Author: The Speech Axe Team
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‘Say It Ain’t Divisive!’: How to Stifle the Work of Faculty Unions
By Honor Brabazon and Vincent Wong The article ‘Constitutional boundaries of faculty associations: The political line in the sand’, published in the Commentary section of the September–October 2025 CAUT Bulletin, is the latest in a series of attempts to stifle democratic debate and political engagement in Canadian faculty associations. The commentary appears to have been precipitated…
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DEI, CRT and antisemitism
By Yvette Hacks As we pass through further rounds of campus leader hearing theatre in the US, I want to reflect on an argument that has increasingly been trotted out, linking free speech, antisemitism and DEI (and/or Critical Race Theory) on college campuses, which seems to generate a general lack of trust in university administrations…
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‘Woke’ finance bills and the risks to academic freedom
By William Cook The past year has seen a wave of attacks from Republican state governors and legislatures on so-called ‘woke’ investments in ESG-oriented funds by state institutions – nearly 200 bills across 37 states in 2023. ESG stands for environmental, social and governance investing, which republican lawmakers have targeted for its perceived promotion of…
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Bigoted speech is not an inoculation
By William Cook In recent years, the immune system has become popular analogy for how speech on campus should operate. The argument is thus: just as our body adapts to better defend against pathogens through incremental exposure, so to do our minds adapt to better defend against “objectionable ideas” through incremental exposure. This argument also…