On April 7, four professors at the University of British Columbia filed a
petition in the B.C. Supreme Court seeking a determination that the university has become politicized and is in violation of Section 66(1) of the province’s University Act requiring it to be non-political. This petition, co-signed by a former graduate student, brings to mind the University of Chicago’s 1967
Kalven Report, which insisted that universities must remain neutral on political issues. This neutrality “arises out of respect for free inquiry and the obligation to cherish a variety of viewpoints. And this neutrality as an institution has its complement in the fullest freedom for its faculty and students as individuals to participate in political action and social protest. It provides its complement, too, in the obligation of the university to provide a forum for the most searching and candid discussion of public issues.”
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