CDMI Statement on the CAUT Censure

On April 22, 2021, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) imposed a rare and serious censure on the University of Toronto for its breach of academic freedom in terminating the candidacy of Dr. Valentina Azarova for the Directorship of the International Human Rights Program (IHRP) at the Faculty of Law. The full terms of the CAUT censure can be read here.

CDMI supports the work of students, colleagues and community researchers committed to critical and creative explorations of the intersections between digital, racial, gender, sexual, economic and anti-colonial transformation and justice. We firmly support research that works against settler colonialism in all its forms. We recognize the rights of scholars and activists to do this work and to be critical of the Canadian, Israeli and other state and military policies and practices, without the fear of professional reprisal. We support the work of decolonial futures, including the work of Palestinian liberation.

We join the many scholars at UofT and beyond in recognizing and supporting the CAUT censure. While we continue to support our students, we have postponed our inaugural CDMI Doctoral Student Workshop, organized by doctoral candidate, Elisha Lim, until the CAUT censure is lifted. The workshop was scheduled to take place on June 21, 2021, and we were excited to host Prof. Anita Say Chan (Associate Professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), as Faculty Respondent to work with 8 of our excellent PhD students in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. The student names and projects will be listed below on Jun 21st. We look forward to seeing UofT President Gertler and the Faculty of Law take meaningful steps to rectify this breach of academic freedom and process, to restore the Directorship offer to Dr. Azarova, and to begin building trust with faculty and students whose work has been massively disrupted by this administrative breach.