Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship
 (Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship logo) |
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| Founded | 1992 |
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| Location |
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Area served
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Canada |
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Key people
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Mark Mercer (President) Clive Seligman (Past President) John Furedy (Past President) Doreen Kimura (Past President) |
| Slogan | Maintaining freedom in teaching, research and scholarship |
| Website | www.safs.ca |
The Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (SAFS) is a non-profit organization founded to promote academic freedom and intellectual excellence on Canadian university campuses. Although its membership is open to the general public, the society is composed mainly of faculty and students from Canadian universities.
The Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship has been in continuous existence since its founding in 1992. It has published a regular newsletter (the Society for Academic Freedom & Scholarship Newsletter, later renamed the SAFS Newsletter) containing articles relating to issues in higher education since May of that year.
From the start, the Society’s central goals have been the defense of intellectual freedom and the promotion of academic excellence. More specifically, the founding purposes of the society were
Over time these goals have evolved so that, in its more recent publicity, the society now lists its main purposes as being
The society is financed solely by membership fees and voluntary donations.
Throughout its history, SAFS has been vocal in its opposition to policies it believes are inconsistent with the goals of an open, meritocratic, academic community. It is in this context that it has spoken out against campus speech codes, hate-speech legislation, and affirmative action in university hiring. The society has also aspired to promote reasoned debate on a wide range of cases and issues relating to academic freedom and scholarship more broadly.
In the words of one commentator, the society is composed primarily of “accomplished, disinterested, ruthlessly honest academics united in visceral contempt for those of their peers who are willing to bend and manipulate the truth to serve their ideological ends.”
Much of the society’s correspondence concerning cases it has been involved with is publicly available at the society’s official website. Unlike some other non-profit societies with similar goals, SAFS has been as much concerned with the academic freedom of university students as it has with university faculty.
For several years the society recognized important contributions to academic freedom through the Furedy Academic Freedom Award. Established by John and Chris Furedy in honour of Bela and Dusi Furedy, the award recognized members of the university community, both students and faculty, who have championed academic freedom.
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Wikipedia