Research Collaborations

Hate Speech Legislation, the Commonwealth Model, and Parliamentary Debates on Rights

In recent years, the governments of Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand have all announced proposals to regulate online hate speech. Each of these governments faces the challenge of deciding how to address the harms of hate speech, particularly in the online context, in a way that sufficiently protects free expression. In this research project, Dr. Emmett Macfarlane (University of Waterloo) and I will explore established and emerging hate speech policy in these three Commonwealth countries. Our research will question how each country's institutions and accompanying rights culture shape limits on rights implicated by hate speech laws.

This project five-year project is supported by a SSHRC Insight Grant.

Gender in the Canadian Academy

Canadian academia has a serious gender problem. There is ample evidence that women face unique barriers to entry at all levels of academia, including disadvantages securing research funding, high-ranking publications, citations, and teaching scores, all of which inhibit their ability to secure tenure-track positions. With an eye to laying the groundwork for substantive policy changes in Canadian universities, this project seeks to facilitate an interdisciplinary exchange on issues of gender in the Canadian academy, compiling the latest qualitative and quantitative data on this topic. To this end, Dr. Bessma Momani and I are co-editing a collection Glass Ceilings and Ivory Towers: Gender Inequality in the Canadian Academy, which is forthcoming with UBC Press in April 2024. This project is supported by a SSHRC Connection Grant.