SOCIETY FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND
SCHOLARSHIP
1673 Richmond Street #344,
London, Ontario, N6G
2N3 email: safs@safs.ca
December 12, 2006
Dr. Judith Woodsworth
President
Laurentian University
Sudbury, ON
P3E 2C6
Dear President Woodsworth:
I am writing to you on behalf of the Society for
Academic
Freedom and Scholarship. We are a national organization of scholars and
interested others, whose goals are to promote academic freedom in
teaching,
research, and scholarship and to uphold the merit principle as the
basis of
academic decision-making regarding students and faculty. For
further
information, please visit our website at: www.safs.ca.
We understand from several sources that
your administration
has denied Professor Michael Persinger the opportunity to have the
representatives
from the Discovery Channel come to your campus to film a demonstration
of his prior
research. We have read about this episode in a statement by the
Laurentian
University Faculty Association (dated November 30), in a copy of a
letter sent
to you by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (dated
November 29),
and in an article in Northern Life (dated November 30).
Based on the information contained in
these documents, we have
reached the conclusion that your actions constitute a violation of
Professor
Persinger’s academic freedom, specifically his academic freedom to
disseminate
the results of his research in a manner that he deems appropriate. Your
stated objection
to the filming is based apparently on the assumption that the procedure
used in
the demonstration must undergo a research ethics review. As Professor
Persinger
is not proposing at this time to actually conduct research using this
procedure, but rather is merely planning to demonstrate a result that
has
already been reported in the scientific literature, your demand for a
research
ethics review is both misguided and an impediment to open communication
of
research results.
We call on you to reverse your
directive and to invite the
Discovery Channel to visit the campus to conduct its interview with
Professor
Persinger and to film the demonstration.
To do less would be a personal
injustice to Professor
Persinger, a violation of his academic freedom, and a counterproductive
message
to the public that the administrators at Laurentian University, and not
the
individual researcher, determine what research results are worthy of
media
coverage.
We look forward to your reply. We will
post our letter to
you and your response on our website.
Sincerely,
Clive Seligman
President
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