Academic Freedom? How Nasty Can a University Be?

By Denis Rancourt

(First published at Dissident Voice.)

The present era of reactionary institutional responses to violations of political correctness is exposing the fact that “academic freedom”, of both professors and students, does not really mean much, except what it has always meant.

In the concluding paragraphs of her chapter on academic freedom in her 1986 book No Ivory Tower, Ellen W. Schrecker brilliantly states what modern academic freedom has always been and was always meant to be:

The academic world of Schaper and Cattell, Ely and Nearing, was to change considerably over the next few decades. Especially in the years following the Second World War, the American system of higher education was to expand in size and to become a more democratic and less genteel place. Yet its treatment of political dissidents changed little. The same pattern of pressures and responses that set the early precedents determined the later cases as well. There were some differences to be sure, especially in procedural matters. There was more faculty participation, for example. This was largely the result of the academic profession’s success in establishing the principle of tenure. Though its possession did not invariably protect controversial professors from being fired, by the 1940s and 1950s it did usually ensure that they got some kind of a faculty hearing.

Procedures apart, however, there were fewer differences than we might assume. Institutional loyalty was the overriding concern. In almost every situation, faculty members and administrators responded to outside pressures for the dismissal of dissenting faculty members in accord with what they believed would best protect or enhance their schools reputation. The rhetoric of academic freedom obscures those concerns, as, in many instances, it was designed to. After all, even the famous academic freedom statement that the University of Wisconsin released after the Regents reinstated Richard T. Ely in 1894 was planned in part as a piece of institutional promotion-as, in the words of the man who suggested it, “an excellent advertisement for the institution.” Stripped of its rhetoric, academic freedom thus turns out to be an essentially corporate protection. And, as we trace its development during the Cold War, we should not be surprised to find that it was invoked more often to defend the well-being of an institution than the political rights of an individual.¹

Nonetheless, it is interesting to ask: Just how far can a Western university, in a so-called free and democratic society, go in violating the freedom of expression and the professional independence of a tenured professor?

My own case gives a graphic answer to this question.

First, here is the background of what was actually happening in the classroom. This letter from a parent on one of my students was published in Canada’s largest national newspaper on February 9, 2009:

“Free to Learn” by Julia Debono

Windsor, Ont. — In 2006, while shadowing my daughter, then a student at the University of Ottawa, I attended one of Denis Rancourt’s classes (Professor Makes His Mark, But It Costs Him His Job – Feb. 6). Prof. Rancourt, clearly a dedicated, principled teacher, moderated a spirited, engaging, intellectually provocative discussion in which about 50 students eagerly participated.

Other undergraduate classes that I attended consisted of the professor lecturing while students chatted, surfed the Net or took verbatim notes. Few asked questions and there were no discussions, even when the professor asked for some.

Prof. Rancourt’s class resembled classes I had at the University of Michigan’s Residential College in the mid-1970s, right down to the use of narrative summaries instead of grades to evaluate learning.

His class was an example of the kind of educational experience I sent my daughter to university to be a part of.²

There were hundreds of such letters to the university and to media, and a large petition. Here is my report of how my first-year (freshman) physics course had developed: “How to Not Teach Physics”.³

In addition, I was publicly critical of the university administration on my “U of O Watch” blog and I practiced reform wherever I could legally do so, given the on-paper guaranties of my academic freedom and professional independence.

Twice the university disciplined me for allegedly not following the curriculum. Both times the university was rebuffed by binding arbitration decisions and the discipline was removed. I established that in Ontario a university professor is allowed to be political in the classroom, in addition to covering the curriculum, even in a science course. This irked the reactionary administration to no end.

As a result, sometimes the political activism would spill over into students demanding their rights within the institution. There was an upsurge of student activism in the years that I taught, which I mostly attribute to reactions against oppressive policies and an influx of politically savvy international students. But, of course, the administration blamed me and scribbled network diagrams about it in their notes (I saw this in access-to-information records).

In one such “spill over”, the president — experienced trial lawyer, former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations and former Liberal prospective candidate for Prime Minister of Canada, Allan Rock — was publicly exposed intimidating a student complainant, in the president’s office. The student’s audio recording was played on regional cable TV, and a link of it was sent to all the university’s students by email. The president never did that again.

Within a few weeks after the cable TV show aired, my many research graduate students and I were locked out of our laboratory without notice and, as I learned in 2017, the university destroyed my large collections of valuable scientific samples, and immediately made the laboratory inoperable.

The violations of my academic and constitutional rights that also occurred prior to and after the lock out are difficult to grasp, but they did occur, and many “respectable” high officials were knowingly involved. Now I want the new president to fix this and the university to be accountable. This recent letter is how I presented the case to the new president:

January 8, 2018
Jacques Frémont
President and Vice-Chancellor
University of Ottawa
550 Cumberland, Room 212
Ottawa, ON  K1N 6N5
f: 613-562-5103
e: ac.awattOu@tnediserp
By email and by fax

Re: Ending the University of Ottawa’s unrelenting punishment of me

Dear President Frémont,

I was a professor in the department of physics at the University of Ottawa from 1987 until 2009.  I occupied the highest academic rank of Full Professor beginning in 1997.

I am recognized as an expert in my profession and have taught thousands of students.  I am a much appreciated teacher and research supervisor and I have published over 100 articles in leading journals in several areas of science (my present h-index score is 35).

I taught the Senate-approved course “Science in Society”, which I created following campus-wide student demand, in the largest auditorium on campus.  It was informally known as the activism course.

I was a critic of the university and I defended students against what I saw as institutional discrimination and racism.  In so doing, I used Malcolm X’s political term, “house negro”.  I did this in the context of a struggle for justice and in good faith, as attested to by the attached letters to you from community activists: Hazel Gashoka, Jean-Marie Vianney, and Cynthia McKinney.

The university dismissed me in 2009 using the pretext of my having assigned high grades to all 23 students in one advanced physics course, and then spent over $1 million sponsoring a large defamation lawsuit against me.

You have emptied out my bank account by court order, you have repeatedly threatened to take my family’s home, and you have asserted that you will continue to enforce recovery of your legal costs in excess of $1 million.  Therefore, I am not able to pursue my work as a teacher and scholar, since you would take every penny.
You destroyed my career and took everything I have. You have done enough. I’m hoping that your sense of decency will cause you to grant this request for relief.

The university’s punishment of me has been relentless, including the following.

Destroyed scientific samples

Recently this year, as I sought to continue my scientific work, the university said that it destroyed my large and unique collection of scientific samples — when it locked me and my students out of our laboratory while I was still a full professor.

Many of the samples are irreplaceable and priceless, and I considered myself their custodian on behalf the scientific community.  The Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa (APUO) has assumed my $1.25 million grievance concerning this destruction.

The destroyed scientific samples included:
(a) The only large non-oxidized piece of the Santa Catharina meteorite, in which the meteoritic metallic phase “antitaenite” was discovered.
(b) The only large sample of remnants of the K/T boundary meteorite that may have killed the dinosaurs, collected in the field by a leading-expert collaborator, and kept in a sealed atmosphere.
(c) Unique suites of synthetic layer silicate compounds, which led to several fundamental discoveries.
(d) Suites of loess-paleosol samples (ancient soils) from two sites, in China and Eastern Europe.
(e) Preserved samples of sediments from 100 lakes in Canada, from the largest study of its kind in the boreal forest.
(f) Several suites of samples of synthetic compounds and alloys having unique electronic, magnetic, and magneto-volume properties.

For years the university threatened to destroy my personal papers, too.  Since 2008, the university refused to give me access to my belongings from my personal office in the physics building.  The materials were research notes, original course content, unpublished book manuscripts, two decades of correspondence, specialized books, and much more.  Only recently, thanks to your direct intervention, was I able to recover the more than 200 cubic feet of paper materials.

Student spy

The university hired a student spy (Maureen Robinson) to covertly surveil me for more than one year while I was a professor.  Her actions were condoned by her immediate supervisors (the dean and the legal counsel of the university) and included using a false cyber identity (“Nathalie Page”) and falsely representing herself personally to third parties.  The student spy provided weekly reports about me to the university.  Her role was described by an Ontario appellate-court judge in his motion ruling in the following terms:

Maureen Robinson
[15] The circumstances of Maureen Robinson’s involvement in this entire matter is troubling at best.  Throughout the relevant portion of the Award by Arbitrator Foisy, Ms.  Robinson’s written notes were referred to [as] “the report on Professor Rancourt’s address prepared by a University of Ottawa student”.
[16] Pursuant to the Udell Affidavit, and based on evidence from the hearing, the student being Maureen Robinson was the editor of the student newspaper who had been hired by the University in what the University described as in a clerical capacity to assist Professor Rancourt in his office, without his input on her hiring.
[17] Either in consultation with her employer, the University, or on her own, she monitored the activities of Professor Rancourt both on and off campus and reported her finding back to the University.  In an email to Dean Lalonde, she admitted to having a “personal grudge” against Professor Rancourt and went so far as to liken her monitoring of Professor Rancourt as “posing as a young girl to catch a pedophile”.  Ms. Robinson was not called as a witness at the hearing and, the parties agreed that her “report” would be considered as an “aide memoire” only.
[18] The University referred to the “report” thereafter as a transcript which such description was objected to by the APUO.  Similarly, Arbitrator Foisy made certain findings which appear to be based solely on the report which was not evidence.  [Underlined sub-title in original]

Covert psychiatric report

In 2008, the university’s VP-Governance coordinated a capture of my intimate childhood information for use by a hired psychiatrist to make a written “psychiatric opinion” of me without my consent or knowledge.

The university thereby violated my constitutional privacy rights, my personal dignity and integrity, and numerous ethical codes regarding expert medical diagnoses.

The university followed this by not informing me of its actions, and by vigorously opposing my access to the psychiatric report until the final hour of an appeal in litigation for access in 2017.

You have a reputation as an advocate of human rights, and you recently took charge of the university’s case with me.

I write to you now to ask for a fair resolution that will allow me to resume my work as an educator and scientist, and to earn my living in this way. As it stands, the university would seize all of my income, just as it recently seized my bank account. The interest alone that you seek is more than $30,000.00 per year.

Please assure me that you will instruct the university lawyers that a settlement is needed that will allow me to resume my career.

Yours truly,
[original signed]
Professor Denis Rancourt
[address]
Encl.:  Letters from Hazel Gashoka, Jean-Marie Vianney, and Cynthia McKinney [three attachments in the original].⁴

That is how nasty a university in a free and democratic society can be. I know other public institutions behave the same way but we rarely find out. I have been dedicated to uncovering as much as I can.

I have been guided by this quote:

One knows … that the university and in a general way, all teaching systems, which appear simply to disseminate knowledge, are made to maintain a certain social class in power; and to exclude the instruments of power of another social class. … It seems to me that the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticise the workings of institutions, which appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticise and attack them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them.
— Foucault, debating Chomsky, 1971.⁵

Denis G. Rancourt is a former tenured full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is a researcher for the Ontario Civil Liberties Association. He has published more than 100 articles in leading scientific journals, on physics and environmental science. He is the author of the book Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism.

---

1. The two last paragraphs of Chapter I: “An Excellent Advertizement for the Institution”: The Development of Academic Freedom, 1886-1918; in Ellen W. Schrecker’s No Ivory Tower – McCarthyism and the Universities, Oxford University Press, 1986.
2. Letter to the Editor, Globe & Mail (National Edition), February 9, 2009.
3. Rancourt, Denis. How to Not Teach Physics. Dissident Voice, January 2, 2013.
4. “2018 01 08 Letter to end the University of Ottawa’s unrelenting punishment of Denis Rancourt”, and direct link to the document as PDF file.
5. “Human Nature: Justice versus Power”, Noam Chomsky debates with Michel Foucault, 1971.

Major foreign corporation with US-military and IDF ties buys a "security and policy institute" at "Allan Rock's university" in Canada's capital

By Denis G. Rancourt


BACKGROUND ABOUT ALLAN ROCK'S NAKBA AT uOTTAWA

The University of Ottawa was a reputable institution of higher learning in Canada's capital city, before it was taken-over in 2008 by former federal politician and former Canadian Ambassador to the UN Allan Rock.

Following his appointment, Rock immediately proceeded to bring in all his own people to run the place in support of his announced pet projects to support US-colonial "globalization" and to legitimize the state of Israel, in the face of growing international condemnation of Israel's on-going war crimes in Palestine.

There was a complete overhaul of the executive team, and of the Board of Governors (BOG). The new VP-Academic, Francois Houle, disappeared shortly after the start of his mandate. The whole executive team left for one reason or another. The Chair of the BOG left, to be replaced by a retired federal senior civil servant who had been an underling of the then federal minister Allan Rock, and so on.

Rock has gone so far as to receive public condemnations from both the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Association of University Teachers for administrative interferences with the student-based Israel Apartheid Week (see Appendix). He created a questionable joint law graduate degree with an Israeli university, for which there was no apparent or expressed need. He has been pressing for a "School of Government" without consulting the academic community. He accepts large anonymous donations for his pet programs. And so on.

Since Rock's appointment, damaging public relations fiascoes have followed, one after the other, somewhat like in Rock's former political career in which a colleague from his own party said that he has "shit magnets in his pockets".

The most recent matter illustrating Rock's ability to continually harm the institution's reputation has been the subject of several harsh editorial critiques in the national print media: Rock prejudicially and publicly dismissed and tarred the entire university hockey team, thereby wrecking student athlete careers, prior to any criminal charges being laid against two of the team's members.

A partial list of Rock's notorious achievements, up to 2010, in both his past political dealings and on campus, is given in the Appendix below.


A PATTERN OF UNILATERAL AND UNCOLLEGIAL EXECUTIVE DECISIONS BY ALLAN ROCK

An illustrative example of how Rock operates, is shown by student reactions to his "School of Management" brainchild, as follows (LINK).

On January 29, 2013, Sarah Tayyem, President, Public & International Affairs Association, Representative of Students from the Public & International Affairs Program, writes (in part):

"Lack of student input into the consultation process ... The consulting group did not include students in their process, and so this report does not address or cover student concerns. ... There was no student input solicited for the original consultative document, and there has been a lack of effort on the part of the University to solicit feedback from students even though we are at the heart of this proposal. GSPIA students would appreciate a consultation session, especially as we stand to be strongly affected by the proposed SoG."

Similarly, on March 4, 2013, the president of the Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa (APUO), Professor Christian Rouillard, wrote THIS damning letter to Allan Rock (in part):

I am writing to you in regards to the projected School of Government. Listed as one of the initiatives on the horizon in the plan Destination 20/20, where it is introduced as «a premier centre for governance and public-policy research» (...), this project remains a mystery to most members of our university community.

About a year ago, at the Ottawa Mayor's Breakfast: Ottawa Business Journal and Ottawa Chamber of Commerce, you  explained to the members of the business community present that ... Yet, one year later, as attested by the feedback we received from many members who are themselves part of «the exceptional cluster of expertise that is already at the  University», i.e. faculty conducting research in the areas of governance, public administration, international affairs,  security and human rights, everyone on campus it seems, has been kept in the dark. No relevant information on the projected school has been formally shared by the administration. Not a word on it is to be found in the minutes of the  Senate meetings held in  the  2012-2013 academic year (...). Similarly, not a word on it is to be found in the minutes  of the Board of governors meetings held in the 2012-2013 academic year ...

Such public letters are unprecedented at the University of Ottawa.


THE LATEST ALLAN ROCK SURPRISE: A FOREIGN-FUNDED SECURITY AND POLICY INSTITUTE FOR CANADA

On September 8, 2014, the Allan Rock university put out THIS previously unannounced press release:

MEDIA ADVISORY: Launch of the Security and Policy Institute of Professional Development at the University of Ottawa

OTTAWA, September 8, 2014  —  The University of Ottawa invites members of the media to attend the launch of the Security and Policy Institute of Professional Development. The new institute will offer a unique professional development program for decision-makers working in the public, para-public and private sectors whose responsibilities require them to pay particular attention to national and international security issues.

The courses offered by the Institute will focus on sharing knowledge and best practices to help students take more informed decisions.

In honour of the Institute’s launch, internationally renowned intelligence expert George Friedman will present the first in a series of in-depth lectures on emerging security issues given by world-leading specialists.

Serge Blais, Director of the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Ottawa, will be on hand to answer questions about this new professional development program.

WHAT: Lecture and inauguration of the new Security and Policy Institute of Professional Development
WHEN: Wednesday, September 10, 2014 at 12:30 p.m.
WHERE: Ballroom of the Chateau Laurier, 1 Rideau Street, Ottawa

It is interesting to note that the press release announces an event to be held off-campus, that a university communications person will answer questions rather than Rock himself, that there is no mention of the funding source of this new institute, and that the guest speaker is a US military intelligence expert (more below).

THIS university webpage informs us that "Symantec is the main sponsor for the launch of the Security and Policy Institute of professional development."

Symantec is a US Fortune 500 corporation, which deals in software/internet "security" (including "cyber war"), and which has strong US military and IDF ties.

Symantec's nine-member Board of Directors (LINK) includes one "Major General and Commander, United States Air Force (retired)".

Symantec has strong corporate ties with Israel and the Israel Defense Force (IDF). Symantec's country manager for Israel is Shmulik Angel. His web bio at Symentec states (LINK):

Previously, he served in the Israeli air force for 25 years. He retired from service as a Colonel and continues to perform active reserve duty in the air force and in the Ministry of Defense. Mr. Angel holds BSc. degree in Industrial Engineering and an MBA from Ben Gurion University, Israel.

The Mossad's cyber weapon "Stuxnet" is said to be "the world's first cyber-weapon of geopolitical significance". It is believed to have been developed in collaboration with the US military, and it is linked to Symantec, as per THIS media report.


IMPLICATIONS OF ROCK'S SECURITY AND POLICY INSTITUTE

Nothing could be a better illustration of Allan Rock's zeal to make the University of Ottawa an instrument to dissolve Canada's sovereignty and to serve the US-Israeli military complex.

Now let us examine Rock's proposed inaugural lecture to launch his institute, given by "internationally renowned intelligence expert George Friedman". Who is George Friedman?

George Friedman is the Chairman of the US global intelligence firm Stratfor (LINK).

Stratfor is dubbed a "shadow CIA" firm, and Wikileaks has shown that 13 Canadian government agencies have high-cost subscriptions to Stratfor (LINK). "National Defence paid Stratfor $78,225 in 2011, $80,175 in 2012 and $82,200" for 2013.

In addition to obtaining actual contracts for secret services, George Friedman also spews out public "intelligence" reports, which are unabashed propaganda, about every conflict of concern to the US-Israel military. These "reports", masked as objective "intelligence" serve to legitimize the global empire's every intervention, including Israel's so-called "self-defence" against the surrounding Arab aggressors who do not accept Israel's existence and who pose a "long-term threat to its survival".

Allan Rock's star speaker is an Israeli apologist, invited just days after Israel's recent bloody massacre in Gaza. And this invited guest will deliver a "series of in-depth lectures on emerging security issue" to Canada's captive minds.

The Emperor will be pleased to learn that President Rock did not show leadership by condemning Israeli war crimes, or the massacre in Gaza. Quite the opposite, their man has stifled such discussion and replaces it with US-Israel propaganda.

Welcome to "Allan Rock's university", in Canada's capital city.

***

Dr. Denis G. Rancourt is a former tenured and Full Professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is known for his applications of physics education research (TVO Interview). He has published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals, and has written several social commentary essays. He is the author of the book Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism. While he was at the University of Ottawa, he supported student activism and opposed the influence of the Israel lobby on that institution, which fired him for a false pretext in 2009: LINK. 

Appendix: Rock's dealings up to 2010

PART-I : At the University of Ottawa

• Made a commitment at university Senate (April 12, 2010) to repair the Ann Coulter freedom of expression fiasco and then "clarified" at Senate (February 7, 2011) that this "was not a commitment"

The "clarification" only occurred after physics student Senator Joseph Hickey insisted that the commitment should be honoured as agreed by Senate (LINK, LINK).

• Deceived the student body and university community regarding donation ethics, again (February 2011)

In the fall of 2009 Allan Rock put on a series of show panels as a mock consultation to prepare an upcoming administrative policy for “donor recognition”. The policy was to be presented “within weeks” (LINK). It never materialized.

There was a tacit understanding that large donations would not be accepted until the new policy was developed and instituted.

On June 22, 2010, the University announced a 3.5 million dollar anonymous donation for a research chair in business management (LINK, and below).

On February 7, 2011, the University announced a new exchange program with Israel "generously supported by the Gerald Schwartz and Heather Reisman Foundation" (LINK, LINK)

• Lied about the origin of the infamous March 2010 Francois Houle letter to Ann Coulter  

“Worse yet is that Mr. Rock fudged when initially questioned about the letter. He stated that “it was sent with my knowledge” – when the truth is it was sent at his instigation. When it blew up into a controversy, he let Mr. Houle take the brunt of the heat. Talk about the boss hiding behind his staff.”
– National Post, June 30, 2010.

BC Blue blog report: HERE.

• Hypocrisy regarding respect, restraint, civility, consideration, and a reasoned and intelligent approach…

“I therefore ask you, while you are a guest on our campus, to weigh your words with respect and civility in mind. There is a strong tradition in Canada, including at this University, of restraint, respect and consideration in expressing even provocative and controversial opinions and urge you to respect that Canadian tradition while on our campus. ... [This will] lead not only to a more civilized discussion, but to a more meaningful, reasoned and intelligent one as well.”
– Rock-Houle letter to Ann Coulter, March 19, 2010.

Versus Allan Rock to Houle and staff:

"Ann Coulter is a mean-spirited, small-minded, foul-mouthed poltroon... She is 'the loud mouth that bespeaks the vacant mind'."

"She is an ill-informed and deeply offensive shill for a profoundly shallow and ignorant view of the world. She is a malignancy on the body politic. She is a disgrace to the broadcasting industry and a leading example of the dramatic decline in the quality of public discourse in recent times."

"You, Francois, as Provost, should write immediately to Coulter informing her of our domestic laws. ... You should urge her to respect that Canadian tradition as she enjoys the privilege of her visit."

"Quel excellent message! Merci et felicitations. I am sure she has never been dressed down so elegantly in her life!"

• Deceived the student body and university community regarding donation ethics

In the fall of 2009 Allan Rock put on a series of show panels as a mock consultation to prepare an upcoming administrative policy for “donor recognition”. The policy was to be presented “within weeks” (LINK). It never materialized.

There was a tacit understanding that large donations would not be accepted until the new policy was developed and instituted.

On June 22, 2010, the University announced a 3.5 million dollar anonymous donation for a research chair in business management, anonymous no less (LINK).

It seems to us that anonymity would be an important discussion point in any “donor recognition” or donation ethics policy.

• Was publicly accused of lying by a student representative about budget consultations

On June 2, 2010, Martin Schoolts-Mcalpine, Senator-elect for undergraduate students of the Faculty of Arts publicly called for Rock to be impeached and publicly accused Rock of have lied to him about the Faculty of Arts having been consulted in an imposed budget exercise. Rock responded by belittling the student representative who had made every effort to be consulted by his faculty. (VIDEO LINK HERE)

• Mislead the Board of Governors with incorrect budget information

At the April 27, 2010, Board of Governors meeting Rock told the Board members in his briefing that the projected budget deficit was 25 M$ whereas he had previously told the media that the projected deficit was 19 M$ (without ever explaining how the figure jumped from 25 million to 19 million).

Rock only corrected himself to the Board near the end of the budget discussions and only after being confronted on the question during a break by graduate student union representative Sean Kelly (LINK).

• Lied to the media to cover up his attacks against freedom of expression

““Freedom of expression is a core value that the University of Ottawa has always promoted,” said Allan Rock, President of the University.”
– University press release, March 24, 2010.

Rock had been sent a letter in 2009 from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) explaining that the University had violated the principle of freedom of expression by banning a student poster. And in 2010, the national media had the CCLA and the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) explaining to the Rock administration that its March 2010 letter to potential speaker Ann Coulter was a violation of freedom of expression.

Therefore Rock knew that the University of Ottawa had not always promoted freedom of expression (LINK).

• Hired a student newspaper editor in the president’s office, effectively as a reward for favourable editorial support, in violation of the paper’s rules of ethics

Quite remarkable: LINK. The student retained a senior position at the paper while he was fully salaried by Rock.

Related background articles: LINK.

• Practiced flagrant disregard for student democratic and procedural rights

THIS letter from the student union was sent to Rock requesting urgent attention to student rights being violated by his administration.

The student concerns were disregarded and the student representatives were simply brushed off.

PART-II : Before becoming University of Ottawa president

• Accepted what was effectively a bribe – This put an end to Rock’s political career and showed him to be “ethically challenged”

"[Rock's] behaviour since the Irving affair became public has revealed him to be ethically challenged. […] it took Rock days to apologize. And he only grudgingly did so after Labour Minister Claudette Bradshaw rose in the Commons and offered an unqualified apology for accepting a ride on the Irving corporate jet three years ago. She also announced she was reimbursing the family for the flight."
– Ottawa Citizen, November 8, 2003, page 1.

In 2002 when the then Ethics Counsellor Howard Wilson discovered that Minister Rock had in summer 2001 accepted a private jet stay at the Irving family salmon fishing lodge, he issued a ruling that Rock was to avoid all ministerial dealings benefiting Irving enterprises for one year. During that blackout year Rock made three significant ministerial decisions benefiting Irving Shipbuilding Inc.

On investigating the latter multimillion-dollar violations, "Wilson said it 'would have be better' if a minister other than Rock had signed the $55-million grant, but noted the signature was made by a machine on instructions from Industry officials." (Ottawa Citizen)

Rock accepted the latter whitewashing that the opposition leaders called a "complete joke" but it put an end to his political and federal judgeship ambitions.


Other well known affairs:

• Deceived Parliament and the Canadian public regarding the cost of the gun registry: The costing reported to Parliament was overshot by one billion dollars.

• As Minister of Justice, Rock paid 2 million dollars to Brian Mulroney for no known reason. This was never justified. (RECENT COMMENTARY)

• As Minister of Health, Rock allowed and found justification for a dubiously discriminating attribution of reparations to tainted blood victims: Victims had to have been infected between 1986 and 1990, not before, not after.

“The offer came despite a recommendation by the report of the Krever Inquiry a year earlier, which called for compensation for anyone harmed by bad blood, regardless of when they were infected.

In just over two months, Ontario would break ranks, saying people who were infected before 1986 had waited long enough for help. The province came up with another $200 million for victims of tainted blood.

"Regardless of legal liability, all governments have a moral responsibility to Canadians who placed their faith in the blood system, and, through no fault of their own, became infected," [said Ontario Premier Mike Harris.]”
– CBC media report, July 2006.

"We've done the best we can under very difficult circumstances."
– Federal Health Minister Allan Rock, February 27, 1998.

The cost of the inadequate federal compensation package was less than the gun registry budget overshoot.

Broad-ranging media interview with Denis Rancourt about Israel's massacre in Gaza

FARS News Agency published this broad-ranging interview, done while the recent Israeli massacre in Gaza was ungoing:

Prof. Denis Rancourt: The United States Supports Israel for Constant Bloodletting in the Middle East (LINK)

TEHRAN (FNA)- A Canadian scholar and academic, who was fired from the university where he was teaching because of his pro-Palestinian viewpoints, believes the US government is funding and supporting Israel for its continued bloodletting in the Middle East.

According to Prof. Denis Rancourt, Israel's plan in the Middle East is ethnic cleansing and the total obliteration of Palestine and its citizens in order to realize a colonial, imperial agenda backed by the US military, economic and finance empire.

"Israel’s program is to eradicate or neutralize all Palestinians who make claim to a home in Palestine. This is exactly what Israel has been doing since before its artificial creation," said Prof. Rancourt in an exclusive interview with Fars News Agency.

"Israel’s program is planned incremental dispossession and an ongoing attempted genocide. This has been repeatedly and explicitly expressed by the Zionist architects and executioners," he noted.

Prof. Denis Rancourt has also praised the resistance movement in the Gaza Strip for its steadfastness against the Israeli aggression during the past two months, maintaining that it was awe-inspiring that Hamas could kill some 70 invading Israeli soldiers.

Denis Rancourt is a former professor of physics at the University of Ottawa. In the fall of 2008, he was removed from all teaching duties under the pretext that he had granted A+ grades to 23 students in one course during the winter 2008 semester; however, it's quite clear to everybody that his outspoken criticism of Israel and his pro-Palestinian activism had triggered his dismissal from the university. Prof. Rancourt's classes were always attended by tens of students and he was considered as one of the popular university professors at the Faculty of Science.

Rancourt has published more than 100 academic papers. He was a member of Ottawa-Carleton Institute for Physics and the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre. He is the author of the book "Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism."

During the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip that just ended on August 26 following the victory of Hamas and the declaration of ceasefire between the Israeli regime and the resistance movement, FNA did an interview with Prof. Denis Rancourt on the influence of the Israeli lobby over the media, politicians and universities in the West, the history of Israel-Canada relations and the international reactions to the recent Israeli war on Gaza. The following is the text of this in-depth interview. CONTINUE READING

U of O president Allan Rock and law professor Joanne St. Lewis must not sue student Hazel Gashoka

Threat of lawsuit against YouTube video

By Denis Rancourt

Hazel Gashoka earned an Honours B.A. in psychology from the University of Ottawa in 2012 and is now a graduate student in Community Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University.  As an undergraduate at the U of O, she was an activist for social justice, and in her graduating year was elected to represent students on the University Senate.

In 2008, while Gashoka was an undergraduate, the student union reported systemic racism at the University of Ottawa.  The report drew a lot of public attention and was an embarrassment to the university.  In response, the university asked U of O law professor Joanne St. Lewis to publicly "assess" the student report.  In just a few days' time, St. Lewis issued a public report questioning the validity of the student charges.

Gashoka recently made a six-minute YouTube video (imbedded below) analyzing St. Lewis's role in helping the university deflect the students' charge of racism.  (St. Lewis and Gashoka are black, and this writer is white.)

After the video was posted, St. Lewis, through a big-name lawyer hired for her by the university, sent Gashoka a notice of libel, which is a threat to sue for defamation.

 

St. Lewis is already suing former U of O physics professor Denis Rancourt for $1 million for expressing a similar view on his “U of O Watch” blog.  That defamation lawsuit, which began in 2011, is funded by the university and pursued by the same lawyer who is threatening Gashoka -- Richard Dearden of the large corporate law firm Gowlings.  University president Allan Rock testified under oath that his funding of the lawsuit against Rancourt is without a spending limit, “without a cap.”

Gashoka made public the threat that she received, and she publicly called upon Rock to “Please confirm that the University of Ottawa will not be funding a defamation lawsuit against me [her].”

In this writer’s opinion, it is morally wrong for the University of Ottawa and St. Lewis to try to silence Gashoka.  Using public funds and student tuition money to fund repressive litigation against her would be ironic, as the university claims to promote discourse and debate on matters of public interest.

Gashoka has the right to interpret the facts any way that she wants in this or any other matter of public importance.  Public controversy and debate on societal issues can be a rough trade and can involve terms that sting, but the law accommodates its requirements.  St. Lewis should not expect to be immune from criticism for the role that she played.

I call on president Allan Rock to state publicly, without further delay, that the university will not fund a lawsuit against Hazel Gashoka for her video, and to clarify the university’s criteria for funding lawsuits against its critics.

See all related posts HERE.

University president douchebag contest

From: Denis Rancourt <>
Date: Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 2:53 PM
Subject: your treatment of Nick Day
To: Daniel Woolf [Principal/President, Queen's University, Canada]

Dear Daniel,

I recently read your blog post about your March 10th meeting with student Rector Nick Day. I also read Mr. Day's article posted at rabble.ca.

I am outraged to witness a university president overstep accepted bounds of fairness and ethical collegial behaviour to the extent that you have in this matter, not to mention your outright disregard for academic freedom and foundational principles of representative democracy.

If your behaviour is allowed to stand without a retraction and apology then Canadian academia will have reached a new low regarding the extent to which a president (principal) can disregard accepted norms in both the university environment and in society for treating others, and student representatives in particular.

I am disturbed by your actions.

I was compelled to blog about this matter here:
http://uofowatch.blogspot.com/2011/03/university-president-douchebag-contest.html

"Douchebag" is an insult. It is not libel. What you have done to Mr. Day is, among other things, both defamatory and libelous. And you have done it from your position as a public figure.

Please send me any needed corrections about my blog post, if there is something I have misunderstood.

Sincerely,
Dr. Denis G. Rancourt
Former physics professor, University of Ottawa

Cc: Civil society, supporters of academic freedom

RELATED POSTS:
Original letter to Ignatieff by Nick Day - rabble.ca
The Canadian Zionism Question
Comparing two red-tie Liberals on Israel war crimes

This is Canada::: We recycle... failed politicians

Allan Rock, president, University of Ottawa

QUESTION: Can a Canadian federal minister and Prime Ministerial hopeful ousted for ethical breaches and sent off to the United Nations come home to become president of one of the country's preeminent universities?

ANSWER: Meet Allan Rock.

This university president has a record of ethical breaches as long as the Saint Lawrence Seaway: HERE.

Only in Canada is memory so short and history so easy to erase. We know of no other such university president in North America.

See all the "This is Canada" posts

Denis Rancourt interviewed on the Progressive Radio News Hour -- Globalization, G20, liberation

Denis Rancourt was interviewed (July 10, 2010) on Stephen Lendman's The Progressive Radio News Hour show at PRN (Progressive Radio Network).

Follow the podcast radio interview recording HERE:

• At the start of the interview Rancourt describes the University of Ottawa Allan Rock fiasco with Ann Coulter in the broad context of how university's are affected by financial globalization.

• At the 18:20 time mark Rancourt starts his commentary about the G20-Toronto mass police aggression against peaceful citizens.

• At the 39:10 time mark Rancourt comments about "grass roots" resistance and about the loss of Canadian sovereignty.

• At the 51:40 time mark Rancourt describes "liberation activism" in opposition to "opinion management" preoccupations.

Who is Allan Rock and why was Denis Rancourt fired?

Analysis of a temper tantrum gone viral

“When Liberal Party heavyweight Allan Rock took over as president at the University of Ottawa this September [2008], many wondered what would be in store for Denis Rancourt.”
--Jesse Freeston, journalist [1]

“We conclude that the charges advanced against Denis Rancourt are a contrived pretext, that they are preposterous as reasons to summarily remove a tenured professor, and that, therefore, the real reasons must lie elsewhere.”
-- Members of College and University Workers United [2]

“I have been following, with interest, the case of Marc Kelly - an under-graduate at the University of Ottawa who appears to be the victim of an outrageous vendetta brought against him by the President of that University, Allan Rock.”
--blogger (sophos) [3]

It is difficult to know how decisions are made because hierarchical institutions do everything they can to hide their true inner workings.

Nonetheless the chronology of events and the leakages of some documents allow one to advance plausible versions.

PRE-ROCK POST-ROCK

Until Allan Rock became president of the University of Ottawa in 2008, the previous administration, starting in 2005, was involved only in relatively moderate schemes to contain radical physics professor Denis Rancourt in his incessant applications of pedagogical advances and social justice and community outreach practices.

Pre-Rock containment attempts included [4]: removing the professor from all large first-year courses which he had developed, barring him from reserving an auditorium for his popular weekly documentary film and discussion series, arbitrarily imposing new academic rules in violation of Senate procedures (until overturned via a union grievance), an in-class dean’s intervention for which the university was later forced to apologize, allowing unethical attacks by a departmental chairman until the university was forced to intervene, fabrication of a student complaint (which the university withdrew), multiple contrived disciplinary campaigns that were dropped without explanation, and unjustified discipline for course content that was overturned by a labour law arbitrator.

In all of this tug of war over academic freedom the previous administration did not appear to contemplate outright dismissal and did not ever threaten dismissal. The first threats of dismissal came with Rock.

Only after Rock’s arrival did the administration’s methods become much more severe and physical, to include everything up to denial of due process, complete banning from all teaching, an unannounced laboratory lockout, unjustified firing of a research associate of 12-years (later settled out of court), threatening graduate students with loss of scholarships, banning of the professor from his weekly campus radio show using threat of police arrest, and forceful police arrest with handcuffs and removal while attending a campus event [5][6].

MORE THAN THE ISRAEL LOBBY AT WORK

Although the professor had received several disciplinary attempts and internal criticisms for hosting invited speakers who were critical of Israel in his classes in 2005 and 2006 and had widely expressed and published his own criticisms of Israel, and although Allan Rock is a known staunch supporter of Israeli policies and has directly intervened on campus on multiple occasions to impose his views on Israel [7][8][9], the sudden and fast-tracked decision to fire Rancourt may not have been primarily driven by Israel-Palestine politics, as is often the case in high-profile firings in North America [10].

In hind-sight, the chronology of events suggests otherwise, suggests that something suddenly irked Rock at an even more visceral level than his allegiance to the Israel lobby.

For example, renowned critic of Israeli policy and colleague professor Michel Chossudovsky (editor of GlobalResearch.ca) was not executed by Rock but only pressured into early retirement and retained part-time status.

It was more than the Israel lobby that drove Rock to his extremes of both urgency and intensity.

CHRONOLOGY TALKS

Let’s examine the chronology, including key campus events that involved Allan Rock. Here is how it went down.

Physics-mathematics student Marc Kelly (now of youTube fame [11]) took a fourth-year quantum mechanics course that Rancourt gave in the winter semester of 2008. The pedagogical method was unusual for a physics course and involved a non-competitive student-centered approach with an emphasis on in-class discussions. This caused some students in the class to question the pedagogical methods being used in their other courses.

Marc Kelly questioned the nature of the tests and assignments in a statistical physics course that he was taking concurrently with professor James Harden. Harden, was not receptive to the student’s questions and belittled Marc in front of the class and verbally intimidated him out of his office while nonetheless allowing the student to do a project instead of the final examination, only to refuse the project after the course was over and to attribute a failing grade without considering the project.

Student Kelly appealed this first to Harden, then to the physics department chairman Bela Joos, then to the vice-dean of science Leonard Kleine, then to the dean of science André E. Lalonde, then to the vice-president academic Robert Major, and finally to the president Allan Rock. In these appeals Kelly documented every step and put all those concerned and their superiors in cc. The saga is reported in a series of posts on UofOWatch and elsewhere [12].

Rock chose to not acknowledge or respond to Kelly’s emails. So, on Monday November 3, 2008, Kelly went to Rock’s office to chat with him about his ordeal.

That is when things took a nasty turn. Rock went ballistic on Kelly and repeatedly yelled at him to verbally intimidate him away in a disrespectful episode that could be enough to get a professor fired.

Fortunately, Kelly voice recorded the encounter and was therefore able to defend himself. Kelly posted the voice recording on the web and sent the link [13] by mass email to all the students and staff at the University of Ottawa (over 40,000 emails). (Even this exposed culmination of mistreatment did not result in justice for Kelly and his final project in the statistical physics course was never considered.)

Rock in turn sent a message to the university community in which he expressed “regret” by blaming Kelly. What followed was uninterrupted persecution of Mark Kelly. He was arbitrarily barred from his student-nominated position on a key university committee, unilaterally deregistered from a physics project course, pursued on multiple (a dozen or so) bogus criminal charges that were dropped, arrested in a class where he was invited to speak, arrested at an event where he was the main presenter (then let go without charges), barred from registering for all courses required to complete his degree, trespassed from campus, and ultimately pursued criminally again for allegedly violating his trespass. Concerted formal protests from both the student union and the union of teacher assistant have been to no avail. [12]

TV TALK SHOW PUTS IT OVER THE TOP

Following the November 3, 2008, verbal intimidation event in Rock’s office, Rancourt was coincidently invited on a pre-scheduled TV talk show (Talk Ottawa) to discuss his academic freedom struggles at the University of Ottawa. The TV interview was held live on the evening of November 12, 2008 [14]. During the call-in segment of the show, Mark Kelly called the studio and was put on air. The host had heard of the incident with Rock and the recording of Rock’s verbal intimidation was played on air from the web.

Rancourt then commented on air that he was appalled at the president’s behaviour and stated that a professor would be fired for treating a student that way.

Within days of this TV show Rancourt and his eight graduate students and research employee were locked out of their laboratory without any notice or forewarning on November 21, 2008. Following this, Rancourt was banned from campus and removed of all his functions on December 10, 2008, when he was escorted off the grounds by campus police. In an accelerated process like has never been seen at the University of Ottawa, Rancourt was then stripped of his tenure and fired on March 31, 2009, by an executive committee that included the membership of a prominent Ottawa Zionist organizer and Allan Rock himself.

It therefore appears that Rancourt was fired under public Israel lobby pressures because Allan Rock was irked beyond rational response by scholarship and award-nominated student and published scientific author Marc Kelly who remains banned from campus like a dangerous criminal.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) chief, Nathalie Des Rosiers, who continues to receive a salary from the University of Ottawa after serving under Rock as a vice president, has a different opinion about why Rancourt was fired [15].


Notes

[1] Opening line in “Dismissing critical pedagogy – Denis Rancourt vs. University of Ottawa”, best of rabble.ca 3 - book, Jenn Watt (Ed.) (First posted on web January 12, 2009.)

[2] Open letter from members of College and University Workers United (CUWU) (http://cdecde.blogspot.com/2010/03/members-of-college-and-university.html).

[3] http://stopthenightmare-wakeup.blogspot.com/2010/05/curious-case-of-marc-kelly.html (Posted May 18, 2010.)

[4] List of outstanding and resolved labour law grievances and outcomes: http://rancourt.academicfreedom.ca/background/formalgrievances.html

[5] Background information at AcademicFreedom.ca: http://rancourt.academicfreedom.ca/

[6] Report by workplace mobbing expert Dr. Kenneth Westhues:
http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/Rancourt09.htm

[7] Statement by Denis Rancourt regarding his dismissal:
http://rancourt.academicfreedom.ca/component/content/article/25.html

[8] Allan Rock background and actions at the University of Ottawa: http://uofowatch.blogspot.com/2010/04/allan-rock-u-of-o-mistake-was-avoidable.html

[9] Allan Rock and the Israel lobby – on and off campus:
http://uofowatch.blogspot.com/2010/03/comparing-two-red-tie-liberals-on.html

[10] Nocella et al. (Eds.), Academic Repression, 2010, AK Press, 590 pages.

[11] youTube videos of Mark Kelly being arrested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiZ0VVKDGNE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbY1nBTtSUI

[12] Articles about Marc Kelly on the UofOWatch blog:
http://uofowatch.blogspot.com/search/label/Marc%20Kelly

[13] The true face of Allan Rock – post on UofOVoice blog:
http://uofovoice.blogspot.com/2008/11/true-face-of-allan-rock.html

[14] Talk Ottawa with James Hendricks, Rogers TV (Ottawa), Wednesday November 12, 2008, 9pm to 10pm.

[15] CCLA’s Nathalie Des Rosiers on why Rancourt was fired:
http://uofowatch.blogspot.com/2010/05/author-calls-on-canadian-civil.html

Video evidence of emergent fascism at Canada's university

Two recent posts have developed the thesis that Canada's university is sliding away from collegial governance and towards fascism (i.e., corporate control):

Canadian Education as an Impetus towards Fascism

On Rock's corporatization of campus governance

Well, now the students are providing video evidence of this distasteful institutional trend...

Canadian Education as an Impetus towards Fascism

by Denis G. Rancourt
December 2009

[This article was first published in the 2009 vol.1 issue.2 of JASTE (Journal for Activist Science & Technology Education) pages 68-77.]

Summary – I review my more than 40 years experience with the educational system in (Ontario) Canada, from my days as student to my 2009 dismissal as a tenured physics professor at the University of Ottawa, and conclude that a transformation of the student persona has accompanied the imposed system reforms and that this persona reflects real psychological change towards an increased inability for independent thought and an inability to discern one’s own learning. I argue that both the system reforms and the individual transformations of students are consistent with a pattern towards fascism occurring in a global disruptive and predatory economic hierarchy during rising economic power-coalescence. The nature of my political dismissal for attempting to resist the reforms – including an abrupt laboratory lockout, intimidations and firing of graduate students and a junior researcher, forceful police arrests of students and of a professor for participating in a public campus event, disregarding due process, and the recently proven hiring of a journalism student as “agent of University Legal Counsel” to perform extensive covert surveillance (from 2006 to 2008) – is also an indicator of emergent fascism.



I am 52 years old. I did high school and university, two graduate degrees, have a Ph.D., and two years of post-doctoral studies in leading scientific laboratories. I was tenured and a physics university professor for 23 years, during which I taught over 2000 students at all levels, until they fired me in 2009. [1] One of Canada’s most decorated scientists has said that I am one of Canada’s top research scientists. [2] I want to talk about my experience as a teacher.

Observing the Canadian (Ontario) educational system from the inside, both as a student and as a teacher and also as a researcher of education, I witnessed a dramatic transformation of the student persona (over the span of approximately 30 years.) I infer a deep transformation in the young person’s psychology.

***

FREEDOM BREEDS INDEPENDENCE. I remember grade-eight; the whole class being left the entire afternoon to figure out a math problem after the mind twister had been carefully explained. You could debate it, ask questions, test attempts, do whatever you wanted. Some just spent the whole time explaining to others what the problem was. And it didn’t really matter if you solved it, in the sense that it was not required. You did it because it was the fun way that the adult proposed an equal to equal interaction, an authentic and dedicated interaction. For others it was a personal challenge or a chance to contribute uniquely to the overall effort.

Just a regular public school with a principal who was back from professional development… This happened all the time. One retired dad would come in for “science afternoons” and tell stories about technological developments and research areas that he had been reading about in popular science magazines.

I only learned to read when I eventually found something I wanted to read (how to breed aquarium fish). I only learned math when it made sense to me because I could see that the teacher understood it, so I knew there was something there to understand. I never learned anything from repetitive mechanical busywork or from regurgitating something on a test – never.

In my working class to middle class and suburban childhood, all I did outside of school was exactly what I could organize with my friends. There was always a ditch with insects and frogs in it. There was always a fort or a go-cart or a terrarium to build from stolen materials. There was always a neighbourhood-wide game of something. There was always a place to hide to experiment with matches or cigarettes or kissing. You only had to decide and re-decide and change your mind and tell others. School homework was a ten-minute affair except when you had school projects you liked.

Yes there was bullying and meanness but you worked out how to survive it rather than be completely managed by keeper adults. And there was racism and classism (and I was a “frog” in a harsh Anglo setting) but we negotiated protection rather than be subjected to limiting controls imposed by adults.

In stark contrast, today’s 24/7 structure on young peoples’ lives, today’s institutionalization and youth management practices, do not resemble the conditions that enable independent thinking.

***

STUDENT TRANSFORMED. When I started teaching, students were generally self-confident and bold by today’s standards. They would challenge me on the relevance of the material and point out when I was being repetitious. It was not difficult to elicit sincere feedback from the students and the students had the expectation that their feedback would be heeded.

Fast forward to the last five years or more and the students have segregated into two in-class-behaviour groups: formless sleep walkers and cookie-cutter keeners wanting to know if I could please assign more practice problems or more reading and could they volunteer for something.

It has been like waking up to a nightmare. There are more tests, exams, and homework than ever before and the dynamic performance of reliving and sharing discovery at the blackboard or in discussion has been replaced by dead-on-delivery PowerPoint presentations. And the students now expect this linear and bulleted format and are prepared without allergic reaction to regurgitate slide content on command and in any clicking order. [3] [4] [5]

More frightening than the glare of the projector and the everything-is-on-the-screen environment, however, is what I perceive of the student soul. Barring from-privilege nonchalance, the empty eyes translate a range of states from indifference to hopelessness to powerlessness to superficial engagement based on illusory impressions of having received intellectual nourishment.

The “ah-ha” moments (actual outbursts in class) and office-hour testimonies (teary-eyed and chocked up) of having “really” understood have been replaced with “it’s obvious; I get it; I can do it”. And, of course, the good grades reward this empty charade and train the student to judge his/her understanding on the basis of externalities rather than anchor this judgement in self-generated knowledge. [6] [7]

As a result, the majority of students have never developed the ability to discern when they do and do not understand something and they do not develop this ability in their undergraduate degrees. [ENDNOTE-1]

Students don’t know when they don’t know or when they do. Now how did that happen?

Partly the observed change was because more of the students were from the working and lower-middle classes and from the CEGEP system of Quebec, before the tuition fees were made to skyrocket. Partly it was because the students were a year older before Ontario’s “Harris revolution” arbitrarily cut one year from high school. Partly it was because the Harris revolution turned high school teachers into hurried and overworked (but well paid) delivery machines rather than respected professionals entitled to professional development and independence.

Partly the change accompanied a broader societal transformation from the relative economic freedom and middle-class workplace spiritual coolness of the sixties to the constraining obsession for “efficiency” brought on by manufactured crises used to justify redesigning the tax structure (from progressive to fascist) and crushing the workforce into submitting to the new regime. The new paradigms became “competitiveness” and prostitution to venture capitalists – a government-led campaign to mortgage both our natural resources and our labour futures and to attract the most ruthless global occupiers to practice extortion by debt.

The message to grade-school students went from “you can do anything you choose” to “you need to prepare for a competitive environment”.

As parents were put through the ringer, there were few adults at home and kids needed to be farmed out. So started the era of every freaking kid sports and extra classes and music and dance lessons and club and volunteer activity until you die driving them. According to the same “news” media that explained the virtues of attracting investors, the world became a dangerous place filled with child molesters and kidnappers on every corner and no kid could simply play outside.

At the present stage of the transformation in student psychology, my fourth-year physics students were initially telling me things like:

“I won’t learn if you don’t force me to.”
“Grades are what motivate me to learn.”

They were quite sincere. Frightening. The only way for such utterances to be compatible with a sustainable self-image is to have never experienced (or have no memory of) learning. Such is the present state of education. Canada’s developing military economy has no need for independent thinkers or learners. Do what we show you when we say. Period.

***

MARCH TOWARDS FASCISM. This means that we are expected to give up two components that are generally believed to be needed for human development and fulfilment: meaningful creative work and a true political influence. [8] [9] And what is love between individuals that cannot uniquely contribute to and transform community? What is love outside of community? It is difficult to mate caged animals.

Further, this is a change to the type of personality, socio-psychologists tell us, which is the defining prerequisite among individuals for fascism to take hold. [10] Fascism is not a distant historical anomaly. It is an optimum end-state towards which large-scale disruptive and predatory economic hierarchies tend. It is the state of total and unchallenged control of every facet of life by corporate masters of the economy, achieved by an optimized balance of force and a designed mental and social environment. Independent thought is eliminated and the possibility of even contemplating individual influence is rendered foreign. Fascism cannot be fully achieved by control of the mental (media) environment alone. The key institutions of education, organized leisure, and work must be aligned with the fascist project.

Several analysts have pointed out that the US plutocracy is already in an advanced stage of fascism. [11] This is relevant to Canada which has now integrated the US military economy to an unprecedented degree, from mythical peace-keeper to geopolitical architect and occupier. [12]

At the same time that globalization gave us bigger bosses who controlled more of our lives; professionals within public institutions went along with every evermore far reaching paradigm of social engineering and every evermore extreme application of the religion of the boss-controlled financial markets as the ultimate social remedy. At the same time that national economies were transformed into jurisdictions of foreign and mega-capital exploitation-by-investment and at the same time that markets for untested pharmaceuticals and agri-food practices were opened by putting the bosses in charge of public safety; the schools were being fitted with “standards and accountability” and after-school free time was being made “dangerous and wasteful.” [4] [5] Working parents were told to “rise to the challenge” of global market competition which in turn was used to legitimize losses of entire regional economic sectors as mega-capital prospected the globe for maximum returns.

That’s a lot of change; facilitated by always increasingly inhumane global monetary policy and expanding “free trade” zones. Acceptance, or rather compliance, by the First World middle class is carefully monitored and engineered at every step. A pivotal component is to prevent the development of independent thought and intellectual discernment so that fabricated concerns and their solutions can be received and adopted, so that superficial political oppositions can occupy all the space of allowed political “debate.”

How else can the present degree of widespread First World middle class stupidity be explained? The same psycho-socio-economic pattern from rising economic power-coalescence has been described to explain Italian and Nazi fascism. [10] The main difference today is a relative absence of imposed school uniforms but the same institutional drives to impose monochromaticity of thought and reactions are apparent; indeed too obvious to be seen. Radical elements are most expeditiously either “educated” or culled.

***

MAKING CHANGE. Next is what I tried to do about it on my watch. The dominant mythology was that I had “academic freedom” and that academic freedom was absolute protection for authentic pedagogical developments based on research and experience – that academic freedom was the safeguard that made the system work and that allowed for advancement and corrections.

My first response was to try to improve my classes more of less within mainstream practice. This led only to different degrees of self-deception and was ultimately unbearably frustrating. Students were receptive and pleased but learning remained superficial. Students did not own the material and could not project it creatively. They were happier bluffers. (The stuff good managers are made of.)

In parallel, I lashed out with letters calling for reform, to my bosses, and to committees and commissions charged with evaluating programs and education. These fell in a vacuum. There were no responses. I must have appeared crazy.

Finally, after much study and discussion with experts and an international group of physics teachers practicing critical pedagogy, I decided to break with half measures and to implement the full deal, without compromise.

In 2005 I practiced what became known as academic squatting and occupied a course as a critical pedagogue, giving the course to the co-occupiers, to the students and community members. It was dubbed the activism course. [13] The Dean of the Faculty of Science tried to kill it. The students rebelled and won. I was disciplined. I won the arbitration and a legal analysis journal summarized the award in a review entitled “Teaching Science through Social Activism is Protected by Academic Freedom, Arbitrator Rules.” [14]

The course was a sensation among students and community members. One student concluded: “Everything else is the same. This is different.” The following year (2006), thanks to unprecedented student demand and protest, it was given under a new official name in the largest auditorium on campus. That year some students sued the university for not providing enough teacher assistants for the course while two other students sued for being deregistered by the university on the basis of age discrimination, all creative political initiatives that I celebrated. Both cases made media headlines. The activism course was never allowed again. [15]

I then expanded these methods into all my courses, while being subjected to a broad disciplinary campaign of repression. The method, adapted as needed, applied to a traditional first-year physics course gave outstanding results throughout the semester and in the final examination. It was the most rewarding first-year traditional physics teaching experience I have ever had. One enthusiastic teacher assistant who came to all the classes on her own time chose to short-circuit her graduate physics degree to start an education program. (I was disciplined for supervisor deficiency as “evidenced” by the fact that she did not finish her physics graduate degree.) The course was removed from me the following year. [16]

Such was the fervour of my dedication to uncompromised education from 2005 on. I also exposed the University’s treatment of me and others in a detailed blog and the administration’s questionable politics, including all the examples of executive malfeasance that I could document. [17]

And I lectured to encourage others to occupy their classes, and promoted anarchism as a pedagogical development tool. The University hired a student journalist spy to covertly voice-record and transcribe my radical talks given on other campuses. The student reported directly to University Legal Counsel who, in turn, forwarded the recordings and transcripts to the VP-Academic. [18a] [18b]

Legal Counsel Michelle Flaherty abruptly left the University at approximately the same time that a covert voice recording was lost from the record that I have obtained via access to information law. [18b] She is now a vice-Chair (judge) with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.

To make a long story short, I was fired in 2009, following the arrival of former federal politician and former Minister of Justice Allan Rock as incoming president, after his verbal abuse of a student activist was exposed during a local television interview of me. [19][go to Nov.12 2008 video]

I was instantly and without warning locked out of my laboratory and office; accompanied off campus by university police. My research associate was fired without warning or explanation. My graduate students were removed and intimidated into choosing new supervisors. I was barred from my weekly documentary film and discussion series and from my weekly campus radio show. When I returned for a discussion night event I was arrested, handcuffed, and taken to Ottawa Police headquarters. [1] [19] [20]

Mr. Rock has repeatedly stated that all proper procedures were followed in my dismissal.

It appears that former Minister of Justice Allan Rock is of the opinion that, among other things, hiring a student journalist as “agent of University Legal Counsel” to practice extensive covert surveillance of me and students, from 2006 to 2008 and using such methods as a false Facebook identity to infiltrate student activist groups, constitutes simply “following procedure.”

On the contrary, I read the Rock administration’s actions as additional signs of emerging fascism. [21]

Hopefully, the arbitrator of my dismissal case will be a true independent thinker, if my union lets it get that far. (I want my classroom back so I can give it to the students.)

***

NOW IS THE TIME. My “progressive” colleagues have suggested that I had good ideas and good intensions but that my methods or my timing were ill-chosen. One colleague stated that you can study activism and you can teach activism but you cannot practice activism within academe. Several other colleagues commented that everything would have been fine if I had been quiet about it all. These reactions from the professoriate arise from the now age-old question of “separation between inquiry and reform” which has been at the heart of the debate about academic freedom since the nineteenth century. [22]

I have examined the work of my progressive colleagues and interviewed hundreds of students and dozens of experts about education and societal change and I am at a loss to find anything in what mainstream progressive pedagogues have done that slows the march towards fascism or creates cracks that allow some light to shine out from the hearts of students or shine in from the real world outside. [23] [24]

All of the transformations of North American mainstream education in recent decades have come from above and none have been effectively resisted by teachers or parents or students. There have been no grassroots initiatives affecting the mainstream classroom, no discoveries, no rebellion, nothing that has caught on. There has been only regression since 1968; the crest of the last period of momentary enlightenment when it was understood that teaching is impossible and that learning can only be stopped by suppression.

The schools have gobbled feminism and anti-oppression whole and spit out victims asking for a fairer society with better “protections.” The fire of rebellion has been replaced with “education” to train the oppressor to not oppress. Solidarity has come to mean being “like-minded.” Lifestyle choices have been re-invented as power politics. Modern medical practice is generally believed to contribute positively to public health, whereas one brave leading researcher suggests that it is the third leading cause of death, after everything cancer and everything cardio-vascular. [25] The “right to not be disturbed” has emerged alongside the rights to life and freedom. CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has been “scientifically discovered” to be the main threat to humankind … Widespread First World middle class stupidity you say?

In physics there has emerged an area of research called “physics education research” (PER) and its only significant achievement has been to somewhat convincingly demonstrate that traditional physics education does not work, something every physics instructor who has ever graded a final examination with real questions knows.

And now the PER community moves on, to find better methods to teach physics concepts, within the confines of the vacuum that is a single discipline, in a world where “personal initiative” means dedication to accomplishing prescribed tasks and where “critical thinking” means finding better ways to support the corporate or institutional ideology of the day, and without a radical examination of the central question of intrinsic motivation. [26]

No. Now is the time to fight back and fighting back is the only real method. Now is the time for teachers and students and parents to take back the classroom. Classroom squatting is the most effective and radical (i.e., “to the root”) thing that teachers and students and parents can do. It is the most that teachers and students can do and it is the only thing that teachers and students can do that will help. And we must do it publicly so that we may join forces and to inspire others to do the same. [13]

In the words of Paulo Freire, arguably the greatest pedagogue, “You can only fight your own oppression.” He added that we were all oppressed by hierarchy and that the oppressed young person could only find liberation (growth, learning) if she managed to find “authentic rebellion.” [8] ●


[ENDNOTE-1] [START]

In the last course that I was allowed to teach (winter 2008) I was able to make a striking demonstration of the latter point, that student can no longer discern their own learning. It was a combined final (4th) year and graduate course in solid state physics, with 24 students in the class. At the start of the semester I needed to open up the possibility that maybe the students did not know when they understood a physics concept, in order to encourage deeper self-examination about the individual learning process.

I said “let’s look at Newton’s action-reaction law from first-year physics”. Eyes rolled. I drew a student on the green board, standing on a floor, and I drew an arrow pointing down to represent the force of the earth’s gravity on the stick-figure student. I said “OK, that is the action, what is the reaction?” “Forces come in pairs according to Newton’s action-reaction law.” “So what is the correct force to complete this pair?”

One student did not want to give a public answer and abstained. A few students said it would be the gravitational force exerted on the earth due to the mass of the stick-figure student. All the other students said that the reaction was the force that the floor exerted on the student to keep the stick-figure from being drawn to the centre of the earth.

I explained the question again in a different way to make certain that I had been understood, answered some questions of clarification, and asked if the students wanted to change their answers.

Some of these students were teaching or had taught this material as teacher assistants and all had used it extensively in their school work. The majority answer was wrong and I explained why it was wrong. I explained that this wrong answer demonstrates that the central concept could not possibly have been understood.

The students were shocked. It was a jaw dropper. One student said I had tricked them in the way I had asked the question. Several students (who had given the wrong answer) came to my defence and said no, that I had been very clear and that I had stated the question clearly in several ways.

Newton’s action-reaction law expresses a fundamental property of nature: Forces cannot exist on their own. Forces arise from interactions between bodies. The earth cannot act on the student via gravity without the student acting via gravity and in the same magnitude on the earth. Both forces (in this example) arise from the gravitational interaction between the two bodies. All pair-wise interactions (gravitational, electric, etc.) must affect both bodies equally. The action-reaction force-pair is an interaction-pair… a very deep and subtle concept about the nature of all interactions and all forces – a true discovery.

To be fair, many professors, including my former Physics Department Chairman, Dr. Bela Joos, have told their first-year students that the reaction is the force from the floor, and have gone into detailed explanations, year after year, as to how this arises; until I asked the doctor to explain it to me at coffee one day, having quizzed his former students in a second-semester course.

In the end, all the students in my winter-2008 solid state course (except one who dropped the course) progressed exceptionally well and all received A+ as a final grade. Dr. Joos probably also had many A+ grades in his student career but my findings suggest that he may not have deserved them?

[ENDNOTE-1] [END]


Unlinked References:

[4] “The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing” by Alfie Kohn

[5] “Teaching By Numbers - Deconstructing the Discourse of Standards and Accountability in Education” by Peter M. Taubman

[8] “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by Paulo Freire

[9] “Compulsory Mis-education and The Community of Scholars” by Paul Goodman

[10] “The Fear of Freedom” (UK edition) / “Escape from Freedom” (US edition) by Erich Fromm

[22] “No Ivory Tower” by Ellen Schrecker

[25] Starfield, Barbara (2000, July 26). Is US health really the best in the world? Journal of the American Medical Association, 284(4), 483-485.

List of other essays by Denis G. Rancourt:
www.academicfreedom.ca/blogs/essays