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In announcing disciplinary action against David Weale, UPEI President Wade MacLauchlan stated, "It is of paramount importance to ensure the highest standard of academic integrity and attention to student welfare for which UPEI is known. The UPEI community has been especially proud of the fact that our professors rank number one in the country for awards."
Faculty at the University of Prince Edward Island have expressed concern over the erosion of free speech on campus, following the confiscation last month of the student newspaper that had reprinted the notorious Danish cartoons. The Post ran several letters from professors, criticizing this action. But things may get worse. The university administration is currently in negotiations with the Faculty Association over a new collective agreement, and a strike seems imminent. They are particularly insistent that the new contract include a "Code of Conduct" that would obligate the faculty to "act in a manner that will contribute positively to the overall vision, mission and reputation" of UPEI.
UPEI administrators acknowledge that the press should be free; they just don't believe it. Or rather, they believe the press should be free as long as it is not controversial. Or perhaps they fear rioting? Did the paper tell students to riot? Of course not, but the administrators don't want trouble. Is that how it works now? Those willing to threaten violence now determine what goes on at universities? There comes a time when you have to stand up to the bullies. That time is now. To do otherwise is cowardly.
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A university official calls Taliban critics "retarded" while the university maintains a stony silence
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A university is the very last place where one should try to stifle debate with gag laws. Where there is no check on power, those in control can act in arbitrary and capricious ways. This is an old tale. I’ve been teaching a course on African politics at UPEI this semester, and we’ve been dealing with the many sad stories of the so-called “big men” who brought their countries to the brink of ruin. I guess that’s why all this sounds so drearily familiar.
After reading and rereading Dr. MacLauchlan's letter in the National Post, I first thought it was a joke -- the outline for a Monty Python script. Then it struck me that he was serious.
A scan of the newspaper story and accompanying picture, which shows a pious Muslim woman reading to Wade MacLauchlan her letters of thanks and praise.
Hoogeveen read her personal letter of thanks to Wade MacLauchlan [who] ordered all copies of the newspaper confiscated, burned, and the ashes scattered to the four corners of the earth.
In effect, Wade MacLauchlan admits to not knowing what debate is, or how to defend it. He makes preposterous analogies and parrots silly hyperbole from an unnamed "P.E.I Muslim woman."
After UPEI President Wade MacLauchlan sent campus police to confiscate the student newspaper, he pronounced, in his "President's Newsletter," that the campus environment was improved.
Wade MacLauchlan tried to defend himself by using the statement of a P.E.I. Muslim woman that the hurt caused by the cartoons was "as if I had been raped out on the street ...."
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Henry Srebrnik, a 13-year veteran of UPEIâ s political studies, worries that the university could use the proposed â Code of conductâ to keep professors from turning into vocal critics of the university administration. â You might notice
UPEI’s current offer to the faculty would leave our professors among the lowest paid, most overworked in the country within the next three years. . . . more and more money is being funneled into administrative spending, while academic support (money ac
the geography of the publication of the Danish cartoons tells us a lot about our democracies: what is allowed, what is forbidden... and what is taboo. In fact, it's more geopolitics than geography!
By rejecting the agenda of the extremists, Canadaâ s intelligentsia would be standing shoulder to shoulder with the Muslims and secular individuals from the region who reject both Islamophobia and Islamism. Islamism is not the new revolutionary moveme
Donâ t be silenced by extremists A plea from 11 Canadian Muslim academics and activists: A curtain of fear has descended on the intelligentsia of the West, including Canada. The fear of being misunderstood as Islamophobic has sealed their lips, drie
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Excerpts from the UPEI President’s Newsletter, dated February 28, 2006. See the full text posted on the official UPEI website: http://www.upei.ca/president/html/the_cartoon_controversy_and_th.html See comments on at the full text at http://antontravers