The Lawyers Weekly - October 29, 2010

Carpay
Continued From Page 5

dents. But in 2008, the U of C started demanding that the students’ signs be turned inwards, such that no person walking by can see the signs.

The “law and order” claims of Carleton and the U of C are fundamentally dishonest because the rules are not being applied equally to all groups. Arbitrarily denying one group an outdoor place, or ordering one group to hide its signs from view, are forms of censorship and viewpoint discrimination. Claiming that pro-life groups at Carleton and the U of C enjoy free speech is like claiming that Blacks in the segregated South could attend school, and ride on the bus. The claim is disingenuous because it’s true only on a very superficial level, while masking the injustice of blatant discrimination.

At its core, the right to free
expression is a right to offend
other people. Anyone in any
country, no matter how oppres-
sive its regime, can say anything
they wish so long as it doesn’t
offend anyone. This was true of
the old Soviet Union and is true
today of China and Iran. Indeed,
these countries will insist
that their citizens are completely
free to express themselves, pro-
vided they don’t say offensive
things. But a truly free soci-
ety— which Canada purports to
be—is one where people some-
times have to hear and see the
things they hate. For the U of C
and Carleton to restrict free
speech arbitrarily because some
unnamed person or persons
might be “offended” or “dis-
turbed” is to place subjective
feelings ahead of Charter-guar-
anteed constitutional rights.

“The Pridgen decision
bodes well for pro-life
students at Carleton
and the U of C, who
have courageously
resisted the
university’s arbitrary
censorship.

Recently the Alberta Court of
Queen’s Bench in Pridgen v.
University of Calgary [2010]
A.J. No. 1181 rebuked the uni-
versity for its bullying and
censorship tactics. In 2007,
Keith and Steven Pridgen (and
other students) used a Facebook
page to criticize one of their pro-
fessors as incompetent. The U of
C found the students guilty of
non-academic misconduct, and
threatened them with the possi-
bility of expulsion unless they
apologized.

John Carpay is a Calgary
lawyer, whose clients include Uni-
versity of Calgary pro-life students
who are resisting the university’s
censorship demands.
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