The 11 leaders of the Université du Québec network and its member institutions have co-signed an article responding to Bill 1, the draft Québec Constitution Act. The authors call on the Government of Québec to remove Article 5 from the bill and to explicitly recognize academic freedom and autonomy within the constitution. In the letter, published in the Journal de Montréal, the authors explain that academic freedom and university autonomy is essential to fulfilling their institutional missions. They assert that Article 5 would jeopardize this by prohibiting universities from using their operating funds to challenge certain laws when needed to defend their mission. They point to incidents in the United States as examples of the risks posed by the bill as currently written.
