Terry Newman: Profs call out their association for left-wing mayhem
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Some Canadian academics are accusing the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) of straying from its core mission of advocating for academic rights and fair working conditions to pursuing a politicized agenda that undermines its fundamental purpose. Specifically, they accuse CAUT of — issuing an unsubstantiated U.S. travel advisory, producing a likely skewed academic freedom report with soon-to-be added anti-Israel rhetoric, and encouraging administrative overreach into equity-based hiring that risks faculty autonomy — betraying its founding principles.
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Addressed to CAUT's president Robin Whitaker as well as the association's Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee, the open letter, which began circulating on Monday, currently has 165 signatures from current and former academic staff from British Columbia to Newfoundland, working in diverse fields ranging from Film to Physics. What they all have in common is their opposition to the politicization of CAUT.
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And they appear to be correct. CAUT's scope has, indeed, gone far beyond its original purposes.
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Founded in 1951, CAUT was envisioned as a national association that might help faculty members deal with 'salaries and pensions, sabbatical leave and academic freedom' issues — basic, bread and butter issues for its members who now total 75,000 teachers, librarians, researchers, and other academic staff in over 130 Canadian colleges and universities across the country.
Over time, CAUT's role expanded to include other, non-controversial concerns, such as the protection of intellectual property, necessary for the digital age, advice on legal support and collective bargaining, and fair employment, which includes organizing against the increasingly precarious conditions of contract workers.
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Fast forward to 2025. CAUT's scope is now far more ambitious, political and global.
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In its own words, CAUT sees itself as advancing 'equity and human rights for academic staff across Canada.' Its assumed responsibilities don't stop at our borders though. Despite originally being an organization concerned with the basic issues of labour for academic employees here at home, CAUT now sees its role as global, telling members, 'We partner with national and international allies to defend human rights.'
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It appears CAUT wants to be an academic United Nations.
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In addition to these, no doubt, well-meaning, yet, lofty goals, CAUT now sees organizing to push for equity hires as part of its purview. 'With our member associations and allies, we press for the Indigenization of our colleges and universities and justice for all,' it notes.
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This is one of the complaints in the open letter.
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While taking no issue with fairness in pay amongst genders, 'two individuals who have different genders but comparable positions, experience, accomplishments,' the letter argues that advocating for targeted equity hires goes beyond the scope of CAUT's mandate and actually promotes administrative control over hiring, conflicting with CAUT's role in preventing administrative overreach, as hires are typically decided amongst faculty members, not university administrators, because doing so would go against academic freedom.
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