University of Alberta Arts Faculty Council Passes Non-Confidence Vote in Flanagan as President

Today, at its final meeting of the 2023-24 academic year, the University of Alberta’s Arts Faculty Council passed a vote of non-confidence in the university’s 14th president and vice-chancellor, Bill Flanagan.

The vote of non-confidence has been passed in relation to Flanagan’s decision to authorize members of the Edmonton Police Force to engage in acts of violence in order to clear student and faculty protestors from an encampment in the University’s main quadrangle as the sun was beginning to rise on 11 May 2024.

In the first half-hour of today’s meeting, Flanagan appeared as part of a “community consultation” tour he has been engaged in during the last ten days.

Based on his performance during this half-hour, this “consultation” cannot have been anything other than woeful. Dean of Arts Robert Wood announced at the outset that Flanagan had a “hard stop of 2:30” meaning that of the hundred and fifty people present, only a handful would have the opportunity to speak. Chris Lupke, professor of East Asian Studies, spoke first, noting that in the face of Flanagan’s actions in relation to what Lupke had experienced, as a visitor to the encampment, as nothing other than a peaceful protest, Flanagan needed not to choose to seek a second term as president. (The “Presidential Review Committee” has already been at work for weeks in regard to Flanagan’s request to be reappointed.) The vote of non-confidence later in the meeting suggests that for faculty members in Arts something more immediate is required.

Flanagan’s remarks at today’s meeting were astonishing. He declared that he recognized that he had caused harm and trauma to some members of the university community in relation to his “safety concerns,” and that he recognized that these concerns were not universally shared. There was no defense of his actions in regard to freedom of expression or the principles that govern a university because no defense is possible. When pressed about how his “safety concerns” could justify his authorizing of violence against students and faculty, he claimed they were driven by what had happened at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) on May 2nd when “counter-protestors” attacked the peaceful protestors there. As Reuters has reported, police responded by “flattening” the encampment in a scene of “chaos” involving a great deal of violence.

What scholar or researcher of any value would dare to make a single example of anything the basis for their analysis or judgment on any matter? In this matter, Flanagan had other examples he could have turned to for guidance in how to act appropriately. If he needed to look south of the 49th parallel for guidance in how to conduct himself, he could have turned to the decisions that have been taken, for example, at Northwestern University or at Brown where peaceful resolutions have been reached through open dialogue and negotiation between university presidents and protestors. Instead, Flanagan let a specter of “concern” generated by events in another country drive him to authorize police violence against students and faculty at the University of Alberta. His utter failure of leadership was already clear. But this declaration on his part gave it a new, devastating dimension. Acting from one’s personal fears to authorize violence against others has to be described in stronger terms than “failure of leadership.”

To be clear, the failure of leadership has included the issuance of statements encouraging the public to leap to conclusions about the protestors. The worst of these involved a listing of items found at the encampment that declared that police found “hammers, axes, and screwdrivers, along with a box of needles.” For a detailed counter to Flanagan’s representations, see professor David Kahane’s report here.

One cannot remain president of a university when one tramples over the free expression rights of students and faculty.

One cannot remain president of a university when one represents students and faculty exercising their free expression rights in ways likely to result in negative public perceptions of those students and faculty.

University presidents need to be ardent defenders of free expression rights. They need to eschew violence at all costs. And they need to scrupulously tell the truth, especially at a university whose motto is Quaecumque Vera (whatsoever things are true).

If Flanagan does not resign before the meeting of the University’s General Faculties Council on Monday afternoon, I hope that body passes its own vote of non-confidence in his “leadership.” When a president chooses to authorize violence over dialogue to trample free expression rights, it is students and faculty who must rise to the defense not just of freedom of expression on campus but a university’s very raison d’être as the place where we safeguard dialogue and the pursuit of truth as our most cherished principles.