Academic Freedom Under Fire: Our Statement on the Unjust Removal of Collin May
June 17, 2025
In May 2022, Canadian lawyer and international human rights expert Collin May was selected by the government of the Province of Alberta to serve as the Chief of the Alberta Human Rights Commission and Tribunal after having served for some time as a commissioner. It did not take long for Canadian Islamists to find fodder for manipulation to paint Collin as a racist opponent to Islam and Muslims by claiming that a positive academic book review that he had written more than a decade earlier reflected an “Islamophobic” posture. The subject of Collin’s positive review, Islamic Imperialism: A History, is a 2006 Yale University Press publication. Yale University and the academic press that it owns and operates would likely be surprised to learn that it had published a blatantly racist book that takes aim at one of the most sensitive and dishonest constituencies in the world–Islamists larping as victims while attempting to undermine the liberal ideals that allow them to exist in the West.
Alberta Premier Jason Kinney capitulated to a grievance-driven coalition of ideologues and opportunists and dismissed Collin just months after his appointment, despite ample evidence that the book review in question, written over a decade earlier, was neither “stereotyping” nor “hateful.”
Among many troubling aspects of Collin’s situation, there are two of significant note. First, our public discourse on human rights is entirely dependent upon engaging in honest dialogue rooted in good faith. The National Council of Canadian Muslims and their bad-faith blogging allies have not demonstrated a willingness to be honest about Collin’s record of human rights advocacy. Honesty would demand a recognition that the people of Alberta could not be better served than to have Collin leading the Commission. Second, academic freedom requires the free exchange of ideas. Collin’s 2009 book review was interacting with a serious academic publication that may present contestable and debatable conclusions. The appropriate venue for contesting and debating academic works is not in the political sphere decades after publication, to realize political ends.
Collin is not an “Islamophobe,” a label now hurled so reflexively that it has lost all meaningful definition. Even practicing Muslims who speak out against Islamist extremism, including members of our own CLARITy Coalition, have faced the same hollow accusations, proving that the term has become a tool to silence dissent, not a measure of genuine bigotry. His dismissal from the Human Rights Commission was unjust, enabled by the failure of too many Western politicians to summon the resolve needed to defend our shared civilization from “the biggest existential threat…within [our] borders.” The people of Alberta have not been served well by their leaders and would have been better served by Collin at the helm of the Commission. Moral courage is required to defend liberal ideals from the threats of Islamism and other forces that seek to undermine them, and we unequivocally support Collin in his efforts to defend his reputation in the face of cowardly, defamatory attacks.
Trey Dimsdale
President, AHA Foundation