic seems to call for an extended treatment.

As everyone knows university Presidents have recently come under great pressure to issue public statements condemning Hamas or the Israeli government. I sincerely hope SFU’s administration – from the President on down to any administrator acting in their official capacity – will resist that pressure. They should stick to a policy of political neutrality. The same applies to all employees of the Faculty Union. What University and Faculty Union officials say as private citizens or as researchers, in forums which have no connection with their administrative office, is mostly their own business. The views they express in their official capacity are, however, another matter.

            There are many reasons for maintaining a policy of strict political neutrality. Here I’ll mention just one. The world is full of awful political regimes. But if University or Faculty Union officials feel it is their obligation to call out crimes against humanity, then they must not discriminate between crimes for extraneous reasons. They must be prepared to investigate and to act on all credible allegations made by their constituents of crimes against humanity. They will also  need to staff offices with qualified personnel to adjudicate those allegations in a responsible way. This will be an expensive undertaking in a school with a comparatively modest budget. Is this a path SFU wants to go down? Where might it lead?

            Anyone’s list of regimes, which have perpetrated massive and widespread crimes against humanity, must surely include the current Chinese government. The Uyghur population in Xinjiang Province comprises approximately 10 million Muslims. Since 2017 about one million Uyghurs have been arbitrarily detained in “reeducation” camps. There are additionally credible reports of the widespread rape of Uyghur women by Chinese officials (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55794071), involuntary sterilization, intense surveillance and gross violations of privacy, the total extinction of religious freedom for Muslims, torture, and allegations of extensive slave labor among the Uyghur population. Both Amnesty International (https://xinjiang.amnesty.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/ASA_17_4137-2021_Full_report_ENG.pdf) and Human Rights Watch (https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/09/14/china-xinjiang-official-figures-reveal-higher-prisoner-count) accuse the Chinese government of committing crimes against humanity under international law. The Trump and Biden administrations have each asserted that the Chinese government is engaged in genocide (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/us/politics/trump-china-xinjiang.html). The staggering human scale of these ongoing violations is almost impossible to grasp. And there is no end in sight. (For chilling interviews with Uyghur women who have been sexually assaulted with impunity by members of the Chinese government’s security apparatus see, Geoffrey Cain, The Perfect Police State, (2021), esp. ch. 1.)

            To date, University administrators and Faculty Union officials have mostly failed to condemn the Chinese government for the massive crimes against humanity (or genocide) it is committing. I follow over a dozen Uyghur rights groups and advocates on Twitter. I have yet to find a link to a statement by a concerned university President or Faculty Union calling out the Chinese government. No doubt impolitic remarks of that kind would be a bad business for schools grown addicted to the premium fees paid by Chinese nationals. Perhaps that is also why costly calls for total disinvestment in China (which Uyghur leaders have demanded) have gone nowhere. But make no mistake. Material considerations of that sort must not be allowed to impede the application of a policy which enjoins University and Faculty Union officials to express their condemnation of crimes against humanity. Office holders don’t get to play favorites once they are in the business of calling out rogue actors; only the magnitude of the crime must determine their response.

            To be clear, I believe it is badly misguided for SFU and Faculty Union administrators to implement a policy which permits or requires them to express their condemnation of crimes against humanity. I favor a policy of political neutrality. But if a policy of political partisanship is the rule, then the rules must be implemented in an evenhanded way. Office holders owe it the academic community, which they represent, to avoid making ad hoc distinctions. The Chinese government’s brutalization of its Muslim Uyghur population is just one example of ongoing genocide. The Russian Federation’s war in Ukraine is more brutal still. The very recent ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh by the Azerbaijan state is another. If political neutrality is not in the cards at SFU, then I’m certain faculty members will nominate many additional candidates. Sadly, they are plentiful enough.

Best,

Sam

Sam Black

Assoc. Prof. Philosophy, SFU

This note is not AI-generated.

I respectfully acknowledge that SFU is on the unceded ancestral and traditional territories of the səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) and kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) Nations.