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Professors in the Public Eye: Canadian Universities, Academic Freedom, and the League for Social Reconstruction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Michiel Horn
Michiel Horn*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Glendon College, York University
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Extract

Into the 1970s Canadian professors, on the whole, were not much involved in politics or in public controversy. In The Vertical Mosaic (1965), the eminent sociologist John Porter wrote of Canada: “It would probably be hard to find another modern political system with such a paucity of participation from its scholars.” Two political scientists noted in 1967: “Ideological contributions of intellectuals to any party have been slim, certainly since the League for Social Reconstruction helped the young CCF draft the Regina Manifesto of 1933.” Another political scientist complained in 1970 that Canadian professors “… have become [sic] intellectually conservative and loath to engage in controversy that has not been sanctioned by their professional norms.”

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , Winter 1980 , pp. 425 - 447
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 by History of Education Society 

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References

Notes

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77 Twenty years ago Frank Underhill made an initial survey; its results were not flattering to Canada: “Academic Freedom in Canada,” AAUP Bulletin, XLVI, September 1960. More recently Dr. Donald Savage of the Canadian Association of University Teachers has been exploring this area. An early product of his research may be found in an article cited above, in the December, 1975, issue of the CAUT Bulletin .Google Scholar