Everyone favors free speech in the abstract. It's when the speech is highly unpopular or at odds with our moral values that it becomes tougher to defend.
That's the case before Ryerson Polytechnic University this week. One of its instructors - Gerald Hannon - has been in the news a lot lately. A homosexual, Hannon apparently sees nothing intrinsically wrong with sex between adults and children. And he admits to selling his own body for sex to other adult males.
This last point - from a weekend interview with The Toronto Sun - has caught the university's attention enough to suspend him, with pay, pending an investigation.
His attitudes toward man-boy sex or prostitution are certainly repugnant. But is publicizing this lifestyle and these views ``conduct unbefitting his status as a member of the teaching community of Ryerson,'' as the university suggests? That depends on answers to these questions:
Did he use his classroom for the proselytizing of these views? He claims he has not, and there have been no complaints.
Did he somehow mislead Ryerson about his views and his life-style before he was hired? His colleagues say he didn't.
Has he committed a crime? This is for the police and the courts to decide, not the university. On a previous occasion, he was charged with distributing indecent material but acquitted. Prostitution, per se, is not a crime; soliciting is.
If the answer to all of the above questions is no, then we are left with a person with a disreputable lifestyle and controversial views. Hannon's critics argue that these views are not morally neutral. True enough, and it would satisfy our moral outrage to dismiss Hannon for holding them. But for a university - a sanctuary of free speech - to take such action would be to set a very dangerous precedent.
As for his lifestyle, the onus will be on the university to prove it is irreparably damaging Ryerson and its reputation before the administration can justify disciplinary action.