UPEI
CENSORSHIP
Open
Letter
February
13, 2006
Dr. Wade MacLauchlan
President,
University of Prince Edward Island
Charlottetown, PEI
C1A
4P3
Dear President MacLauchlan:
I am writing to you as president of the Society for Academic Freedom
and
Scholarship. We are a national organization of university faculty
members and
interested others who are dedicated to the defence of academic freedom
and
reasoned debate. For further information, please visit our website at
www.safs.ca.
We are writing to strongly protest the actions of the UPEI
administration in
seizing copies of the student newspaper, The Cadre (issue dated
February
8), and preventing their distribution. UPEI's public statement of
February
8 that censorship of The Cadre can be justified "on grounds
that
publication of the caricatures represents a reckless invitation to
public
disorder and humiliation" is contrary to the duty of all university
presidents to maintain their campuses as places where debate of
controversial
issues may take place. Fear of possible ‘mob action’ must not be
allowed
to dictate to UPEI or any other Canadian university what ideas its
students and
faculty may express, disseminate and debate. By censoring this
debate at
your campus rather than taking the necessary steps to provide
appropriate
security to allow debate to happen, you have encouraged the view that
the
threat of violence, real or imagined, is an effective way to challenge
ideas
with which one disagrees.
The
decision as to what is to be included in a newspaper must be made by
the
editorial board, based on their understanding of the newsworthiness of
the
story. Those who disagree with the newspaper's coverage or
viewpoint can
register their opposition through writing letters to the editor,
demonstrating,
or simply by refusing to read the paper or to advertise in it.
Disagreeable
speech should be countered by opposing arguments. Censorship is not an
acceptable response to the expression of contrary opinions, and
especially not
on a university campus. Sending the campus police to confiscate
copies of
the student newspaper is an overreaction and a victory for potential
censors
who seem to have intimidated the administration of UPEI.
UPEI has given the impression that vigorous debate is to be avoided
whenever
offence may be taken, or at the very least that such debate is to
occur
only on terms decided by the university administration. Surely, this is
not the
image of UPEI that you want to promote.
We call on you to reverse your decision and to let The Cadre do
its job.
Sincerely,
Clive Seligman, President
CC:
Ray Keating, Editor, The Cadre
Published in the National Post, February
16, 2006, p.A20, and The
Cadre, February 22, 2006, p.14