Updates on the IHRP scandal for the month of September, 2021
Since the beginning of the school year, there have been some major developments in the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) censure of the University of Toronto. The Censure has been ongoing since April 22, 2021 as a result of the involvement of an outside donor in the hiring process of Dr. Valentina Azarova for the Director position of the International Human Rights Program (IHRP).
As of September 17, 2021, the CAUT Censure has been put on pause as a result of Dr. Azarova being re-offered the position for Program Director of the IHRP, which she ultimately rejected. In a statement shared by Censure UofT, Dr. Azarova supposedly declared that “While the University negotiated in good faith and extended academic freedom protections to the position, there were important uncertainties that could not be resolved in the course of our negotiations.”
Despite this development meaning that the principal demand of the CAUT has now been satisfied, the Censure will not officially end until a vote has taken place during the CAUT’s Council meeting, currently scheduled for November 25 and November 26. According to the CAUT announcement, the CAUT has expressed interest to University of Toronto President Meric Gertler about having more discussions on how the University can satisfy the conditions required for the censure to officially end in November.
At the forefront of the CAUT’s conditions for ending the censure are that the University must extend academic freedom protections to academic managerial positions and develop policies to ensure that donors do not interfere in internal academic affairs.
Perhaps towards that end, on September 8, the University of Toronto released its revised Guidelines on donations which included the new Article 7:
7. The University will not allow any external input, including from donors or alumni, to influence any University hiring decisions, unless this input is part of the established hiring process. Any staff member or representative of the University who receives an inquiry related to any active University hiring process from sources external to the University’s established hiring processes, including alumni, donors and external organizations, will respond that recruiting processes are confidential, and that no information about the search can be shared.
In his critique of Article 7, U of T Law professor Ariel Katz noted that the new section managed to avoid the issue of the appropriateness of donors’ attempts to provide input into University hiring processes by focusing instead on the issue of breaches of confidentiality. Katz raised a concern that this change did not recognize the fact that “donors’ attempts to influence such decision[s] are inimical to academic freedom”. In addition to this concern, Katz proposed measures that could more effectively mitigate donor influence in the hiring process:
“in the face of well-document[ed] donor interference and the presence of strong incentives against resisting it, an administration seeking to prevent its reoccurrence would do more than say that such [interference] is unacceptable. They could, for example, require documenting all communication with donors, reporting any attempt to interfere, set out the consequences for non-compliance, etc.”
Yet another issue may be raised with Article 7 on account of the exception to the rule provided for established procedures involving donor or alumni input. It is currently unclear how this exception will influence the efficacy of this new policy to protect academic freedom.
Ultra Vires has reached out to the Division of the Vice-President and Provost for comment on Article 7 and are currently awaiting an official statement. This article will be updated as these comments become available.
Whether the actions of the University will be sufficient to finally end the CAUT censure remains to be seen.
