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<\/a>Heterodox Academy provides guidelines that urge interlocutors to present their case with evidence, bring data when possible, assume the best of one\u2019s opponent and be intellectually humble, among other principles.<\/p>\n
HxA, as it is shorthanded, offers events, conferences, resources and other materials that \u201ctry to teach our society, especially within academia, how to interact in a productive and civilized way, even when we disagree,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
These tools are intended to help bridge the divide between the ideal of a university and the reality of creating a dynamic marketplace of ideas.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust because we have it in our head that in the academy we should be able to discuss anything in a civilized way doesn\u2019t mean we actually know how to do it,\u201d she said. \u201cThey provide tools and modeling of those tools to actually teach people how to be civilized.\u201d<\/p>\n
The HxA chapter at SFU emerged after a group of scholars got together because they were concerned about the state of academic freedom at the university. They founded the SFU Academic Freedom Group.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Within a few months of that group\u2019s founding, Heterodox Academy launched its Campus Community Program, recognizing chapters on individual campuses. Some SFU professors applied and were accepted among the first chapters chartered.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hosted a so-called Heterodox Conversation event this past September,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s a model developed by HxA where you invite two people who have different views on a topic and they sit down and have a conversation with the model [called] the Heterodox Way and then the audience gets involved and we have a group discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n The topic of that dialogue was \u201cThe purpose of today\u2019s Canadian universities.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe timing was perfect because, just the previous week, our president had issued a statement on institutional neutrality,\u201d she said, referring to an announcement by SFU\u2019s president, Joy Johnson, on maintaining an environment where scholarly inquiry remains unbiased by partisan agendas. \u201cFor me, I was celebrating like crazy, but there were others on campus who were very unhappy.\u201d<\/p>\n Altman can\u2019t say whether the Heterodox Academy chapter or the SFU Academic Freedom Group deserve credit for the president\u2019s statement or for other recent developments she and her colleagues view as positive.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a statistician, so I rarely claim causation,\u201d she said wryly. \u201cI\u2019m very conservative that way. But I think so.\u201d<\/p>\n The groups are comparatively small, but they may be having an outsized impact.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody knows about us,\u201d she said. \u201cThe administration clearly knows and it\u2019s just been so gratifying to see the change in the whole tenor of the administration\u2019s approaches over the last couple of years. It\u2019s a clear change.\u201d<\/p>\n Numbers may remain relatively small, Altman suspects, because of a false perception of their group.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe are consistently being cast as this right-wing, conservative group and it\u2019s not true,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have people across the political spectrum in the group. It is a nonpartisan group.\u201d<\/p>\n The idea that academic freedom and institutional neutrality are right-wing positions, she said, is belied, for example, by the gay rights movement, which emerged in the 1960s, in part thanks to the viewpoint diversity of campuses.<\/p>\n It is not a coincidence, Altman believes, that several HxA members, including herself, are Jewish.<\/p>\n \u201cJews have a long tradition of arguing and debating in a civilized way, the whole \u2018two Jews, three opinions\u2019 thing,\u201d she said. \u201cJews are just a natural fit with the HxA model.\u201d<\/p>\n In contrast, the equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) model that has become increasingly prevalent on North American campuses in recent years is antithetical both to the academic ideal and to Jews, she argued.<\/p>\n \u201cFor some Jews like myself, I realized very early on that the EDI ideology that\u2019s become so predominant in academia and elsewhere, that it was terrible for Jews,\u201d she said. \u201cThis model of the oppressed and the oppressor, it didn\u2019t work. Jews did not fit into that mold.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n EDI is the opposite of what it claims to be, said Altman.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s exclusionary, it discriminates against groups,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s antithetical to everything I believe in because I truly believe in inclusion and anti-discrimination.\u2026 I was very unhappy about the rise of the EDI ideology and, in my groups of people who are also similarly concerned about that ideology, I think Jews are overrepresented. That would suggest I\u2019m not the only Jewish person who sees the fundamental conflict, the contradictions in the EDI ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n Altman said few people would openly admit they oppose academic freedom.<\/p>\n \u201cReally, it becomes about the definition of academic freedom,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I say I support academic freedom, that\u2019s the end of my sentence. What I look for when I\u2019m talking to people is the \u2018but\u2019 that can follow. \u2018Of course, I support academic freedom, but \u2026 there are limits.\u2019 Things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n In some cases, Altman thinks, this equivocation comes from a lack of understanding around the core principles of academic freedom.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBut then, there are some people who truly want to change the foundation of the term, the concept,\u201d she said. \u201cThey truly believe that we should have limits on both our academic freedom and our freedom of expression more generally.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to the SFU branch, Heterodox Academy has a chapter at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. While there are some HxA members at the Vancouver campus of UBC, Altman said, there is not yet an official chapter there.<\/p>\n