The 2013 Campus Freedom Index, issued by the Calgary-based Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, concluded that 23 of the chosen 45 Canadian universities had placed limits on the free speech and expression of contentious groups. These include various anti-abortion groups, men’s issues awareness campaigners, and groups on either side of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Index gave every university’s administration and student union two a-f letter grades each, one of which evaluated policies and the other, practices. So it was possible for a student union to receive a low grade, while the administration received a high one, or vice versa. For example, the University of Toronto Students’ Union garnered an F for its practices, such as banning on-campus men’s issues awareness clubs, while the U of T administration received an a for its policies, which were credited with maintaining safety during a lecture given by the Canadian Association for Equality earlier this year.
With files from Maclean’s
