Collective statements guidelines criticized for vague wording, “rushed” process

Several senators have raised concerns about the apparent lack of rigour in the process to create guidelines for statements on political, social, and moral issues made by collective bodies at UW, which was approved at last week’s Senate meeting.

“I feel like the sentiment from Vivek and the proponents of the motion, was that they really didn’t want to see it delayed no matter what,” said Rida Sayed, WUSA director and student senator, referring to UW president Vivek Goel.

The guidelines are meant to guide individual scholars, senior leaders, and units including faculties, schools, and departments, on public communications around “social, political, and moral issues.” One key point of concern for Sayed and Damian Mikhail, president of WUSA, was the broad language within the document, such as the last paragraph which specifies that university websites, social media channels, and other digital assets should not be used by “informal groups” to make collective statements.

Senator James Nugent, associate professor in the school of environment, requested amendments to this paragraph to more clearly define what was meant by university websites, and specify that this would not include the websites of faculty members or student organizations, but was voted down. Nugent also raised an amendment that the definition of “social media channels” exclude that of student organizations and faculty members, which was also voted down.

However, Goel said the specifications Nugent requested will be added as footnotes to the guideline. According to Nick Manning, associate vice-president communications and institutional relations, the guideline will be published “in the coming weeks.”

Senator Hans de Sterck, professor and chair of the applied mathematics department, also expressed discomfort with the lack of clarity provided by the administration on what “university websites” includes. He pointed out that though the guidelines aim to protect institutional neutrality with the goal of allowing individual community members to debate freely, they still suggested imposing restrictions on individuals through websites. “That seems to be an additional restriction … which is not intended for [individuals], because the guideline is only intended for putting some process and restrictions for collective body communications. But why would the university put this kind of vaguely worded, but potentially relevant, restriction at the very end of the document?”

According to Mikhail, several senators asked why the guideline was not produced through “normal mechanisms” that would have caught the issues discussed during the meeting.

“It was clear that this was rushed through via presidential task force,” he said. “If we want to do something as simple as a course name change, at the University of Waterloo, we have 10 different layers of committees … for something that completely redefines how the university interacts with the public, we’re okay with going something as untransparent and undemocratic, as a presidential task force?”

In his statement, Manning reiterated that the guideline is grounded in consultation and feedback from experts, faculty members, students, and staff. He pointed out that senators were “explicitly” invited to provide feedback on it during Senate discussions around the guideline in May and November of this year.

Nugent also raised a motion to remove the last paragraph of the document to allow for further consultation with the faculty relations committee and student groups, which was voted down.

De Sterck, raised a similar amendment to move the guideline to a working group that would deal with the issues brought up during the meeting, but was also voted down.

Nugent said that though university administrators may want a document to turn to when asked to issue a statement on a controversial or uncomfortable issue, he felt the guideline was trying to place a “chill” on groups that did want to make statements on controversial issues as collectives, “which I think is perfectly fine and in fact, should be expected at a university.”

De Sterck said the restrictions the university was imposing through the guidelines, such as suggested limitations on what faculty websites could include, infringed on academic freedom and ran counter to the last paragraph which encourages discussions within the university community on social, political and moral issues.

“So the institution is neutral, but the members of the community, they can’t freely debate… if there may be restrictions on political or social or moral expression on the digital campus community, then that seems to go against that idea [of neutrality],” he said.

De Sterck also raised a motion seeking to remove the term “institutional neutrality” from the guidelines, which he felt unnecessarily involved the university in divisive discussions on the implications of the term. He said a reason like that provided by Stanford University, who stated they would not make institutional statements to minimize the political pressure on the university, would be “a much more truthful justification” than taking up a stance of institutional neutrality.

Sayed said that this was the first time in his over two years of being a senator that he requested his “nay” vote explicitly noted on the minutes, stating, “I want my name to not be affiliated with this, no matter where it goes.”

“Everything about this was disappointing,” Mikhail added, expressing concern that the Senate is not taking its own procedures seriously. “I think there’s an erosion of the idea that Senate needs to be doing anything. And I worry about us slowly becoming a rubber stamp if we’re okay with these processes.”