Political, social, and economic instability increasingly threaten academic work in laboratories and classrooms around the world, with scholars at risk of losing their jobs, as well as imprisonment, torture, and sometimes death.
UWindsor law professor Anneke Smit is one of the authors of an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail newspaper calling on Canada to provide a safe haven.
In “Scholars are at risk all around the world — and Canada needs to lead,” the authors praise the international solidarity network Scholars at Risk, noting that its work provides a major intellectual benefit to the Canadian academic and scientific research community, not to mention society as a whole.
Besides Dr. Smit, contributors are Melanie Adrian of Carleton University’s department of law and legal studies, Viviana Fernandez of the University of Ottawa’s Human Rights Research and Education Centre, and Nandini Ramanujam of McGill University’s Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism.