The Paris attackers’ challenge to free speech is especially relevant to universities - Je suis Charlie

By John Osborne. On Tuesday, Jan. 6, the university librarian wrote to ask me to participate in the second annual “Freedom to Read” event which will be held at Carleton University on the Monday after reading week. I receive a great many such invitations on more or less a daily basis, and it is impossible to accept them all. So my immediate reaction was to decline; but the horrific events in Paris the following day, Wednesday Jan. 7, caused me to change my mind. This attack was not simply a murderous assault on the staff of Charlie Hebdo, but more broadly a challenge to the very notion of free speech, itself a sine qua non of a free society. This challenge is particularly relevant to universities, given the special role which we play in society, a role that perhaps might be thought of as society’s collective “conscience”. Of course this is not the only role which universities play, but it is an important one, particularly in the broad domain of the humanities and social sciences. And thus I hope that the slogan which has been heard at public demonstrations and vigils in recent days, Je suis Charlie, will be embraced fervently by all of us in academic life. More...