The New Building Campaign and the Creeping Privatization in the Faculty of Law
With Hal Jackman’s $11 million total donation to the Faculty of Law, the New Building Campaign is now over 90% of the way towards its private fundraising goal of $53 million. This figure, coupled with $18 million in support from the University of Toronto, will finance what promises to be a state-of-the-art facility. This is an exciting time for the Faculty of Law.
But in addition to the excitement the New Building Campaign brings, it also raises important questions about the future of our law school and post-secondary education in Ontario more broadly.
What is the appropriate role of private money in public education? What are the implications of the gradual clawback of public funding for post-secondary education? When is corporate sponsorship appropriate, and when does it cross the line?
How we answer these questions will have broad-ranging implications.
Boundless and the Erosion of Public Funding
The New Building Campaign is part of the University of Toronto-wide Boundless Campaign. Launched last year, Boundless has the aggressive goal of raising $2 billion in private funding. It is the largest university fundraising campaign in Canadian history.
It’s also an example of the creeping privatization of post-secondary education in Ontario.
The growing role of private funding in Ontario’s universities has been necessitated by the gradual decline in public support.
According to the Canadian Association of University Teachers, government transfers as a share of total university operating revenue fell from 83.8 percent in 1978 to less than 57.5 percent by 2008.
Underfunding has been particularly acute in Ontario. According to the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, “[b]y almost any measure, provincial public funding for Ontario universities has lagged behind every other province for nearly two decades. Reckoned in terms of inflation-adjusted per student funding, provincial support bottomed out in 2002-03, rose again for a few years, and has been falling again since 2008-09. Operating expenditures follow a similar pattern.”
Stagnating public funding has been offset by rising tuition and increased reliance on private fundraising. While private donations have been crucial in meeting our funding needs, giving firms naming rights to classrooms cheapens and commercializes spaces once reserved for scholarship and the pursuit of knowledge. It also reaffirms U of T’s role as a Bay Street feeder school.
The rise of private money in post-secondary education can also be at odds with academic freedom. In fairness, we have seen nothing to suggest any direct threat to academic freedom in the New Building Campaign. Nonetheless, the controversies surrounding the Munk School of Global Affairs and the recently-rejected proposal for former rim ceo Jim Balsillie’s Centre for International Governance Innovation (cigi) to establish a school of international law at Osgoode remind us that we must be cautious when private money gets involved in public education.
The Broader Implications of this Model
The transferability of this model should also be called into question. With strong connections and physical proximity to Bay Street, the administration did an impressive job raising substantial funds.
But could a law school with a strong social justice mandate and weak connections to big firms fare similarly?
Could the University of Windsor, for instance, which places fewer graduates on Bay Street and lacks the physical proximity to the financial district be able to raise funds in a similar way?
Reliance on philanthropy and corporate sponsorship for basic physical infrastructure risks leading to a stratified system of leaders and laggards. This might be good for our egos at U of T law, but probably not for the profession and the public interest.
If other law schools are to rely on private sources for the majority of their funding for new facilities, this will also exert pressure on them to abandon public interest-oriented endeavors in favour of those which will be a bigger draw for well-to-do donors.
Public withdrawal, private sponsorship and skyrocketing tuition
Eroding public funding, corporate sponsorship and our skyrocketing tuition must be seen as interconnected phenomena. They all reflect a trend towards creeping privatization.
Tuition at the Faculty of Law wasn’t always so expensive. Eighteen years ago it was $2,451. Twelve years ago it was $8,000.
The deregulation of professional student tuition in Ontario opened the doors for the dramatic rise in tuition at the Faculty of Law. As an sls Financial Aid Committee Report from 2010 noted, tuition fees at the Faculty of Law began to skyrocket in the 2002/2003 academic year when then-Dean Ron Daniels recommended the “Raising our Sights Plan” to increase tuition from $14,000 to $22,000 by 2007/2008. This plan was accepted on the basis that a robust financial aid system would prevent the high sticker price from negatively impacting accessibility or limiting career choices. Unfortunately, as the sls Report noted, by 2010 growth in tuition fees had significantly outstripped financial aid–rising 68% and 26% respectively.
The Path Forward
The trends towards creeping corporatization, stagnating public funding and skyrocketing tuition show no signs of reversal. Classrooms in the new building will be named after Bay Street firms. Per-student funding for post-secondary education in Ontario continues to lag behind the rest of Canada. Tuition in the faculty of law will soon exceed $30,000, and given the Administration’s goal of competing with the likes of Harvard and Yale the climb will likely continue.
Reversing these trends requires pressuring not only the Administration in the Faculty of Law, but also the broader University of Toronto and the Government of Ontario.
For students who care about public and accessible post-secondary education and a diverse profession with a concern for the public interest, it’s a fight worth fighting.
