The following was written by Anna Wong, MPhil, JD, MA, BA (Weintraub Huang LLP, Toronto):
Depending on your disposition, writing a book may seem like either a pleasant solitary pastime or slow thrumming agony. For me, it was mostly the former, though there were moments along the way, particularly near the end when the heat of deadline glowed white—that felt like the latter. What it certainly was not is a mercenary pursuit, for a lawyer—an articling student even—is better off spending time on billable work if financial gains were the goal.
The idea to write about a book, and one specifically about Canadian university law, was sparked when I took a year off practice to pursue an MPhil. Having returned to campus life, I started thinking seriously about my standing in that environment, about the rights that I have and the rights that I lack. The idea first blossomed into a law journal article “Erosion of University Autonomy: Judicial Supervision of University Conduct”, then a book that I cowrote with my friend Sayeh Hassan. The book, called Canadian University Law, was recently published by LexisNexis.
Canadian university law is a topic that has been begging for considered examination. It is a cluster of a topic with branches extending in varied directions: constitutional law, administrative law, tort law, contract law. Those branches can sometimes crisscross and vie for primacy. Some of the foundational concepts in academia have so far only attracted cursory judicial treatment, leaving us with more questions than clarity. Chief among these concepts is academic freedom. Who is entitled to academic freedom? What precisely does it protect? Does it offer any more protection than, say, the right to freedom of speech guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
Universities are complex, hierarchical environments. Different inhabitants of the university ecosystem—university administrators, faculty and students, being the three main sets of players—have interests and perspectives that may not always coincide. Disagreement between the many actors is bound to occur. A professor who refuses to update his lectures on the view that the more recent literature is unworthy of consideration may be under threat of disciplinary action. A graduate student who challenges her supervisor may put her future degree in jeopardy. Oftentimes one side or the other, fed up with the impasse, will take their grievance to an outside arbiter, be it the court, an arbitrator or some other tribunal, in anticipation of the law intervening to protect their interests.
Canadian University Law is a book dedicated to exploring the law’s ever-present role in regulating the relationships involving Canadian universities, its inhabitants and outsiders, and resolving disputes between these parties. The goal of the book is to make this area of law intelligible to those who are caught by it, have to work with it, or simply want to learn more—lawyers, students, academics, judges, university administrators. The area is multifaceted and unsettled in many respects, beset as it is by precedents that are at times hard to reconcile, such that one should not venture without a map. The book I wrote with Sayeh is intended to serve as that map.