2 December 2019

Akanksha Bhatnagar

President, University of Alberta Students’ Union

Room 2-900

Students’ Union Building

University of Alberta

8900 – 114 Street NW

Edmonton, AB

T6G 2J7

Dear Akanksha,

We are very concerned about the statement issued by the Students’ Union at the University of Alberta in regard to Dr. Dougal MacDonald, who teaches in the Faculty of Education.

Your condemnation of Dr. MacDonald’s remarks on the Holodomor and demand that he take them back or resign are incompatible with the University’s policies and principles on Freedom of Expression. Just this week the General Faculties Council approved the University’s new statement on Freedom of Expression which reads:

The university is a place of free and open inquiry in all matters, and all members of the university community have the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, view, challenge, profess, and learn. Members of the university community have the right to criticize and question other views expressed on our campuses, but may not obstruct or otherwise interfere with others’ freedom of expression. Debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forward are thought by some, or even most, to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or misguided. It is for individuals, not the institution, to make those judgments for themselves and to act not by seeking to suppress expression, but by openly and vigorously contesting the ideas they oppose. The university does not attempt to shield members of the university community from ideas or opinions they disagree with or find offensive.

Dr. MacDonald’s remarks are protected by our Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as by the academic freedom to extramural expression that is a necessary right of all academic staff at the University. As the statement notes, in the University the proper response to ideas with which we do not agree is rigorous debate with those ideas, not their suppression.

The learning environment is not, as your statement implies, made “safe” when any individual or group attempts to prevent another’s exercise of freedom of expression. It is fundamentally undermined, as the ability to examine, analyze, and critique all ideas is the lifeblood of the University.

Sincerely,

Lise Gotell, Professor, Women’s & Gender Studies

Carolyn Sale, Associate Professor, English & Film Studies

James Muir, Associate Dean Research, Faculty of Law

Julie Rak, Professor & HM Tory Chair, English & Film Studies

Danielle Fuller, Professor, English & Film Studies

Ricardo Acuña, Executive Director, Parkland Institute, Faculty of Arts

Ryan Dunch, Professor and Chair, History and Classics

Kathleen Lowrey, Associate Professor, Anthropology

Christopher Lupke, Chair, East Asian Studies

Phillip Choi, Ph.D., P.Eng., F.C.I.C., F.E.I.C., Professor, Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering

Natalie Loveless, Associate Professor and Associate Chair, Undergraduate, Department of Art and Design

Andrew Holt, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry

Jennifer L. Branch-Mueller, Professor, Department of Elementary Education

José da Costa, Professor of Educational Administration and Leadership, Faculty of Education

Laurie Adkin, Professor, Department of Political Science

Craig Heinke, Professor, Department of Physics

Frank Elliott, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Secondary Education

Dennis Sweeney, Associate Professor, History and Classics

Michelle Noga, Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry

Steven Khan, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education

Karim Jamal PhD, FCPA, FCA, CA Distinguished Professor, Chair, Department of Accounting, Operations and Information Systems (AOIS), School of Business

David Jay, Visiting Professor, Department of Music

Maciej Bukczynski, Sessional Lecturer, School of Business

Suping Song, Directrice, École de langues du Campus Saint-Jean

Khalid Aziz, Professor, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry

Corwin Sullivan, Associate Professor, Faculty of Science

David E. Rast, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

Michelle Meagher, Associate Professor & Chair, Department of Women’s and Gender Studies

Tara Milbrandt, Associate Professor of Sociology, Augustana

Anne-José Villeneuve, Assistant Professor, Campus Saint-Jean

Stu White, Assistant Chair, Administration, Anthropology & Economics

Olga Petrovskaya, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Nursing

Vijay Daniels, Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry

Alsu Kuznetsova, Research Associate, Department of Renewable Resources

João Soares, Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering

Lia Daniels, Professor, Faculty of Education

Peter Kuznetsov, Research Associate, CEE

Patricia Paradis, Executive Director, Centre for Constitutional Studies/Centre d’études constitutionnelles

Greg Ash, Associate Director, Fund Information and Accounting, Office of Advancement

Cynthia Palmaria, Faculty, Department of Oncology, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry

Audrey Hodgson-Ward, Elementary Education

Damián Cirelli, Faculty of Science Instructor, Department of Biological Sciences

David Kennedy, Associate Professor, Department of Drama

Additional Signatures:

Bill Beard, Professor, English & Film Studies

Erin Pollock, Associate Lecturer, School of Public Health

Victoria Ruetalo, Associate Professor, Spanish and Latin American Studies

Makere Stewart-Harawira, Professor, Educational Policy Studies

Jaimie Baron, Associate Professor, English & Film Studies

Janice Williamson, Professor Emerita, Department of English & Film Studies

Geri Lorway, Assistant Lecturer, Elementary Education

Adam Kemezis, Associate Professor, History & Classics

Tony Simmons, Associate Professor, Sociology, Athabasca University

Don Carmichael, Professor Emeritus, Political Science

Joseph M. Kirman, Professor Emeritus, Department of Elementary Education