, 12 tweets, 5 min read
@ExerciseIn Okay, a few notes to your thread of many excellent points. I'm not convinced that the very high threshold of hate speech is the threshold public libraries must apply. Libraries are not open public spaces like streets and squares. They are buildings with employees and mandates. 1/
@ExerciseIn From the responsibility for those structures, employees, and mandates come limits and decisions in relation to who is allowed to hold an event. I'm not a lawyer, I'm not sure what the legal perspective is on how far libraries can go in creating such limits and decisions. 2/
@ExerciseIn The library has the below section in its booking policy. Having this section suggests that the library leadership does indeed view its mandate to invite speech as somewhat narrower than what's been determined & confirmed as hate and/or discriminatory speech in Canadian law. 3/
@ExerciseIn So, library leadership had the gumption to write & ratify the above section. But it seems they don't have the gumption to stand by it. There's been another case where they've allowed a memorial for a group of Holocaust deniers & neo-Nazis. 4/
huffingtonpost.ca/2017/07/13/tor…
@ExerciseIn Again, the booking policy doesn't say their primary concern in managing bookings is to guarantee maximum freedom of expression. It also doesn't say that only if what you're about to say has qualified as hate speech by Canadian courts and tribunals can the booking be denied. 5/
@ExerciseIn It's narrower than that. Legal council for the library must have found that to be okay when the policy was put in place; I'm assuming they were consulted or at least they should have been if they are consulted now in the recent decision. 6/
@ExerciseIn I agree with you that what Meghan Murphy has said at previous events probably doesn't rise across the same threshold as what Bill Whatcott said during the 2017 provincial election. But I think it does rise across the threshold that the library has set itself in its policy. 7/
@ExerciseIn Community members rely on that policy being taken seriously. It doesn't appear like the library leadership takes it seriously. If library employees with knowledge about how the policy is handled and how not taking it seriously impedes other work within the library's mandate... 8/
@ExerciseIn ...had truly a sense of their freedom of expression being protected such that they'd not be punished in their employment at this public institution, I would venture we'd be hearing more about it. Or, maybe they do speak somewhere I don't know. 9/
@ExerciseIn I don't think public institutions--universities, colleges, libraries--can go on and allow every kind of speech during third-party events. They themselves often say so in their lofty inclusion or code of conduct statements. But they're not ready for the fight that's necessary. 10/
@ExerciseIn And that will likely include legal fights.

OK, I'll end here. Finis. 11/
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