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Universities must serve the public interest, not private ones

(first printed in The Record on March 21, 2012)

By James L. Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers

The integrity of universities is always at risk. Politicians, religious authorities, special interest groups, and corporate leaders have long had an interest in shaping what happens at our universities. This is hardly surprising because universities are a unique institution in society — places where teachers and students examine, discuss, research and critically evaluate issues, theories, ideas and discoveries in an honest, rigorous and scholarly manner and share that knowledge publicly.

University teachers and researchers are expected to “call it as they see it” — to be straight with their students and the public, even if they have to criticize conventional wisdom, challenge cherished beliefs, reject taken-for-granted knowledge, or debunk claims of powerful interests.

This is hard to do. In the 19th Century, many universities struggled under the yoke of ecclesiastical authority. In Germany during the Nazi era and in the Soviet Union under Stalinism, academics often paid with their careers and sometimes their lives for resisting the dictates of the state.  Many North American universities had unenviable records collusion with the anti-communist mania of the cold war years.  Popular sentiment has led to universities firing eminent scholars who held unpopular views.

The majority of faculty and students have resisted these violations of universities’ raison d’etre. They have worked to maintain a resolute commitment to ensuring internal control over all academic matters so that the quest for knowledge, not non-academic pressures, guides teaching and research. They have defended the academic freedom of their colleagues when persecuted because their teaching or writing offended those with power.

The success of these struggles is evident as high profile attacks on a scholar’s academic freedom, like that suffered by University of Toronto’s Dr. Nancy Olivieri, are reasonably uncommon in Canada today.

Instead, academic integrity is now facing a less visible but more pervasive threat as universities grapple with serious public underfunding and with students facing record debt loads as tuition fees are expected to replace diminished public support. In that context, partnerships with major corporations and support from generous donors become truly alluring.

We welcome these donations and partnerships, provided they come without strings that compromise the academic integrity of the institution.

It is not surprising that private donors may want to influence how their money is spent by the university. Fortunately most Canadian universities have been resolute in explaining to potential benefactors that they cannot have a voice in academic matters without compromising the institution they are offering to help.

That is why we were so surprised when the administrations of Wilfrid Laurier and Waterloo agreed to give Jim Balsillie’s private think-tank, the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) voice and veto over key aspects of the two universities’ Balsillie School of International Affairs. Those aspects include deciding which Waterloo/Wilfrid Laurier programs can be BSIA programs, which academic can be chosen to be director of the School, as well as final budgetary and operational authority for the School, and setting the strategic research direction of the School.

The Canadian Association of University Teachers and the universities’ own faculty associations had numerous discussions with university officials about our concerns with what they were proposing to do – to no avail.

The situation at York University is even worse, as we recently learned when their agreement with CIGI became public. In it, the York administration gave CIGI unprecedented powers over academic decisions in a new program in international law funded by $30-million from the Ontario government, $30-million from Mr. Balsillie and a substantial contribution by the university. York agreed that CIGI representatives could have veto power over the research areas for each of the ten new program chairs, over  the specific financial terms and expectations for each chair, including their research plans, and over who can be on the short list of the candidates from which the University could hire.

To my knowledge, no university in Canada has ever given away such powers to a private outside group. In the face of widespread publicity, York has changed only one thing in that outrageous agreement: CIGI reps no longer veto names for the shortlist of candidates to be hired.  If they disagree with York reps on the Steering Committee, the matter is sent to an outside group of experts.  A decision that takes the hiring decision away from York’s internal processes and still leaves CIGI with a voice in hiring and with veto on the other key academic matters.

This is how academic integrity is lost. Universities, badly needing money to maintain their programs, allow outside interests to shape what they do and whom they hire. Gradually they come to serve private interest rather than the public interest. They may then be universities in name, but  something much less in practice.

[Related article: York University gives faculty hiring veto to private think tank]