Posts tagged with carleton.

Political meddling or protecting students?

Joey Coleman, December 14, 2010 at 1:59 PM

Does the "fiduciary duty" (i.e. acting in the best interests of the students) of a university's Board of Governors allow it to withhold funds from a student union when that union refuses to provide audited financial statements to the Board?

That's the crux of the current situation at Carleton University, where the Board of Governors is withholding student fees from the Carleton University Students' Association (CUSA) and the Graduate Students' Association (GSA).

The student unions have filed a petition with the Ontario courts in an attempt to force Carleton to give them the fee money.

The university board's position is that, according to the auditors advising them, their fiduciary duty is to make sure money collected is used for the stated purpose.  

The student unions are refusing to make public their audits and are accusing the University of trying to interfere. They say they are only accountable to the students and not to the university .

"The claim that this is about financial accountability is a red herring", stated GSA president Kimalee Phillip in a news release, "this is about political interference plain and simple. They want to silence students' voices on-campus."

In a statement on the University website, the institution says, "The university has no interest in determining or directing how student associations at Carleton University spend their funds. The university is simply asking for CUSA and GSA to be transparent and accountable to the Carleton community with regard to how student fees are disbursed."

I can understand the paranoia of the student associations.

They often disagree with Carleton's administration and an argument could easily be made that it is in the best interests of the institution to "interfere" in the operations of the student unions.

The student unions are a major risk to the institution's reputation. One only needs to remember the most embarrassing incident in Carleton's history.

In 2008,  CUSA voted to boycott the cystic fibrosis fundraiser Shinerama on the grounds that the disease only affects white people.

But even if the university wanted to use its leverage over student fees to control the students unions, it is a weak position. By providing full disclosure, the student unions would take this position away from the university.  

The Board of Governors that collects the fee from students does have a responsibility to ensure the fees are being used for their intended purpose.

The best method of ensuring the funds are being properly used is to read the entire financial audits of the student unions.

If CUSA and the GSA were serious about being transparent to students, they would release their annual audits for public viewing. And doing so would expose if Carleton is using this as a "red herring" or not.

By not making their books public, it looks like the student unions are more interested in playing petty political games and engaging in hyperbole than actually finding a solution to their current disagreement.

For its part, the university is providing funds for necessary services and holding the remainder in trust until such time as financial responsibility is ensured.

Ultimately, the courts will have to decide and create new legal precedent - there are at present no common law rulings dealing with the specifics of defining the limits of a university's "fiduciary duty" in relation to fees collected for student unions or societies.

The closest case we have to cite is Douglas Students' Union v. Douglas College.

In this case,  the Douglas Students' Union failed to complete financial audits for a few years and Douglas College refused to turn over student fees until the audits were completed.

The student union took the institution to court but the court did not rule either way if the actions of Douglas College were legal under the legislation governing student societies in British Columbia.

The court appointed a receiver to oversee the finances of the student union and both sides - the student union and the college - claimed victory in the case.

The situation at Carleton is much different - the student unions are not alleged to have incomplete audits, just that they're not making them public.

It all comes down to the limits of "fiduciary duty" and depending on the judge that hears the case, either side could win.

Tagged with student, fees, carleton, duty, cusa, financial, union, withhold, gsa, transparency, fiduciary | Comments (15) |

Carleton student arrests show the limits of limiting free speech

Joey Coleman, October 13, 2010 at 2:38 PM

  

True free speech does not exist on the campuses of Canada's publicly-funded universities - that is not in doubt. Universities are legally private institutions and immune from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. (The Supreme Court of Canada famously confirmed this in 1990 in the famous McKinney v. University of Guelph decision)

With no legal requirement to allow for the free exchange and expression of ideas, it is not surprising that Canadian universities limit the expression of controversial or unpopular ideas.

The eternal question facing universities is not if it is reasonable to impose limits on free expression - even governments institutions, which fall under the Charter, are allowed to impose restrictions - but what those limits should be and if limiting speech is even effective.

The latest flash-point is Carleton University, where five pro-life/anti-abortion activists were arrested last week when they attempted to display large posters that show aborted fetuses beside images of some of humanity's worst acts of genocide.

The "Genocide Awareness Project" (GAP) is the source of great controversy - which is exactly the goal of the organization behind it. The "Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform" is a media-savvy organization and is fully aware of the national attention these arrests bring to their cause. (One only needs to do a Google search of their name attached to the University of Calgary.)

If they display their posters, they are often confronted by angry individuals who are pro-choice. If they are prevented from displaying their posters, they complain of censorship. More recently, universities have requested the arrest of individuals involved in GAP displays for trespassing on the private property of the institution.

Despite the unreasonable actions of the GAP group at Carleton, who were offered space on campus to display their posters in a room that people could choose to enter (as opposed to on the main quadrangle), the university is wrong to request the arrest of its students.

Universities should allow for the exercise of free speech, even when unreasonable, as long as it does not incite hate or violence.

The fact that some would counter-protest in a manner that could lead to violence should not grant the university the right to stop a protest from occurring.

Controversy provides an opportunity for learning - the university can provide a forum for different viewpoints to be expressed and provide students with the opportunity to hear from the greatest minds on the matter of abortion.

By arresting these students, the university instead co-operated with the goals of the GAP group.

A more temperate response that focused on raising the debate from the chanting of slogans and simplified comparisons would have the effect of both removing the incentive for GAP to engage in unreasonable activities and advance Carleton's mission of "the intellectual, social, moral and physical development of its members, and the betterment of its community."

Arresting students to suppress their speech is ineffective. Carleton has achieved national media attention for these students and their case. At the same time, it has damaged the reputation of the university by responding with the use of the instruments of the state, instead of with better ideas.

Tagged with speech, free, pro-life, arrest, carleton | Comments (18) |