Muslim’s big bra photo spurs oversized outrage
I would guess that the vast majority of Canadian Muslims, thoughtful, tolerant, law-abiding citizens, must really hate it when their fellow Muslims go crazy over the barest of perceived slights. If my...
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Shirt storm brewing in Nova Scotia
Photo by Roby Ferrari on Flickr This week, Nova Scotia student William Swinimer was suspended from his high school in the town of Chester Basin for wearing a t-shirt that read, “Life is WASTED without...
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Victory for campus free speech advocates
Photo by steakpinball on Flickr Campus free speech advocates are celebrating today, thanks to University of Calgary graduates Steven and Keith Pridgen, 22, and their unwillingness to accept their alma...
View ArticleCarleton University, Ayatollah Khomeini, and free speech (UPDATED)
UPDATE (JULY 6, 2012): AS I SUSPECTED, THE CORRESPONDENCE I ORIGINALLY REPRODUCED BELOW WAS MISSING A THREAD. THERE WERE TWO INITIAL LETTERS TO CARLETON PRESIDENT ROSEANN O’REILLY RUNTE. THE MISSING...
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Carleton, Khomeini, and free speech
Photo by davehighbury on Flickr This post first appeared on Michael Petrou’s The World Desk blog on Macleans.ca. My article about a conference at Carleton University honouring Iran’s founding dictator...
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What students are talking about today (Sept. 27 edition)
Clip from YouTube 1. Honouring the American tradition of free speech and big lawsuits, the University of California Davis has set aside $980,000 to settle with 21 students and alumni who were...
View ArticleTwitter uses new policy for first time to block neo-Nazi account
Twitter has censored the account of neo-Nazi group Besseres Hannover in Germany, marking the first time the social media company has used a new policy which lets it block accounts in one country only....
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HBO’s Girls, the plagiarism debate & free speech at U of T
Girl's Dunham (HBO/Instagram) 1. Lena Dunham’s HBO series Girls won the Golden Globe for best TV comedy series last night right before the highly-anticipated premiere of the second season. I’d argue...
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A free speech wall, McGill Daily and Men’s Rights Activists
Carleton Students for Liberty/Facebook 1. Seventh-year Carleton University human rights student Arun Smith has apparently not been in school long enough to learn that other people have rights to...
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Free speech and unequal prejudice
Have you heard? Free speech is a thing of the past. And religious liberty is dying fast. It began last week when Arun Smith, a seventh-year human rights student at Carleton University in Ottawa, tore...
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Law school applicants, two-tier athletics & Arun Smith
Law school applications drop (Tulane/Flickr) 1. It’s not just teacher’s college where the number of applicants is falling. Law schools in the United States are in crisis mode after statistics from the...
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6 stupid ways student unions used your money
JalilArfaoui/Flickr It’s the time of year when most students in Canada ignore posters imploring them to vote for student government executives. Although student unions may seem irrelevant, they’re not....
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Why we should care that a professor banned Fox News
Megyn Kelly When Stephanie Wolfe banned her students from citing the Onion, “literally a parody,” and Fox News, “a biased news station,” she was not firing any kind of ideological salvo. This West...
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A men’s rights advocate spoke at the University of Toronto
A woman challenges Janice Fiamengo I was expecting the police officers, the provocative placards, and the rent-a-protesters with neon hair and black face coverings. I was also expecting the fire alarm...
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Photos from U of T men’s rights lecture
Janice Fiamengo, a professor who advocates for men’s rights, gave a lecture at the University of Toronto on Thursday evening entitled What’s wrong with Women’s Studies? Naturally, there were dozens of...
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Flaky limits on free speech
Chris Wattie/Reuters Free-speech advocates have been waxing wroth all week over the Supreme Court’s long-awaited ruling in the case of Bill Whatcott, an itinerant street-corner politician who fancies...
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St. Paddy’s warning, student-funded bullets & #IAW
Emily Stanchfield/Flick 1. Here’s a reminder of how student governments in the United States have much different concerns than our own. The student congress of the University of North Carolina-Chapel...
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Ryerson Students’ Union blocks men’s issues group
Anjana Rao, left, Argir Argirov and Sarah Santhosh tried to start a Men's Issues group (Stine Danielle) The Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) takes issue with a men’s issues club. If it were not so...
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Free speech at Queen’s, White Student Union & Bill Clinton
Queen's Security (Tyler Lively/YouTube) 1. Queen’s University instructed security officers to rip down a free speech wall in a student centre because it “allegedly included language that constituted...
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Half of Canadian universities fail at free speech: report
A free speech wall by Carleton University's Students for Liberty club Universities are supposed to be safe places to debate controversial ideas but school administrators and students leaders would...
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University of Victoria sued over pro-life censorship
An anti-abortion protest at Carleton University Cameron Côté, a graduate of the University of Victoria and former president of Youth Protecting Youth, a pro-life student club, has teamed up with the...
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The Interview: Tom Flanagan
Photographs by Jessica Darmanin In February 2013, political strategist Tom Flanagan sparked an uproar with comments he made at the University of Lethbridge about child pornography. In their wake, he...
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Here’s the thing about free speech: It’s not absolute.
Ellen Pao, interim CEO of Reddit. (Robert Galbraith/Reuters) Listen to Emma Teitel read her column, or subscribe to Maclean’s Voices on iTunes or Stitcher for on-the-go listening: If you Google “common...
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How the alt-right weaponized free speech
A man looks on as opposing factions gather over the cancelation of conservative commentator Ann Coulter’s speech at the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, California, U.S., April 27,...
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The ethics of restricting speech on social media
Marchers at a white-supremacy rally encircle counter protestors at the base of a statue of Thomas Jefferson after marching through the University of Virginia campus with torches in Charlottesville,...
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How free expression is being gagged by anti-Trump backlash
A supporters of President Donald Trump yells at the crowd after being bloodied in a clash with protesters at a rally at Civic Center Park organized by the Trump supporters in Berkeley, California,...
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In the U.S.’s debate over free-speech politics, Black Americans lose
The San Francisco 49ers kneel and stand in solidarity on the sideline, during the anthem, prior to the game against the Arizona Cardinals at the University of Phoenix Stadium on October 1, 2017 in...
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Is Jordan Peterson the stupid man’s smart person?
Jordan Peterson during his lecture at University of Toronto. (Rene Johnston/Toronto Star via Getty Images) University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson was in the news this week—and one...
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Jordan Peterson and the big mistake of university censors
Profile of Dr. Jordan Peterson, the U of T prof at the centre of a media storm because of his public declaration that he will not use pronouns, such as “they,” to recognize non-binary genders. (Carlos...
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In the face of new advertising laws, political free speech needs an advocate
Queen’s Park, the provincial legislature of Ontario. Christine Van Geyn is the Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, a non-profit citizen-based advocacy organization focused on lower...
View ArticleWhat really happened at Wilfrid Laurier University
This post is a placeholder. Please see the original here. The post What really happened at Wilfrid Laurier University appeared first on Macleans.ca.
View ArticleFree speech isn’t fair. So what?
It’s hard not to admire the way this generation’s emerging right-wing thought leaders have leveraged campus trolling in the pursuit of fame and wealth. Set up a YouTube channel, speak some scintilla of...
View ArticleThe library is open—to Meghan Murphy and everyone else
“When the library is open,” the American journalist and former White House press secretary Bill Moyers has said, “no matter its size or shape, democracy is open, too.” But what happens when democracy...
View ArticleWho pays to protect free speech on campus
It was early March and there was still snow underfoot as students from the University of Alberta pro-life club set up metal scaffolding for their display. The posters, shipped to the Edmonton campus...
View ArticleThe science of denial
Mark Kingwell is a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto and author of Wish I Were Here: Boredom and the Interface, which won the 2020 Erving Goffman Award. Peter denied his association...
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Students guilty of disrupting speech on campus
Photo by Wikimania2009 on Flickr Ten American university students were sentenced on Friday to 56 hours of community service and three years of probation in a case that has spurred debate about freedom...
View ArticleHate speech case goes before the Supreme Court
A landmark hate speech case is being debated in the Supreme Court of Canada on Wednesday, pitting an anti-gay pamphleteer from Saskatchewan against defenders of Canada’s restrictions on speech that is...
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America’s war on blogs
Hip hop, being a genre borne of copyright infringement, has always had a less tortured relationship with intellectual property than the rest of the music industry. Piracy and commerce coexist...
View ArticleIs free speech protected on Canadian campuses?
A new report released Thursday takes a critical look at the state of free speech at Canadian universities. The 2011 Campus Freedom Index, published by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms,...
View ArticleWaterloo adds reinforcements ahead of speech
The University of Waterloo is once again preparing for protesters who might try to shut down a speech, reports The Waterloo Record. The university says it will protect 80-year-old Charles Rice with...
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