Dear members of the VRƵ community,
I am pleased to share the Final Report of the Advisory Panel on Campus Expression (“Panel”) and to offer my response to it.
The Panel was established approximately one year ago to advise how VRƵ can uphold freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and academic freedom while ensuring a safe and inclusive campus environment. The Panel was tasked with reviewing these issues specifically in connection with situations involving invited guest speakers whose views sparked controversy, caused offence, or were seen as posing a risk to physical or psychological safety. The Panel also took the opportunity of its work to explore and offer recommendations on other, cognate issues.
This Panel undertook its work at a moment when universities have become flashpoints for debates about speech, its limits, and the responsibilities of academic institutions. Institutions like ours are expected to lead on these questions even as society experiences unprecedented polarization.
I want to thank the Panel members for accepting and carrying out a complex mandate and for the skill and energy that they brought to their work. I also extend appreciation to the students, faculty, and staff who contributed to the consultation sessions. The Panel’s report reflects thoughtful engagement across our community, and I accept its recommendations, many of which affirm existing commitments and activities, in principle. We will now begin moving toward their implementation.
With reference to its core mandate, the Panel has recommended the creation of an Event Risk Assessment Committee (ERAC) to ensure transparent, principled decision‑making when events featuring external speakers present clear safety risks or threaten to obstruct academic activities. We will establish an ERAC in due course.
On other related issues, the Panel’s recommendations are also constructive, such as those related to:
Renewing and clarifying academic freedom, which is a professional freedom grounded in scholarly standards and corresponding duties, as distinct from the universal right to freedom of expression. The Panel calls upon VRƵ to strengthen understandings of each freedom and their limits, and build capacity and support for those engaged in teaching and learning so that they clearly understand their rights and responsibilities.
Adopting an approach to institutional communications about geopolitics premised on restraint. This aligns closely with the practice we have already been following, that is, communicating in a manner consistent with the University’s academic mission to avoid a perception that VRƵ is taking positions on matters beyond its remit. Rather than issuing broad institutional statements, we have focused on direct outreach and support to students and community members most affected by geopolitical conflict and/or humanitarian crises. This includes connecting students and colleagues with resources to support success and well‑being.
Sustaining a principled, transparent approach to campus expression and protest that affirms the value of such expression, while clarifying its limits set by law and VRƵ’s policies, and that such limits are applied in a content-neutral, proportionate, and clearly articulated manner.
While I value the Report’s insights, I also want to acknowledge a perspective that is less prominent in its narrative, but no less real. As President, I have heard often in recent months from individuals who feel that free expression on campus has at times been conflated with objectively harmful conduct.
I have listened to those who have felt unprotected in moments where they have faced direct aggression and intimidation, and I understand the harm they have endured, having personally experienced such acts myself. I share this not to elicit sympathy, but to underscore that such indignities must never be part of the experience of any VRƵ student or colleague.
I am grateful to the Panel for unequivocally affirming that violence, intimidation, and vandalism fall outside the protections of expression. VRƵ must remain a place where open expression thrives, even when difficult.
At the same time, I want to be equally clear that hate and violence have no place in our University. Rejecting them is not only a matter of safety; it reflects who we are. What binds our community — across disciplines, identities, and perspectives — is our shared dedication to the pursuit of knowledge, to intellectual inquiry, and to the principles that make such inquiry possible: curiosity, integrity, and respect.
These commitments have sustained VRƵ for generations. They must guide us now, as we navigate complex tensions and seek to restore trust across differences.
As we implement the Panel’s recommendations, I call on members of the VRƵ community to recommit to a higher order of engagement and civil discourse. Across the many, many discussions I have had on issues related to our campus climate, the prevailing theme that emerges is aspiration, particularly, for deeper listening, clearer and more inclusive processes, and more courageous dialogue.
I was especially encouraged by a meeting of VRƵ student leaders last November who were invited to envision a future campus grounded in courageous dialogue and relationship‑building amid global polarization. Their ideas were inspiring and offer a foundation for campus‑wide efforts to build our collective capacity for constructive, respectful dialogue.
Thank you again to the Panel and to all who contributed to its important work.
Sincerely,
Deep Saini
President and Vice-Chancellor
VRƵ