Academic Freedom & Responsibility

The University of British Columbia is a community of students, faculty, staff, and members of the community at large dedicated to the advancement of learning, the collection and dissemination of knowledge and skills, the intellectual development of its members, and the betterment of society.

Members of the University enjoy certain rights and privileges essential to the fulfillment of the University’s primary functions: instruction and the pursuit of knowledge.

Central among these rights is the freedom, within the law, to pursue what seems to them as fruitful avenues of inquiry, to teach and to learn unhindered by external or non-academic constraints, and to engage in full and unrestricted consideration of any opinion. This freedom extends not only to the regular members of the University, but to all who are invited to participate in its forum. Suppression of this freedom, whether by institutions of the state, the officers of the University, or the actions of private individuals, would prevent the University from carrying out its primary functions.

All members of the University must recognize this fundamental principle and must share responsibility for supporting, safeguarding and preserving this central freedom.

Behaviour that obstructs free and full discussion, not only of ideas that are safe and accepted, but of those which may be unpopular or even abhorrent, vitally threatens the integrity of the University’s forum. Such behaviour cannot be tolerated.

Source: UBC Academic Calendar