Thank you Sam for raising this important issue and facilitating this discussion.
Over the past week, I've observed how another thread advocating for members to sign a letter encouraging SFU to take a specific political stance has devolved into eating it's own, the loss of membership and increasingly hostile
personal attacks.
As I posted on the other thread, I am happy to sign onto letters asking SFU to reconsider its own problematic policies, but will not sign political
statements that may serve to quash or chill the free speech of others who may not agree, or worse; may fear punishment or ostracism from the administration or their colleagues for their opposing stands. The number of colleagues who have reached out to me privately
supporting institutional neutrality is encouraging. Their fear to execute their academic freedom and freedom of _expression_ to publicly support this initiative is alarming and shows why it is needed.
As Sam and others have highlighted, many of us are encouraging SFU to take a stance of
institutional neutrality, as more than 80
universities have done since 2014. If you'd like further information the academic freedom group supporting this initiative please feel free to reach out to me
publicly or privately.
***
Wendy Loken Thornton, Ph.D. R.Psych
Professor, Department
of Psychology
Director,
Cognitive Aging Lab
Simon
Fraser University
***
The
SFU Burnaby campus is located on the unceded traditional territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam, and Kwikwetlem Nations.
Note: My working hours and yours may differ. Please don't feel obligated to reply outside of your normal hours.
From: Richard Frank <richard_frank@sfu.ca>
Sent: Thursday, November 9, 2023 10:48 AM
To: Nilima Nigam; Nicholas Blomley
Cc: Sam Black; academic-discussion; academic-freedom@sfu.ca
Subject: RE: Why SFU Should Have a Policy of Political Neutrality
“But your statement seems to assert that a majority opinion on campus should become the institutional view, and therefore attributed and applicable to *all*?”
This flies against all of the EDI movements which try to elevate the voices of minorities. The majority should not become the sole voice of the University. However, in this specific case
we don’t know either way: Has anyone here been ever asked by administration about your viewpoint on any topic that they are putting out opinions on? The viewpoints of administration, the stuff that makes it into press-releases, could be completely mis-representing
the “majority” viewpoint on campus. We don’t know and they don’t care. They just say stuff that they want.
Richard
From: Nilima Nigam <nigam@math.sfu.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, November 8, 2023 6:52 PM
To: Nicholas Blomley <nicholas_blomley@sfu.ca>
Cc: Sam Black <samuel_black@sfu.ca>; academic-discussion <academic-discussion@sfu.ca>; academic-freedom@sfu.ca
Subject: Re: Why SFU Should Have a Policy of Political Neutrality
Dear Nicholas
"Another secondary point: the assumption here seems to be that the university is an institution. This it is, of course. But it is also (I hope) a collective of scholars and
students. If a significant proportion of that collective felt strongly that they should speak as one, is that not a valid move? "
There's nothing wrong with a large number of students and faculty to be moved to offer opinions. This is what it's all about.
But your statement seems to assert that a majority opinion on campus should become the institutional view, and therefore attributed and applicable to *all*? Do correct me if I misread your
statement.
Thanks for these comments, Sam.
My point is less one of the merits of responding on international issues, and more one focused on the degree to which political silence on an issue by the university can be seen as a stance
of ‘political neutrality’. This is how I take your argument. Please advise me if I am wrong.
So, for example, the university has not commented on the inappropriateness of the Chinese state’s genocidal policies. This I take you to support (unless qualified by your last paragraph on
the need for an evenhanded response). Yet were it established that the university materially benefited from these policies (for example, through investments made possible by forced Uyghur labour) how could the university’s lack of a response be deemed ’neutral’?
Another secondary point: the assumption here seems to be that the university is an institution. This it is, of course. But it is also (I hope) a collective of scholars and students. If a
significant proportion of that collective felt strongly that they should speak as one, is that not a valid move?
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.
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
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.
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.
--
Nilima Nigam
Professor
Dept. of Mathematics
Simon Fraser University
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