An internal memo to University of Toronto staff, regarding Israeli Apartheid Week:
To: Principals, Deans, Academic Directors & Chairs
From: Vivek Goel, Vice-President & Provost
Date: February 6, 2007
Re: Upcoming Controversial Events On Campus
As been our custom over the last few years, I am writing to alert you to the fact that over the coming weeks and months, there are likely to be a number of student group events and activities which some members of the University community may find controversial.
The essential purpose of the University is to engage in the pursuit of truth, the advancement of learning and the dissemination of knowledge. To achieve this end, all members of the University of Toronto are afforded full freedom of speech and expression, and freedom of assembly. That means members may comment on any issue or idea, and also have the right to criticize the University and society at large.
Discourse and debate have long been recognized as means by which significant contributions have been made to social and political change and the advancement of human rights. To enable the free exchange of ideas and views, the university’s core values include tolerance, mutual respect and civility. More specifically, the University believes that all members of its community have the right to study, teach, work, live and debate in an environment that is inclusive, free of discrimination and harassment on the basis of individual attributes such as religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity.
As a corollary, the University deplores any abuse of the rights of freedom of speech and assembly that shuts down the voices of others or intimidates identifiable individuals and groups. The administration acknowledges that some forms of expression fall short of the legal limits on hate speech, but nonetheless are harmful to identifiable members of our community. The University recognizes that harmful speech is a destructive force on our campuses and, though not prohibited by law, is repugnant to the administration.
In its efforts to deal with harmful speech, the administration will reach out to those individuals and/or communities who are affected by harmful speech or who as a result, collectively, fear for their safety. Those who engage in harmful speech will be warned about the damaging nature of their words and tactics, and urged to advance provocative opinions in a manner that stimulates the widest range of dialogue and debate in a spirit consistent with full freedom of expression in an academic setting.
Events with a high likelihood for harmful speech will be monitored closely for possible violations of University policies and agreements, and repeated violations may result in loss of access to services in the University community. Complaints about alleged violations of policy and law will be investigated promptly by the administration.
Our specific practices in this area have been documented in several previous memoranda to principals, deans, academic directors and chairs:
PDAD&C #79, 2005-06 – Freedom of Speech and Events Organized by Campus Organizations:
http://www.provost.utoronto.ca/English/79—Freedom-of-Speech-and-Events-Organized-by-Campus-Organizations.html
PDAD&C #46, 2004-05 – Freedom of Speech and Campus Activities:
http://www.provost.utoronto.ca/English/46—Freedom-of-Speech-and-Campus-Activities.html
PDAD&C #48, 2004-05 – Statement on Events Organized by the Arab Students’ Collective:
http://www.provost.utoronto.ca/English/PDADC48-Statement-on-events-organized-by-Arab-Students–Collective.html
The University’s attention to these matters is coordinated through the office of the Deputy Provost & Vice-Provost, Students. If you have any questions or concerns related to freedom of speech and campus activities, please contact Jim Delaney, Associate Director & Senior Policy Advisor, Student Affairs at 416-978-4027 or jim.delaney@utoronto.ca.
Please distribute this memorandum widely.
Do universities teach anymore?
No. They only exist to make money.
Correction Iberia….
they exist to provide emloyment for un-emloyable academics who otherwise would be lucky to work at Wallmart.
This memo is one sick indicator of how politically correct unversities have become.
A memo about supporting free speach and warning of the dangers of hate speach.
Stop the press!
Do universities teach anymore?
Teach???? Good god Noooo!!!! This gem from the final line of statement # 48
Further, the fact that the University creates an environment where a recognized student group can express a view on a controversial subject does not mean that the University itself has expressed any view whatsoever.
No views whatsoever….completely devoid of views…one could say blind.
Although there are some execptions.
http://www.creativeresistance.ca/canada/2002-sept09-students-protest-israel's-occupation-of-palestine-concordia-university-montreal.htm
If I remember correctly Netanyahu’s speaking engagement at the UoT was cancelled in response to the riots at Concordia.
So to follow the logic….we (the provost of the university) have no opinion on anything unless we decide it is too contreversial to not have this non-opinion.
Furthermore….in the interests of our policy of nothingness we hold that not only what to think but how to think have no place in an esteemed institute of higher learning.
On this we are unequivocal. Unless there are Joos involved….then we may be quivocal
That is all.
Syncro
“Do universities teach anymore?”
No, most universities in what used to be more confidently called “the Free World” now indoctrinate, not educate.
And the indoctrination is of a leftist, collectivist nature: “Progressive thinking g-ooo-ddd; conservative thinking ba-aaa-hhhh-ddd.”
At first–because against all evidence to the contrary I continue to live in hope–I thought this memo might be a step in the right direction, that is, it was some kind of warning–but at a UNIVERSITY LEVEL this is necessary?–to intolerant groups such as Islamofascists, radical feminists, etc. to allow groups with which they disagree to express their views.
As I continued to read, my heart sank, the usual place for my heart these days. So this is the actual reason for this memo? To warn “controversial” groups–and, of course, only certain controversial groups–about hate speech and that they “will be monitored closely for possible violations of University policies and agreements, and repeated violations may result in loss of access to services in the University community.”
Further: “The University recognizes that harmful speech is a destructive force on our campuses and, though not prohibited by law, is repugnant to the administration.”
That’s a veiled threat if ever there was one: We believe in “freedom” but only our definition of it: “freedom of speech” and “academic freedom,” at the U. of T., KGB-style. Off to the Gulag with you if you “engage in harmful speech.”
The puffed-up importance and the sheer destructive impudence of this memo is breath-taking. Who will rid us of these KGB-style enforcers masquerading as educators?
This is bloody scary.
Do universities teach anymore?
No. Lectures are given. But this is done by professors who see “teaching” as a necessary evil that they must do in order to fulfill their academic obligations so that they can get their research grants and keep the money coming in.
I always laugh when I hear post-secondary students complaining and protesting that, when they graduate and get their Bachelor’s Degree, they’ll have student loan debts in the range of $17,000 to $25,000. Today, when you take into account all of the costs of running a university campus, the per student cost of a degree is in the range of $200,000 to $250,000.
It is to the point now of where universities would be profitable enterprises…if only they didn’t have any students.
Thus, teaching is no longer the primary focus…only a latent side-effect (done in a half-assed way) that comes from academics wanting to keep their jobs. The rest of the time, the students are encouraged to talk amongst themselves…hence crap like this.
Enough said–Dion and Ignatief are both professors that are more enlightened than the rest of us peasants.
Kate :
Events with a high likelihood for harmful speech
So this is the new buzz phrase from the ministries of truth on the animal academic farm.
In which they describe the suppression of speech in the name of HARMFUL SPEECH. Like words have majic. These guys are not only sophists but dangerious ideologues .Superstition rans rampent it seems. Free Speech is the last thing they want.
More covering up for the Islamists behavior while trashing any rebutal. Yup Dictatorship is alive & well at this Institution run by former inmates of the emptied nut houses.
I bet its prerfectly fine to trash Jews. ONly don’t become an Islamaphobe. I am sick to death of tax dollars going to poisen yooung minds by these old gaurd revolutionaires.
Let Universities like everything else . Sink or swin on their record, not retoric.
I read yesterday in the Western Standard magazine an anti-abortion display was trashed at the U of C and that pro-choice groups were complaining to the university. Their complaint was this display constituted “hate speech” because the pro-life group used the word “murder” in it to convey it’s message. So far I don’t believe the university’s done anything but take the complaints on notice.
Harmful speech? As in Omar Brooks harmful, or George W. Bush harmful?
Maybe those targeted that may take issue with this free expression of speech should wear a Star of David so that they would be more easily recognized.
Respectfully and honestly, I have to disagree somewhat with the other commenters here. A university IS more than students in class being taught a subject (whether it should be or not is another question).
Students typically are far from home, family and friends and look to the university environment to provide some of what they are missing. Students are on their own for the first time and must make their way in society without the direct supervision or tutelage of parents. University essentially becomes a microcosm of society for the students.
Likeminded students gather together for companionship and a feeling of belonging…they form or join groups on campus (including, as an example, the Arab Students Collective). They are feeling their way forward in the dark…still learning about society, what it is and how they will fit into it.
The university must recognize this and attempt to apply some order to the chaos…and hence the bloated bureaucracy that develops to keep the chaos at bay.
As I see it, these memos are rational and reasonable. The university must attempt to stay neutral (at least officially), hence the politically correct tone.
Having said all that, though, university professors are typically Ivory Tower types: never got their hands dirty, always dealt with the theoretical not the practical, never had to make it in “the real world”. As the saying goes, “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach” (and the corollary that I always add in…”and those who can’t do or teach, work for the government”). This tends to develop an unrealistic and impractical view of the world in the professors, which is then spread to the students. In other words, leftist ideology.
So, on the surface of things, the memo is reasonable and rational. Concerns that can be interpolated (or extrapolated…not sure which), though are:
– why is there a need for a separate memo on JUST the actions of the Arab Students Collective and no other groups? That’s essentially a rhetorical question, by the way; and
– exactly WHAT is deemed to be “harmful speech” and WHO defines it? In and of itself, the university is limiting free speech, though they’ve gone to great lengths to indicate that they support it.
strange bedfellows.
will they allow the residents of Caledonia to participate for their barriered aparthied?
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Penn and Teller’s take on college:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7813010827207841209
Caution, strong language and a Noam Chomsky appearance.
(By the way, the Penn and Teller B.S. series is an excellent pick up to kill a few cold winter evenings.)
The problem with modern western universities is due to the crazy notion people had over the last few decades that since university graduates tended to be more productive and successful, everyone should be a university graduate.
This has had two negative effects. Firstly, the intellectual quality of the average student has gone down. It is now the case that a BA is worth no more than a high-school diploma one was. When I did my masters it was considered optional and maybe even a bit indulgent for an engineer. Now, when hiring engineers, we are much more likely to consider a masters to be a significant advantage.
Secondly, we couldn’t just throw the new portion of less intelligent students into the parts of the university that actually work, like science, medicine and engineering, because they aren’t smart enough. It’s all well and good to educate the kids to the best of their ability, but having incompetent doctors and falling bridges is not acceptable.
Even the departments of English and sociology were overflowing, so we created new departments in fields like race, gender, and class studies to house the under-performing. Since these departments are full of, relatively speaking, losers, they have become as we now know them: the angry studies departments.
The solution to the problem of modern western universities is three-fold. First, the professional parts of the university like medicine and engineering should be split off into independent technical schools. Second, the majority of the remaining students who are ostensibly there for “job studies” should be moved from large monolithic universities into smaller community training colleges. Third, the remaining spaces for what is traditionally known as a renaissance education, as least as paid for by the taxpayer, should be strictly limited to the best and brightest in society.
Until we see to it that the faux-studies departments that are the source of all the loser range and anger on campus are denigrated to the point that they become ex-departments, we will not be receiving the value from our universities that we should.
Universities are, as Eeyore says, “a microcosm of society for the students,” but that is being taken advantage of by too many professors, administrators and professional radicals to create a monoculture where indoctrination happens more easily – or at least it becomes easier to set mental patterns and habits that will be hard to break later in life. Students invest quite a lot – of both time and money – in their university experience. It’s difficult for them to dismiss much or all of what they learned, since that forces them to question the value of their investment, not to mention the costs to the social circle they begin building up in college, or even their career prospects, especially if they want to work in professions like academia, the civil service, social work or journalism, which have an almost seamless connection to universities these days. It’s an insidious system, and it’s not going to change anytime soon.
“Do universities teach anymore?”
There’s just no time!
“Harmful speech.” Interesting concept.
Whatever happened to “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me”?
Did somebody invent a way to talk people to death while I wasn’t looking? Guess I’m not up on the latest post-post-post-modern theories and whatnot.
Seems awfully convenient for the University though, doesn’t it? They get to decide what’s “harmfull” without needing any evidence of actual harm being done. As in damage. Y’know, bruises ‘n stuff.
bryceman’s got it right. I sat on the Promotions and Tenure committee in Computing Science at Queen’s University as the sole undergrad representative, with a bunch of professors and one grad student.
When discussing promotion or tenure for a prof, their teaching ability was pretty much ignored as a consideration. Only the research mattered to the profs on the committee.
I agree with Eeyore and Vitruvius –
I think that the University was absolutely right in sending this memo. It isn’t ‘politically correct’; it is reminding people that a university ought to have no viewpoint other than its mandate, which is about the exploration of, the search for, the questioning about – information, knowledge and truth. Period.
Any action/speech that shuts down or prevents the operation of this mandate – is unacceptable. That includes fundamentalists on all sides of an issue. But, even the most extreme topics must be open for debate. And that’s the key word. Debate. If a topic is removed from debate, which means it is removed from questions, analysis, requirement for evidence and logic – then, it has moved outside of the operation of a university and into the operation of a theistic regime. A church, a mosque, a cult – whatever. So- if this debate turns into a requirement for acceptance of dogma, then the university has the right to shut it down. But – all topics have to be open to debate.
The views of those who feel that Israel operates as a discriminatory state – have to be expressed and discussed – as well as the rebuttals.
My own view is that Israel has deliberately prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state by its refusal to acknowledge such a state (Oslo was municipal governance only); its insistence that Palestinians are really ‘displaced Jordanians’ and its continuous illegal settlements of Palestinian land.
And the Arab states don’t want a democratic arab state (Palestine) to exist because it would serve as an example of democracy to their own non-democratic regimes.
Isn’t it possible to discuss these views? Or is one only allowed to take one or the other side?
With regard to Vitruvius’ points – I agree. You used to be able to get a decent job with a high school diploma. Now, it requires a university degree – which is most cases in the arts and humanities, is pure sophist junk.
The students learn nothing, their minds are filled with leftist irrelevance. But, they are off the employment market for a while. Imagine – could our economy handle the release of all the undergrads of, let’s say, Toronto’s three universities?
I have to agree with Eeyore, ET, and Vitruvius. The Memo was a reasonable attempt to remind people that all viewpoints are allowed to be expressed. As for the hate speech thing, like it or not, we have hate speech laws (I don’t like it) and a warning as to breach of those laws is reasonable. Considering what that really means, a further warning as to borderline speech is also reasonable. Frankly, there is a large gulf between saying “I support Israel” and “All Muslims are murderers”. Neither would be hate speech but one is certainly reprehensible. Guess which one.
I’d like to request some education for myself here. I’m familiar with the right to free speech as it exists in the United States. Can somebody (or more than one somebody?) enlighten me as to what the right to free speech is in Canada? Is it set forth in statute law (I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t even know whether Canada has a written constitution)? By case law only? If somebody can point to any important differences from the right in the United States, I would find that particularly helpful.
Jim, clause (2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, included as Schedule B to the Constitution Act of 1982, states that: “Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: (a) freedom of conscience and religion; (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication; (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and (d) freedom of association.”
However, clause (1) states: “The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”
In other words, the provisions are very weak. All the statists have to do is come up with some sort of “demonstrable justification”. And as even you in the United States have found out, even with your stronger constitution, the statists have been working with the academics and judiciary to trump up just such faux justifications. Consider, for example, how they have used your constitution’s commerce clause to override its tenth amendment.
Right, vitruvius. Our Canadian Charter of Rights actually ‘speaks with two voices’ that contradict each other.
It breezes through individual freedoms in Section 2, with its ‘freedom of conscience and religion; freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication; freedom of peaceful assembly; and freedom of association’.
BUT – it reduces and even nullifies these individual freedoms by its other clauses.
There’s the First Clause, as Vitrivius pointed out which states ‘guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society’.
I actually have no problem with this clause; it limits its power to ‘prescribed by law’, to ‘demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society’. So- I have no problem.
My problem is Section 15, which first ratifies the rights of the individual and then, immediately removes them!
15(1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
(2) Subsection (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability’.
Get it? The first section is all about individual rights. The second section removes those rights and privileges GROUP RIGHTS. The terms ‘discouraged’ and ‘disadvantaged’ are subjective terms and open to all kinds of abuse in the politically correct courts.
And there’s Section 27 – which again promotes group rights. It says
This charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians’.
Get it? The culture trumps the individual!
Our Charter is a mess, filled with contradictions, and written in a group-ism mentality. Certainly, it does NOT protect individual freedom.
The phrase word “harmful” is the give away. We should get rid of all adjectival qualifiers of free speech.
Harmful speech, as I understand it, is speech that might hurt some peoples’ feelings. You cannot have true free expression without hurting some peoples’ feelings.
Moreover, the university should be providing as many opportunities as possible for students to experience and get used to “hurt feelings”. The big bad cruel outside world is utterly indifferent to your feelings.
This is CRAVEN bureau-speak which treats students like kindergarten children. The HARM is arrested adolescence!
The correct policy should take about 3-4 lines. All speech is acceptable as long as it does not involve direct incitemet to violence. Obstruction of any person’s exercise of free expression will result in the following penalities: Infraction # 1: $200 fine – no pay, no transcript; infraction #2: dismissal from the university. We will not monitor what you say but will monitor how you behave while others are trying to have their say.
And maybe include this is a university-student contract.
Thanks to Vitruvius and ET for clarifying Canada’s laws on freedom of speech. Your posts have been quite illuminating.
Jim, long story short, we have no freedom of speech here in Canada. No right to own property either, nor right to self defense or any of the other constraints on the power of government that exist in the USA. Mostly this doesn’t matter. Mostly.
The proof of this pudding is Caledonia, Ontario where the right to own property, freedom of expression, being held in jail without charge and the freedom to peacefully assemble have all been abridged in one way or another over the last year.
What Canadians have is privileges that can be signed away with the stroke of a pen. Not rights.
RE: Do universities teach anymore?
I have just been reading some of the articles published or linked by ‘reknowned’ womens studies/sociology Prof. Myra Marx Ferree. Lots of the links on her webpage go to Canada and the EU. There is a ton of stuff about abortion rights, sexual rights, and female oppresssion. And I learned from one article that there probably are not two sexes, there are five.
Thanks, Yukon Gold, for the link to P&T. With the exception of the slightly blue colour of their speech, they put out the truth on just what universities are doing.
BTW, I was listening to Fox News the other night and found out President Bush was in hot water according to some people because he said that Obama (dem prez hopeful)was “articulate”. Somewhere they must of misplaced my copy of the book because I did not know that the word “articulate” was actually a code word for ” yu be talkin’ likes dem white folk”. This from an African-American phd professor. WTF!!! I guess if you are progressive enough you can always make up a reason to be oppressed.
I guess the values my parents taught me are not valid as I was taught to respect others regardless of race, creed, and all that (at least until their words and actions give an indication of what respect they deserve).
If the average wage of our gutless academics was ten bucks an hour they’d all be in blue vests at Walmart making a poor but honest living among ordinary people.
All this talk about “harmful” speech and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is academic when you consider that the Arab Student Collective is going to hold a weeklong event that among other things tacitly supports the genocide of Jews. (And by allowing it to go on, the U. of T. is equally guilty of tacit approval.)
One needs only to look at the Covenant of Hamas [a.k.a. Hamas Charter], which clearly states:
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
Or how about this little gem from their Charter:
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
Or this racist example of nonsense from the very same Charter:
“After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.”
I would have thought that sections 318 and 319 of the Criminal Code of Canada should prevent this sort of “free speech”. Thanks to the likes of Wolfgang Droege and Ernst Zundel, isn’t there already a legal precedence for the limitations of “free speech” that is harmful to others?
What next? Brown shirts, swastikas and goose-stepping in King’s College Circle?
I don’t differentiate any of that with what this alleged anti Israeli Apartheid nonsense. It’s nothing more than thinly disguised, pure hatred. I firmly believe in free speech, but at what expense? Where do we draw the line? IMO this group has made it clear that they not only cross the line, but that they have no intention of acknowledging Israel’s right to exist, nor by extrapolation rights of Jewish people to exist.
Btw, if it makes any difference… I’m not Jewish. I just realise that there will never be peace in the Middle East until Israel’s neighbours recognize it’s right to exist in peace.
The Phantom: “Did somebody invent a way to talk people to death while I wasn’t looking?” LOL. Exactly.
I totally agree with me no dhimmi: “Harmful speech, as I understand it, is speech that might hurt some peoples’ feelings. You cannot have true free expression without hurting some peoples’ feelings.”
Hurting one’s feelings is a cudgel that the politically correct use on anyone whose views they disagree with: “I’m offended.” They don’t care if they’ve offended YOU; that’s immaterial. Only their feelings count.
I would NEVER tell someone that their views “offend me.” As far as freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression goes, who cares whether I’m offended or not? I might tell someone that I disagree with their views, and give them a rationale why, but I would never stoop so low, idiotic, or insulting as to whine, “Your views offend me.”
It’s meant to be a conversation stopper on the part of the whiner. To offend, in political correctese, is the no-no to end all no-nos: Thou absolutely shalt not offend.
How can any legitimate debate proceed if these are the rules?
What ever happened to that student paper in Sask that ran those cartoons. I am so glad none of my kids went to university, but chose the trades and community colleges. I have never given any support to a university in any way, by going to their sporting events, attending plays, or outright donations. We need to revamp the admission policy of universities, no foreign students from islamic countries. Bannish student visas. At least in the states they now have to verify that those issued student visas go to class. Remember the 8 missing students last year
that were not really students, but possibly there to set up sleeper cells.
There are three classic places to draw the line, Narsil. Firstly, you are not allowed to yell Fire in a crowded theater, unless of course there’s a fire. Secondly, you’re not allowed to say things that incite violence. Thirdly, you’re not allowed to slander.
And that, I think, should be enough. Based on the quotes from the charter you have provided, I think the people behind it are in violation of all three of the places we have classically drawn the line. I think they should be, at a minimum, charged with inciting violence and with slander.
The thing that I have never wrapped my mind around is why the U of Sask has profs writing reports that SUPPORT feudalism and slavery, ie the continued BS reports showing the CWB is a good deal for Western Canada’s grain farmers.
Haven’t these profs heard of Abraham Lincoln and the 1863 Emancipation Proclaimation abolishing slavery?
Don’t they teach history at the U of S?
Is a few pieces of silver that important to them?
batb writes, “To offend, in political correctese, is the no-no to end all no-nos: Thou absolutely shalt not offend.
“How can any legitimate debate proceed if these are the rules?”
And, of course, that’s the PC object of the exercise, isn’t it? “Thou shalt not indulge in legitimate debate.” The truth might out.
And we can’t have that, can we?
here is as dumb as a pally can get. this little walkway aint going to damage the foundations of the temple mount which is build of 30ton stones on a 4degree slope back. each stone face is 6 ft and the underhang 4 inches. just trouble makers all the way around.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/02/07/jerusalem-temple.html
oh yes, been there , done that , got a t-shirt and I are a structural engineer
*
Guess who has equal billing at the University of Toronto’s…
END ISRAELI APARTHEID WEEK?
It’s the same old bunch of professional native protestors
from Turtle Island… authors of such paranoid old saws as,
“Preparing for Invasion: A Guide to Current Threats
Against the Mohawk Nation.”
*
like Ive asked before , do the residents of Caledonia get to protest the barricades.
here is what they will teach
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/070208/K02089AU.html
mary T.,
Universities arent a bad thing by any means. Most, if not all, successful businessmen, professionals, politicians and government folk have attended university. It offers a more “rounded” approach if you will. Arguments about left and right leaning faculties apply only to the Faculty of Arts. Universities attract higher caliber Engineers, Scientists and the like, than do community colleges.
Besides, I should point out that entrance requirements for university are generally higher than they are for community colleges. It is a reflection of the higher intellectual caliber of university students.
The only thing I have to say about your statements about banning Islamic students is that they border in paranoia. I should hasten to point out that allowing students in and letting them witness democracy is very benificial given the need to spread democracy in Islamic nations. I dont think it should come as any surprise that pro-Democracy proponents in Islamic nations are invariably educated at western universities. Keeping them out, while providing a false sense of security, achieves little. Believe it or not, all people in Islamic nations are not, by default, religious and close minded. They are open to new ideas.
“Bannish student visas. At least in the states they now have to verify that those issued student visas go to class.”
A disastrous idea. A visit to Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and many other smaller University towns will reveal the error in such line of thought. International students bring money and brains. For instance, in most provinces, International students pay around 2-5 times the tuition a Canadian student pays (depending on program). High international demand means that universities also get to pick and choose from a pool of students who are generally above average performers. Many Canadian schools also draw a very large number of American students who get a comparable education at a lower cost. Factor in the money that they pump into local economies – groceries rent etc and you re talking a multimillion (if not billion) dollar infusion. International students do not get coverage or access to government services. Its literally money being pumped into the country. And foreign students arent really taking away spaces from Canadian students – they dont make up a very large part of the student population.
“Remember the 8 missing students last year that were not really students, but possibly there to set up sleeper cells.”
I m assuming you are talking about the US case in August. Given that there 565,000 foreign students in the US (comprising 3.9%) of the student population, I think it would be a tad bit alarmist, and certainly detrimental to ban student visas. Terrorists will find a way to sneak in through Mexico if they have to. Putting barriers on student visas does more damage than good, since terrorists can arrive on pretty much any visa.