February 28, 2018 — Universities like to champion themselves as defenders of different peoples and ideologies.
However, while the former may be true, anyone who has ever spent time at one knows that the latter is not true.
In this case, 3 Ontario post-secondary institutes were facing legal challenges. But now a Superior Court has ruled in their favour.
They are: (1) Ryerson University for refusing to grant official status for men’s issues awareness, and both the (2) Durham College & UOIT and (3) University of Toronto Mississauga for refusing official status for pro-life groups.
Here are a few links to related media:
Student Union fees are mandatory at colleges and universities. However, Student Unions are in effect able to force money from students whose views they censor.
There is no open to ”opt-out” if the school promotes certain views, or censors others.
A group dedicating to raising awareness to how issues such as higher suicide rates, job loss, courts that are stacked against them, and a general lack of resources for men is not openly hostile to women. Regardless of some feminists will say, men are not the enemy.
Likewise, a group who wants to spread their views that unborn children should have rights is not an enemy to women. Regardless of a person’s individual views on abortion, it is wrong to condemn those who take issue with the issue of stopping a potential future person.
Yet, with this February court ruling, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice has said that it ”is” okay to shut down and ban student groups if their views are disliked.
Interesting observation: though probably a coincidence, it seems that those opposition to both groups are a way for some women to flex their political muscles.
Banning a men’s issues awareness group can be a way to ensure that the only issues that receive public attention are women’s concerns.
Banning a pro-life group can be a way to ensure that abortion is only looked at through the lens of the mother and her suffering, and not that of the unborn child.
However, universities are not places for free speech and open inquiry, unless the speech and inquiry are of ”approved” views. This is to say that they are not places of free speech and open inquiry at all.
This ruling just proves it yet again.