02/12/2026
GEDC Statement on Disinformation and Freedom of Expression
We were deeply disturbed by the presence of two individuals on campus last week intent on spreading disinformation based on prejudice and hate. We were also encouraged by the overwhelming turnout of students, faculty and staff to protest their presence and disrupt their intentions. At the same time, it is also important to note that while encouraged by such protest, we also state strongly that those students, faculty and staff should not have had their day disrupted in this way. While the Government of Alberta has limited the capacity of postsecondary institutions to restrict the kinds of views expressed in public events on campuses across the province, as an institution we also must be clearer and stronger in our response. Although President Jayas suggested that the “views expressed…do not align with the values of the University of Lethbridge,” this is more than a question of values. It is a question of the importance of an institution of higher learning to promote research that is based on rigorous evidence, not disinformation and lies. As such, an appropriate response would go beyond a question of values to state that these views represent disinformation.
We now live in a world where conspiracy theories and disinformation are given equal weight (and sometimes greater weight) than data-informed scholarship, and this erosion of the production of evidence based and scholarly knowledge is at the core of many of the social and political crises we face globally and locally today. When individuals promote disinformation and untruth with an intent to deceive, they do not advance the production of knowledge, and the views they represent, contrary to what Dr. Jayas suggested, never provide opportunities “where controversial ideas [may] be examined, critiqued, and challenged through rigorous, evidence-based inquiry.” Those seeking to do harm through disinformation do not adhere to the norms of collegial exchange of ideas, nor are they concerned with evidence-based inquiry, making such encounters counter-productive, at best.
What’s at stake is more than semantics and interpretations of abstract ideas. The message these individuals sought to spread caused harm to many members of our campus and broader community. In addition to the emotional and psychological harm this caused, there were at least two instances of physical harm visited upon members of our campus community which have already been reported. We also know that some of our Indigenous colleagues and students chose to leave campus to avoid the harm these individuals perpetrate. That our friends, colleagues and students were forced to leave their place of work and study out of concerns for their safety means that we, collectively, have failed them. We are all entitled to a safe workplace, free of harassment and discrimination. When people arrive on our campus with the intention of inflicting harm on others, they are the ones who should not be welcome to stay.
We impress upon our Administration the need to go further to call out disinformation and lies for being just that—disinformation and lies—and not substantiate them indirectly by framing them as worthwhile debates from competing value systems. And we call on our Administration to draw a line between healthy debate and hate speech—the latter should never be tolerated on our campus or in our society, and it should not be shielded by freedom of expression.
Sincerely,
The GEDC
