By Josef Spence – Contributor

The September 30th edition of this paper had a front page article declaring that universities are political institutions. I completely concur with this opinion, but I think that if we are going to understand what that means, it ought not to be qualified, but should instead be considered comprehensively and applied broadly. This means that while the September article did a great job outlining a basic foundation of the implications of the political aspect of the university institution, it also just scratches the surface. To do a fair assessment of these implications we need to look deeper and note all the instances where universities take actions, particularly to repress ideas. 

Admittedly, there are far too many instances of universities acting in political ways to be addressed in a short opinion piece such as this. Consequently, I am going to focus specifically on the instances of universities as whole institutions to influence social discourse or the dissemination and upholding of ideas. 

It has long been accepted that ideas form the human understanding of the world, both physically and metaphysically. Therefore, ideas form the basis of ethics, science, religion, etiquette, and pretty much everything else of significance in society. This includes politics. In fact, universities have a unique ability, as the foundations of academia heavily influence what ideas are spread within society as valid, thus these institutions possess a particular sort of societal power. Possessing that power makes universities necessarily political, that is what makes them – along with other education levels in schools – so important to society. 

To make a brief side note, the basis for the right to freedom of expression is that the ability to control ideas has huge implications for human understanding. This right stands in opposition to the political power of discourse determination, giving rise to conflict between “rights” and “what IS right.”

In just the past couple decades, there have been many examples of university institutions using this political power to dominate discourses. Seen through the shutting down of protests, like the many protests for Palestine, but also in the concerns over the pro-life protests on university campuses across Canada that have been increasing in recent years. Furthermore, it has been seen by the ostracization of stakeholders of universities who differ significantly from the perceived popular opinion, as probably most prominently outlined by the disputes involving Dr. Jordan Peterson in 2016. Through the implementation of policies that are political to the university community, such as the policy agreement between Bishop’s and the Quebec provincial government to have 80% of the out-of-province students graduate with an intermediate understanding of the French language, politics becomes directly intertwined with universities. More locally, this idea has been seen through the Bishop’s University SRC policies that outline the penalization that can result from officers of the SRC “misgendering” someone.¹ 

I highlight these examples in an attempt to bring a more comprehensive understanding to the breadth of the application of the political aspect of universities. You may support many university efforts to suppress certain ideas, and as private institutions, that is perfectly fine. Yet just as the September article concluded, it is important for us to recognize that universities are political as well as the whole extent of that political aspect. For as unfavorable many ideas may be to us, that is a repression of the human right to free expression, and as George Orwell, perhaps dramatically, warned in his letters during the late 1940’s, “Threats to freedom of speech, writing, and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.”²

¹ Note that the BUSRC is technically not a part of a university, but that it is incredibly important to the community of Bishop’s University. ²“It is what I think, 1947-1948”