Dear Members of the Academic Community,

In recent weeks, the university has been in turmoil. Concerns have been expressed about its values, the vitality of its ideal of freedom, and its ability to educate as well as to consider the world in a pluralistic way. Its courage and its good will have been evaluated, each in turn. The university has been accused, judged, condemned. The protagonists grow agitated, attacking and insulting one another. In the media, tempers flare; there’s been a constant flow of tweets; and the political actors roil and rage. Once again, certain individuals have suggested regulating the university, imposing rules and procedures that would threaten its most precious asset: its autonomy.

The discussion on freedom of expression in the university and on respect for the dignity of the individuals and communities within it has become mired in intense confrontation. It’s become difficult to address these issues with the dispassionate perspective expected of academics. Mindful of my own identity and the perspective and privilege it affords me, I strive to observe, listen, get informed, gather the facts, weigh the issues, question my own biases, and look critically and reflectively at the solutions that are suggested to me.

I would like to invite you to follow me in this process which, I believe, characterizes university life. The time has come for Université de Montréal to engage in a free, open, respectful and pluralistic conversation about the meaning of its fundamental values of freedom of expression, free speech, critical thinking, welcoming of others and respect for dignity. Collectively, how do we define these values? How do we give them substance in our teaching and research practices, as well as in the process of socialization on campus? In the coming weeks and months, I will invite our community to reflect on these issues that concern us all. I plan to initiate this conversation at the University Assembly, on November 2.

In recent days, I’ve been asked on several occasions to take a stand in the current debate, but I’ve hesitated to do so. I have opinions, of course, which are my own. In stating them, I do not speak on behalf of the University. But I’m under no illusion; my status as rector undeniably gives them a weight that goes beyond my person. Aware of this risk, I am nonetheless opening the door to a conversation that I hope to initiate and carry on with you in the near future.

I’d like to start by addressing the issues at hand using my experience as a professor. As such, it seems clear to me that my responsibility begins with building a relationship of trust with the students who share the classroom. Through me, and others, they gain access to the realm of ideas. In the classroom, I remain the one who establishes the conversation’s parameters and sets the conditions for the potential of scientific, critical and reflective discourse. I must inspire, through my own behaviour, the conduct of free debate, that is, the discussion, the way in which disagreement is expressed, and the slow but sure acquisition of a shared understanding of the issues being studied. I am primarily responsible for the respect that must be established among us all.

My classroom, like the university itself, is first and foremost a place of freedom. I must be able to express any proposition, any idea that I am able to defend rationally. In return, I agree to expose these ideas to the criticism of all those who participate in the conversation with me. No one is excluded a priori, and this is a fundamental condition for the quest for truth as I see it. In my classroom, ideological pluralism remains the first rule of the game.

The second, equally important, is respect for one another’s dignity. No one has the right to insult, berate or humiliate another. Intentional insults are banned from the outset, but each person must also be attentive to the unexpected, sometimes unsuspected, impact of their own speech on others. Words can reopen deep wounds or throw someone off course. At times, words carry the threat of systemic racism, sexism or discrimination, still present in our institutions. But in my class, as in the university, each person is responsible for their words and chooses them in such a way as to support a mutual trust among us.

I consider academic speech to be free. No word is forbidden in the context of a search for truth and justice. No dogma, religious or secular, may be exempted from this quest. This freedom, which excludes polarization and absolutism, is at the heart of university life. No one may deprive me of it. But it must not overshadow my individual responsibility, as an actor in the realm of higher education, to reflect on my teaching practices. Above all, this freedom absolves no one, neither students nor teachers, of the responsibility to preserve the conditions of calm and dignity in our discussions.

This, in brief, is my reaction to the controversies of the past few weeks. I hope that other voices will be heard in the collective reflection on freedom of expression that we will begin soon at Université de Montréal.

Daniel Jutras
Rector