From the statement by Denis Rancourt, a physics professor, on his firing by the University of Ottawa at the end of March:
under the false pretext of having arbitrarily assigned high grades in
one course in the winter 2008 semester…
I have communicated my views on a variety of broad societal issues, including:
environmental concerns
professional ethics
the Palestine-Israel conflict
the influences of lobby groups and the media in our representative democracy
The university's response to the concerns that I have raised has been to attempt to silence me through a series of disciplinary actions
based on various false pretexts. All of these actions have either been
dismissed, abandoned by the university, rejected by an arbitrator, or
are heading to arbitration for likely rejection. The latest pretext
used by the university, the grading issue, will not be upheld, for
obvious reasons already determined by a previous arbitration award. ..
It appears that among the real reasons for the university’s attempts to discipline me since September 2005 and for its recent most harsh actions against me under President Allan Rock’s
mandate might be the administration’s opposition to my political views
about the Palestine-Israel conflict, which, starting in 2005, I have
expressed in articles, on radio, in my blog postings, at public venues,
and in my classes. In September 2005 the dean cancelled my Physics and
the Environment course following a complaint (regarding an email
comment about Zionism), channelled through the university’s Canadian Studies Institute director Pierre Anctil to the VP-Academic. A complaint against an invited speaker in the course, Professor Michel Chossudovsky
– who spoke about Middle East geopolitics– from the Jewish Student
Association then gave rise to a sustained but failed attempt to
discipline me. In 2006 I invited two Canadian-Palestinian speakers to
address the class in my Science in Society course. This was followed
by a damning January-2007 editorial in The Ottawa Citizen
and I was subsequently removed from teaching all the first-year courses
that I had developed. The Ottawa Citizen is a CanWest newspaper and
its director is a member of the university’s Board of Governors. CanWest Global Communications Corporation
is a staunch advocate and supporter of Israeli policy. In 2007 I
criticized the university’s official position on the academic boycott
of Israel on my UofOWatch.blogspot.com blog. The repression against me intensified when new university president
Allan Rock, a staunch supporter of Israeli policy, arrived on the
scene in July 2008….
The facts indicate that my dismissal has little to do with grading in
one course and is blatantly political. Such repression violates the
most fundamental principles underlying academia — academic freedom,
professional independence and responsibility, and due process — and is
a threat to the integrity of all universities.
It also
appears that the university's true objective, and a direct consequence
of its actions, in first suspending me and then firing me for motives
based in bad faith, is to end not only my employment, but also my
career, thereby causing me considerable personal losses in addition to
dissolution of my research group.
