“Are Postmodernist Universities and Scholarship Undermining Modern Democracy”, in “Scientific values and Civic Virtues,” (Noretta Koertge, Editor, Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 172-190, 2006).

I suggest that anyone aware of the issues I raise in that essay might have serious concerns about certain developments at the University of Toronto. Perhaps the most serious of these is that, despite a mania for planning in recent years, there has been little attempt by Simcoe Hall to examine the corrosive effects of mixing scholarship with advocacy in certain disciplines, and the associated implications for censorship on contentious topics such as the “Nature/Nurture” controversy .

The censorship problem is nicely characterized by a US journalist. Cited by the free speech advocate Nat Hentoff in his “Free Speech for Me but Not For Thee” (cited in essay), this journalist commented on the pervasive tendency to censor in the name of avoiding offense by observing: “Censorship is the strongest drive in human nature; sex is a weak second.”

This quip is very perceptive. The urge to censor is just as strong today as it was in the past. Only the topics that are considered taboo have changed….

Our original letter to the NP did, however, include a recent example which was the proximate cause of our decision to write. This example, omitted from the published version, stated as follows:

Almost one year ago, in response to some flyers being posted on the campus that depicted one of the Danish cartoons of Muhammad and some possibly offensive statements, the administration ordered the campus police to take down the posters and forward them to the police. According to the university’s president the “Toronto Police advised U of T that these fliers did not constitute hate literature, but also advised that the fliers were a ‘point of interest’ for them.”

I think U of T is pretty good in terms of free speech. At least, they did pretty well in response to the criticism of this cartoon by The Strand. Read their news release here.