On Nov. 3, Alberta introduced the Advanced Education Statutes Amendment Act (Bill 38). If passed, the bill will allow the minister of Advanced Education to bolster control over public post-secondary institutions and shape their academic environment.

The bill will compel university boards to establish policies regulating the ability of representatives to issue statements regarding social and political issues. Institutions will be required to “ensure students are able to learn in an environment that fosters a diversity of viewpoints and free and open inquiry” and “protect the freedom of expression of students, academic staff, non-academic staff and visitors.”

Universities will also need to institute a student code of conduct that at least addresses academic misconduct, non-academic misconduct and sexual and gender-based violence.

At first glance, the bill is a direct response to some false and debunked claims made in the Mintz report. In 2024, the UCP government mandated a panel led by University of Calgary economist Jack Mintz to review the funding model of Alberta’s higher education system.

Its 2025 final report claimed that institutions lost public support because of recruitment practices based on principles of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). But hiring data of the University of Alberta, the province’s largest public university, does not show enough evidence that DEI recruitment policies were actually practised.

Moreover, the report cited concerns about institutional culture and DEI requirements in federal research grants limiting academic freedom. Yet public data on the allocation of tri-council research funding over the past decade indicates no preferences towards “leftist” or “woke” research.

Nevertheless, the bill is more than just misinformed legislation. It will give the government tremendous political power to exert control over the internal governance and policies of post-secondary institutions.

For instance, amendments about student code of conduct betray the government’s intention of tightening its political control over higher education. The bill will require universities to submit their student code of conduct to the minister for approval.

Because a student code of conduct ought to address non-academic misconduct, it will be up to the minister to decide on what sorts of non-academic student activities are sanctioned. The amendments will make it possible for universities to investigate and punish students who, for instance, participate in political protests that the government does not like, such as the peaceful encampment on U of A’s campus in 2024.

The proposed mandate to ensure a diversity of viewpoints on campus will ironically prevent any natural selections of ideas in the name of protecting free speech. The top-down enforcement of viewpoint diversity means that a bottom-up moral or scientific consensus formulated in the academic community will not be tolerated.

Universities will need to implement policies to safeguard the circulation of ideas or claims even when they are widely seen as amoral, factually incorrect or harmful to society simply because part of the government’s constituency favours those opinions. For instance, institutions will have the responsibility to enable the expression of scientifically debunked claims that associate vaccines with autism.

Interestingly, the bill also gives the minister discretionary power to exempt an institution from fulfilling the requirements of viewpoint diversity and freedom of expression. It would be possible, for instance, for the minister to exempt an overwhelmingly conservative institution so as to prevent the growth of progressive ideas.

This is not the UCP government’s first attempt to interfere in academia through legislation. In 2024, Premier Danielle Smith tabled the Provincial Priorities Act to vet funding agreements between the federal government and provincial entities after accusing the allocation of federal research funding of favouring liberal perspectives and not being transparent. The UCP government eventually exempted post-secondary institutions because its accusations simply could not stand the test of reality.

We have seen similar attacks on higher education by Donald Trump over the past two years. After all, students and intellectuals are often the vanguard in the fight against a government’s attempt to consolidate its power.

Bill 38 will set the legal foundation for the UCP government to pressure institutions, academics and students who defy its agendas, just as the Trump administration threatened to restrict funding and enrolment for universities that did not submit to its authority.

Ping Lam Ip and Andrea DeKeseredy are Killam Laureates and PhD students in sociology at the University of Alberta.

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