Offended by facts

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/12/2009 (5760 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Scholarly relevance is the only criterion that should determine whether or not a speaker is suitable for a university audience. It has nothing to do with political appropriateness, as campus censors sometimes like to think. Nor does it have anything to do with the lofty ideals of free expression that are so often, and erroneously, conflated with the business of teaching and learning.

Universities are concerned with academic worth, not with ensuring an inclusive environment, or with providing a forum for everyone, as if universities were no different from street corners.

Academic considerations were, unfortunately, obscured last month when former Tory campaign manager Tom Flanagan spoke at the University of Manitoba. It wasn’t Flanagan’s affiliations with the Conservative party that prompted opposition to his visit, although it was in this capacity that he was invited to the university.

Rather, it was his other career as a University of Calgary professor that makes him controversial.

In 2000, Flanagan published First Nations, Second Thoughts. The book challenges what Flanagan calls “aboriginal orthodoxy.” Specifically, Flanagan criticizes the view that aboriginal peoples have inherent rights because they populated North America long before Europeans.

Prior to Flanagan’s talk, a Facebook group formed opposing his visit, and the University of Manitoba Aboriginal Students’ Association issued a letter of protest to the political studies department. Flanagan’s presence, it was argued, provoked “a feeling of powerlessness” among students with deeply held views on aboriginal history.

Eventually, however, the students retracted their protest and instead requested an open forum with Flanagan to be included with his talk. Tara Gosek of the UMASA was quoted in the campus paper admitting “positive” developments resulted from Flanagan’s visit. She was afforded the opportunity to speak to classes about UMASA’s objections to allow Flanagan on campus.

Now, as much as I object to submitting professors to a political smell test, the typical argument marshalled in defence of Flanagan’s talk is equally askew. Reacting to the students changing their minds, columnist Joseph Quesnel called it “A victory for freedom of expression.” I am sorry to say it was nothing of the sort.

Victories for freedom of expression happen on the floor of the House of Commons or at the Supreme Court, not over whether a student group chooses to tolerate a speaker on campus.

Framing the legitimacy of academic inquiry on expressive freedoms is a hoary argument that does little more than concede that scholarship is justified, or not, on grounds external to the logic of the university. The supposed intrinsic good of being exposed to a variety of opinions is a logic best left for a public street where any lunatic can say whatever he wants.

The question that should be asked is not whether a given speaker will contribute to a diversity of opinion, but whether there is any academic worth in it. That is, the criterion to be considered is whether or not it advances the university’s mission of pursuing truth in a rigorous and responsible way, whether there is a scholarly purpose.

Seen in this light, that Flanagan should have been invited to the university is without question. As a former campaign manager and chief of staff to Stephen Harper, he has unique insights into the workings of political campaigning and governance at the federal level.

As a source, he is a potential fount of information for academic inquiry. With respect to his experience in the Conservative party, his views and opinions are to be studied.

As for his work on aboriginal history, Flanagan is a tenured professor at a recognized university. His book was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press, one of the top academic publishers in the country. The manuscript would have been subjected to rigorous scholarly vetting, including peer review.

Whatever the potential for offence, First Nations, Second Thoughts was awarded the Donald Smiley Prize from the Canadian Political Science Association for best book in Canadian government and politics. In other words, not only is Flanagan’s work a legitimate piece of scholarship, it is considered an exceptional work of political science.

If one day Flanagan were proven wrong or irrelevant to the study of Canadian politics, then objecting to him giving a talk would be entirely appropriate. In fact, I would raise my own objections on the grounds that irrelevant material is useless to teaching and learning. If such a day were to come, framing it as a free speech issue would be equally misplaced.