Stupor, incomprehension, a strong sense of absurdity, injustice and above all “absolute disbelief”. This is what most of the 34 professors at the University of Ottawa who publicly came to the defense of Verushka Lieutenant-Duval felt in 2020, at the heart of the storm.
Let’s remember: on September 23, 2020, this visual arts lecturer “spoke” the n-word (in English) during the second session of the course Art and Gender, given at a distance, in order to explain to his students a theoretical concept — “subversive resignification”. On October 2, after a complaint was made, the professor was suspended by the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, without ever having been able to make her side of the story heard.
The case, made public, quickly aroused the indignation of 34 professors of the University of Ottawa, who reacted on October 16 in an open letter, where they expressed their disagreement with the treatment reserved by the University to Verushka Lieutenant-Duval, while defending the principles of academic freedom.
They took it badly. A virulent campaign of cyberbullying has begun to unfold, led by students and colleagues who believe they belong to the “camp of good”, all as militant as they are outraged. While some called for “re-education”, others accused them of “blindly” defending academic freedom or did not hesitate to label the 34 signatories as “white supremacists” – most of whom nevertheless believed themselves to be progressive, leftist and anti-racist.
To try to understand what took place, to document the events and also to try to exorcise this “crisis” through words, the idea of a collective was born. Freedoms abused. Chronicle of a troubled year at the University of Ottawa today brings together a dozen texts around what is known today as the “Lieutenant-Duval affair”.
“The Lieutenant Duval Affair”
“It’s a bit special, because it’s not the work we’re used to, which is more objective, more distanced,” says Nelson Charest, associate professor, attached to the Department of French at the University of Ottawa. We knew that we also had to testify, but we tried to do so with a kind of fair measure: to testify personally, but with the university perspective that is ours. »
Professor Charest is part of the “group of 34”, which has been reduced over the course of a few defections to a core of about twenty professors, and signs one of the collective’s twelve texts – which also includes a meticulous chronology events. “There is also an almost therapeutic aspect for us. We had the impression that we had been at the center of a crisis, without necessarily being part of it. A crisis which, for the most part, opposed, he recalls, the administration of the University of Ottawa to Verushka Lieutenant-Duval.
“I’m not used to thinking in terms of imperatives,” he admits. Taking some distance, considering things calmly and calmly, this is rather the spirit that guided the writing of these texts, fueled by the desire to do something constructive.
According to the professor, this storm has been exacerbated by many factors: the pandemic context and the mental health problems caused by confinement, the murder of George Floyd and the death of Joyce Echaquan, a university administration practicing “arbitrary governance”, as well as the not only bilingual reality of the University of Ottawa, but also “bicultural”. With a hint of Francophobia, transparent in the form of hateful insults, like ” Fucking Frogs “. Without forgetting, of course, the growing presence of teachers with precarious status at the University of Ottawa.
In the eyes of Nelson Charest, struck like many of his colleagues by the Manichaeism and the lack of restraint in the attacks, these are the main ingredients of the “chaos” which prevailed during the fall of 2020.
“Academic freedom is part of my modus operandi : I bathe in it. For me, it was obvious,” says Nelson Charest, who admits, however, that he was surprised by the introduction of racism and anti-racism into the debate afterwards. Even if a certain word was spoken, in an academic setting with “traumergy warning” in the lesson plan and all possible quotation marks.
“If I teach Whore, of Nelly Arcan, and that you present me as a promoter of prostitution, I am not going to understand. But, to be honest, academic freedom was not my primary concern. It was first and foremost a matter of labor law. The question of a lecturer who is not defended by his administration. From there, I no longer need to think. I have to take a stand. »
Clientelism at the university
This is the principle that guided the approach of these professors, often engaged in their personal and academic journey in favor of openness to other cultures and equality between men and women – just think of Pierre Anctil or Sylvie Paquerot.
The authors of the texts Manhandled freedoms question themselves about the pitfalls of self-censorship and try to reflect on the consequences of this crisis on their discipline. Others do not hesitate to point the finger at “wokism” and ” critical race theory “, which would be at the source of the “powerful wave of unreason” which has hit many universities in North America for several years.
In his heart, Manhandled freedoms also carries a long interview with Verushka Lieutenant-Duval, in which she recounts, still traumatized by the events, having since given up teaching in English (she who was however trained at Bishop and at Concordia). She also confides that she “seriously” thought about suicide. She was and remains, recalls François Charbonneau in the text he devotes to the events, “the only real victim of this affair”.
For Nelson Charest, as for most of the members of the group of 34, beyond the militancy of a few students (admirable in certain respects), the responsibility of the University of Ottawa in this affair is beyond doubt, and it is total. The question of the structure of university administrations and the clientelism that afflicts universities are the greatest threats to academic freedom today.
“The independence of institutions is closely linked to the question of academic freedom,” continues Nelson Charest. There are still collusions locally between university associations and certain companies, but what is even more serious in my opinion, which is more subtle and more perverse, is that there is also a dependence on 1000, 2000 , 30,000 payers, who become donors. And this is where, in my opinion, it becomes problematic. »