Board chair resigns over academic freedom case

The chair of the University of British Columbia's board of governors, John Montalbano, has resigned in the wake of a report which found the university failed to protect a professor's academic freedom, reports Jason Proctor for CBC News.

While former British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Lynn Smith found John Montalbano didn't personally break any of the University of British Columbia’s policies, the university said the executive decided to step down "in the best interest" of the institution. Smith fell short of blaming any one person, but said the University of British Columbia collectively failed Professor Jennifer Berdahl in response to her blog post suggesting former president Arvind Gupta resigned after losing a "masculinity contest" with the university's leadership.

"No individual intended to interfere with Dr Berdahl's academic freedom, or made a direct attempt to do so," Smith wrote. "However, sometimes several relatively small mistakes can lead to a failure of the larger system."
Full report on the CBC News site