Monday Lecture Series: Daniel O’Donnell — What is Fundamental about Academic Freedom?

Daniel O’Donnell gave the first talk in the lab’s 2026/2027 Monday Lecture Series, reporting early and exploratory work from the #safespaces project (SSHRC Insight Development Grant, 2026–2028).

When: Monday, 28 September 2026, 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. MDT
Where: University Hall, room B838, University of Lethbridge — also streamed on Zoom
Slides: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23003905

Abstract

The talk argues that debates about academic freedom in Canada and the United States have moved from a speaker-centred understanding, in which academic speech was defended without reference to its impact on audiences, to one in which the rights of speakers are weighed against those of the audiences and communities they address. It proposes that this shift is shared across political positions: the sides disagree about which speakers cause harm and which communities can be harmed, not about whether harm to an audience counts. The change is traced through the Rushton affair (1989–90) and Western University’s Department of Psychology statement (2020), Michiel Horn’s Academic Freedom in Canada (1999) against testimony to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research (2024), and the AAUP’s statements on speech codes (1994) and antisemitism (2023).

The talk then argues that academic freedom is not freedom of speech, and turns to Jacob T. Levy’s account of academic freedom as an associational right. It reads the history of academic freedom in that light, from the Authentica Habita and Parens scientiarum through the AAUP statements of 1915, 1940 and 1970 and the Canadian tradition from the Fowke–Laskin report (1958) to current CAUT policy. It concludes that current unease with purely speaker-centred understandings of academic freedom reflects a developing peer standard for competent academic discourse.

Cite the slides

O’Donnell, D. P. (2026, September 28). What is Fundamental about Academic Freedom? Humanities Innovation Lab, University of Lethbridge. Humanities Innovation Lab Monday Lecture Series (HIL), Lethbridge. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23003905