The YUFA Executive Committee has endorsed the following motion regarding the ongoing suspension of Professor Lesley Wood.

“The Department of Sociology demands the immediate and full reinstatement of our colleague, Professor Lesley Wood, who has been indefinitely suspended by the York University administration since November 23, 2023.

This motion reaffirms a statement and motion that the Department of Sociology overwhelmingly approved at a December 6, 2023 departmental meeting, as well as calls for Professor Wood’s reinstatement issued by the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the International Sociological Association, the Canadian Sociological Association, the BC Civil Liberties Association, the York University Faculty Association, and numerous departments, faculty unions, NGOs, and individuals in Canada and beyond.

We continue to believe that this ongoing suspension is wholly unjustified, and that it harms Professor’s Wood reputation as well as those of the Department of Sociology and York University more generally. The suspension has compromised Professor Wood’s ability to exercise her profession both at York and outside of it (e.g., the ex post facto withdrawal of Professor Wood’s Fulbright Award by the US State Department). In addition, the suspension has deprived the Department of Sociology of a valued colleague who has made major contributions to our collective departmental life, and students of a tremendous supervisor and intellectual presence on campus. Finally, the suspension publicly signals that York is an institution of higher education that is ready and willing to compromise the core democratic principles of academic freedom and freedom of expression, and to ignore the demands for reinstatement issued by organizations such as those named above. Professor Wood’s ongoing suspension continues to undermine the fundamental right, and indeed the responsibility, of every faculty member in our Department, at York, and at other institutions of higher education to freely and openly speak out about matters of public interest as citizens and members of the academic community.”