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PERSONAL OPINION
Suppression in the name of freedom

John H. Redekop

For four years, the British Columbia College of Teachers has striven relentlessly to prevent Trinity Western University from offering a complete teacher training program. Throughout this arduous and expensive ordeal, it has argued that a rejection of homosexual activity on campus constitutes an assault on freedom and promotes intolerance. The fact that (as several judges have pointed out) the BCCT has produced no evidence of intolerance on the part of TWU graduates, has not dissuaded the crusaders. With the case now before the Supreme Court of Canada, they soldier on, apparently oblivious to the fact that the real threat to freedom lies not in TWU’s “Community Standards” policies but in their own suppressive action.

During the past six months, a second disturbing and ominous situation has developed on the west coast. I refer to the deplorable suppression of freedom on the campus of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. The mindset of the oppressors appears to be the same as that of those who seek to deny freedom of choice to TWU – to deny freedom in the name of freedom!

The facts are not in dispute. It all began last November 23 when three student council leaders, reportedly all members of a student-union-funded “pro-choice” club called “Students for Choice”, attacked a display of the Lifeline Club, a duly constituted campus club which opposes abortion. The three student council members – Jon Chandler, Lesley Washington and Erin Kaiser – physically attacked a large anti-abortion display known as the Genocide Awareness Project. As widely reported in the press and other media, these three leaders tore down signs, ripped up photographs and posters, tore up literature, overturned tables and generally destroyed the display. Thus, suppression, in the name of freedom, once again raised its ugly head.

As a UBC grad, I was saddened by these developments on the campus of my alma mater. I was not, however, greatly surprised. My experiences, spanning more than 45 years as either student or professor at six public universities, have taught me something. Despite all of the protestations of intellectual openness and ideological tolerance, every public university I have come to know has large numbers of students, faculty and administrators, seemingly a majority, who are biased against Christianity and especially against evangelical Christianity.

Three courageous students – Michelle Laroya, Stephanie Gay and Athena Macapagal – who had set up the pro-life display, sought justice. They were stymied at every turn. The student council president, Ryan Marshall, refused to take any responsibility, arguing that the student society did not sanction the vandalism and that the three vandals had been acting on their own. Very significantly, however, he did not condemn the action. His indifference was hardly surprising given that, at an in-camera meeting on the previous September 22, the student society council had passed a motion to take “any legal means possible to impede” the free exercise of Lifeline Club rights in the Student Union Building.

In February 2000, a B.C. Supreme Court judge dismissed an application by the three women for an injunction to stop protesters from interfering with an anti-abortion display. Justice David Tysoe stated that the three – Michelle, Stephanie, and Athena – had failed to establish a probability that the violence would be repeated. Apparently, certain kinds of criminal activity are acceptable unless it can be demonstrated that they will be repeated.

The hypocrisy boggles the mind. It takes little effort to imagine how the student society would have reacted or what the court would have done if the situation had been reversed – if, for example, members of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship had gone on a rampage and destroyed a “pro-choice”, pro-abortion display.

The media would justifiably have been up in arms if pro-life people had vandalized a pro-choice exhibition. But, concerning the case at hand, the media were amazingly muted. The Vancouver Sun produced a not very vigorous editorial criticizing the vandals but with the tone that error should be allowed a voice. Parallel examples cited were the rights of child pornographer John Robin Sharpe and columnist Doug Collins, found guilty by the B.C. Human Rights Commission of being discriminatory by writing columns questioning the Holocaust.

Fortunately, the Vancouver Sun did carry at least one balanced article. In a brilliantly written analysis, Ted Gerk of the B.C. Pro-life Resource Centre shredded the faulty logic of those who opposed the action of Lifeline and remained silent about the vandalism by the student union leaders.

The UBC administration was particularly negligent when it came to defending rights. Rather than upholding the Lifeline Club’s legal right to display its material, the official press releases went to almost absurd lengths to assert that UBC had not granted any special rights to clubs. Of course, no one had argued that UBC had done so; rather, the issue was fairness and consistency in upholding the right of freedom of expression. As Professor A.D. Irvine of UBC’s Philosophy Department put it, “The university’s position can only serve to further chill expression rights at UBC and on other university campuses across the country.”

UBC’s supposedly vaunted faculty were, in the main, pathetically reserved, almost silent. A few individuals did speak out in defence of freedom, but, even then, the treatment was generally slanted. Granted, Professor Irvine, who is also a spokesman for the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, did chastise UBC for being derelict in defending freedom, but even he couched his main argument in negative terms. He wrote, “Is tolerating hate speech ever beneficial?” He then argued that it was justified because, citing the cases of Ernst Zundel and Jim Keegstra, we can thus learn who the hate promoters really are.

Most recently, the UBC administration announced an official response to a complaint filed by the three young women of the Lifeline Club. Their carefully reasoned complaint was summarily denied.

Michelle, Stephanie and Athena are real heroes. They deserve broad support and gratitude, much more than the Christian community and all others who are committed to true freedom and tolerance have thus far expressed.

John H. Redekop is on the faculty of Trinity Western University and is a member of Bakerview MB Church in Abbotsford, B.C.

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Last modified June 17, 2000.

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