Alberta bill to limit institutional speech, comments from post-secondary schools

Alberta is proposing a new law that would restrict post-secondary schools from being able to weigh in on social and political issues. Myles McDougall, Alberta’s Advanced Education Minister, tabled the Advanced Education Statues Amendment Act Tuesday afternoon. If passed, it will require post-secondary schools to develop and implement institutional neutrality and freedom of expression policies, which McDougall could review. The policies would bar post-secondary institutions, like universities and colleges, from making official statements on global political, social and ideological issues outside of their “academic mission.” Beyond that, the bill has wide-reaching policy changes that would also authorize McDougall to set maximum tuition amounts for programs or groups of programs and enable the government to set minimum requirements for student codes of conduct. As far as making official university statements, McDougall…

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