The University of Toronto's downtown campus in October, 2025.Photography by Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
Universities have long been sites of provocative debate and even protest, from anti-apartheid campaigns in the 1980s to encampments opposing the war in Gaza in 2024.
But in recent years, some academics and administrators have worried that a chill has descended, threatening scholars’ ability to freely express the broadest range of thought and opinion and making speech feel less free.
In response, some institutions are creating special seminars and even new courses to encourage students to tackle thorny subjects out loud and get comfortable with uncomfortable exchanges.
Rhonda McEwen, president of Victoria University in the University of Toronto, said she started to notice a change in students a few years ago. She recalled a moment when students were calling for a classmate to be “cancelled” or in some way sanctioned for his views. They told her his opinions were hurtful and made them feel unsafe.
“I told the students ‘I’m not cancelling anybody. He’s a student here like you are. You don’t have to agree with him, and I don’t have to agree with him, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find a way to talk to each other,’ ” Dr. McEwan said.
“The goal of university is to push your thinking to places it hasn’t been before.”
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In Dr. McEwen’s view, debate and disagreement should be central to the student’s experience of higher education. But recent undergraduate cohorts haven’t seemed as comfortable with that notion and struggle to mount a public counterargument when they encounter views they dislike, she said.
“They don’t know how. They have no tools or skills or experience,” Dr. McEwen said.
At Victoria University, administrators established a workshop on difficult conversations, where students are invited to a weekly lunch seminar to tackle controversial topics such as religion, gender identity or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Madelyn Bardell, a third-year student in ethics, society and law, said she was drawn to the seminars out of a desire to wrestle with big, difficult topics.
“A lot of times we’re talking about something I don’t have a strong position on or I’m not sure about,” she said. “It’s a chance for me to work through my own thoughts.”
Madelyn Bardell, a third-year student in ethics, society and law, says she was drawn to attend weekly lunch seminars at her school out of a desire to wrestle with big, difficult topics.
Normally an expert introduces the topic and then facilitates a discussion. Lunch is served, which helps build a sense of connection between the students, even when they disagree, said Kelley Castle, the dean of students at Victoria University.
The rules are slightly different than in a classroom setting, where implicit good behaviour or notions of civility can keep people from talking frankly, the dean said.
“The only rule is that we have to be respectful of one another, so there are no ad hominem attacks, and there can be no ‘you’re stupids.’ It has to be genuinely trying to hear the best argument of your opposition,” she said. “It’s really an exercise in deep listening.”
Areen Khan, a second-year student, said she thinks students speak more freely in these sessions than they do in the classroom, where the pursuit of good grades can affect their willingness to chime in or disagree with an instructor. But she was surprised to find a discussion on affirmative action policies to be nuanced and thoughtful, in contrast to the polarization she sees on the internet.
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“You’re expecting everyone to just take these two polar sides on it,” she said. “But honestly, I would say 90 per cent of people are right there in the middle.”
A study published in the Canadian Journal of Educational and Social Studies this year found roughly half of student respondents at schools across Canada reported self-censoring their views in discussions with professors or classmates.
Between 39 and 46 per cent of respondents said they were somewhat or very reluctant to express their views on topics such as politics, religion and sexual identity. And roughly a third of students said they were somewhat or extremely concerned about the repercussions for expressing themselves (the sample wasn’t representative, however, as it skewed more heavily female and to students in the humanities and social sciences).
The responses indicate “a concerning lack of comfort of viewpoint expression on sensitive topics within Canadian university classrooms,” the authors of the paper concluded. Surveys in the U.S. have found similar results, including one at Harvard, which found only a third of the graduating class in 2024 felt comfortable expressing their views on controversial topics, The Harvard Crimson reported.
At the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus, philosophy professor Renaud-Philippe Garner and political scientist Brad Epperly had a sense that students didn’t seem as willing to talk openly as they once did. In response they developed a new course they called “Dangerous Ideas.”
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Prof. Garner said there are several potential explanations for the shift, such as the impact of smartphones or the pandemic on student development. There could also be a sense that there are “right” or “wrong” positions on certain topics and a fear that misaligning could result in social sanction. Whatever it is, he believes it’s different than it was when he was a student.
“This is precisely the time in their lives where they should be allowed to toy with ideas, to ask hard questions and this shouldn’t result in ostracism or punishment,” Prof. Garner said.
The course functions almost like a debate club. Students spend a week discussing the arguments in favour of an idea, a week on the arguments against it, and then hold a formal debate with opening statements and a kind of cross-examination.
Malvika Jha, a UBC Okanagan student who took the class last fall, said that in a politically divided era, some students don’t feel comfortable sharing their ideas. She grew up in the 2010s, when the internet was already dominated by condemnations and cancellations, and said that at times she has been reluctant to speak up.
She said she was attracted to the class by its eye-catching name, adding that it was the first she has encountered where students mainly led the discussions.
“We’d move the desks into a circle, and we’d all be looking at each other and talking and discussing these ideas. And I feel like that’s something really special,” Ms. Jha said
Ava Rothmaier, a third-year political science student, said the atmosphere in the class made students comfortable enough to speak openly.
“They’ve really ingrained it in us that when somebody shares something that you don’t like, it’s not the person that you go after, but it’s the thought or the idea.”