The Ying and the Yang in T-J “Letters to the Editor”

Two interesting takes on the PSE debate today. On the one hand, a letter by Greg Cook takes the editorial board to task over lack of due diligence in researching PSE, and on the other, a letter by Thomas Baxter offers an unusual history of “the university.” Baxter states:

Professors boast about their independence and about how this independence has benefitted society, but this independence was from the outset intended to be conditional on faithful allegiance to founding standards.

Universities were founded by churches or by godly Christian businessmen, and then passed to the public domain on the condition that the standards of righteous living be upheld in the lives of professors, the teaching and the examination of students. Instead, since the 1960s under the guise of academic freedom many professors have taught students to be immoral, and many students have drifted far from their upbringing while at university.

It is true that a number of universities did have their origins in the medieval church and closer to home in religious denominations such as Baptist (eg. Acadia) and Roman Catholicism (eg. St Thomas University) — but the founders of the University of New Brunswick eschewed religious denominationalism in favour of ideals following the “1754 Charter of King’s College, New York, urging that the college never “‘exclude or restrain any Person . . . of any religious Denomination, Sect, or Profession . . . from equal . . . Liberties, Privileges, [or] Degrees” ‘- a very liberal notion in the eighteenth century.” Moreover, Mr Baxter has simplified how (some?) universities were transfered from “godly Christian businessmen” to the public domain in exchange for adherence to certain Christian standards both in the classroom and elsewhere. Things were much more complicated than he suggests, and many universities, including UNBSJ and that in his own hometown (I.e. Lakehead) were created in the 1960s as secular institutions. This does not mean such institutions have no moral compass. Quite the contrary, but they do not have a Christian moral compass. Nor should they as public institutions must conform to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which 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.

When Baxter states that: “under the guise of academic freedom many professors have taught students to be immoral, and many students have drifted far from their upbringing while at university,” and that “Independent peer review has failed to police depraved behaviour, and has failed uphold [sic] independence and opportunity for those who have stood for such standards,” he goes too far. Moreover, if Mr Baxter was functioning within the framework of “academic freedom” he would be obliged to present a case based on research, not unfounded opinion.