Academic Freedom

The APUO’s Ad Hoc Committee on Academic Freedom is mandated to monitor the state of academic freedom and the right to peacefully protest within the University of Ottawa. As such, the Committee wants to hear from you about your experiences on campus.

Please click here share any experiences or feedback you have regarding academic freedom and/or the right to peacefully protest. The form is anonymous, and includes a section that allows you to identify yourself if you wish for a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on Academic Freedom to follow up with you.

What is Academic Freedom?

Academic freedom is an academic affair. All APUO members have the right to academic freedom. Academic rights and freedoms are outlined in Article 9 of the APUO Collective Agreement. CAUT and UNESCO Policy definitions of Academic Freedom are available in the CAUT academic freedom toolkit.

What is the Right to Peacefully Protest?

The right to peaceful protest is an academic affair. The 1997 UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel states as follows:

26. Higher-education teaching personnel, like all other groups and individuals, should enjoy those internationally recognized civil, political, social and cultural rights applicable to all citizens. Therefore, all higher-education teaching personnel should enjoy freedom of thought, conscience, religion, expression, assembly, and association as well as the right to liberty and security of the person and liberty of movement. They should not be hindered or impeded in exercising their civil rights as citizens, including the right to contribute to social change through freely expressing their opinion of state policies and of policies affecting higher education.