A year and a half ago, 34 professors at the University of Ottawa were plunged into turmoil after coming to the defense of lecturer Verushka Lieutenant-Duval. In Manhandled freedoms, which appears on Wednesday, the group recounts the crisis seen from the inside. And warns academia.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
“I was one of those who thought that [les menaces à la liberté de l’enseignement] were bogus debates. That those who spoke about it were alarmists. Then, everything changed, overnight,” recalls Maxime Prévost.
On October 16, 2020, the full professor in the French department of the University of Ottawa and 33 colleagues signed a public letter in support of Verushka Lieutenant-Duval, pilloried for having pronounced the “word beginning with an N” in class . The fight against racism – real on campus – should not be done at the risk of freedom of education, they argued.
PHOTO FROM THE FACEBOOK PAGE OF VERUSHKA LIEUTENANT-DUVAL
Verushka Lieutenant Duval
To the astonishment of the signatories, the response was brutal. Condemned by their peers, targeted by a hate campaign on the part of students, they found themselves in the heart of the turmoil without understanding how they had arrived there.
Bear witness
Hence the idea of bearing witness to their troubled year in Manhandled freedoms, which appears Wednesday at Leméac editions. The collective work, written under the direction of Maxime Prévost, Geneviève Tellier and Anne Gilbert, brings together testimonies from professors from the “group of 34”, analyzes and a detailed chronology of the controversy.
A chapter is also devoted to Verushka Lieutenant-Duval, who confides that he thought of suicide at the height of the crisis. And who admits that he is still hanging by a thread.
It quickly became clear that it would be necessary to testify in a structured and lasting way about the affair, that it would be necessary to leave traces for someone who would like to retrace in a few years everything that was said, everything what was written in the media brouhaha.
Maxime Prévost, full professor of French at the University of Ottawa
Above all, the book is an invitation – or rather a warning – issued to the university community to debate the freedom of education before a new crisis breaks out.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Anne Gilbert, professor emeritus of geography at the University of Ottawa
“The university is changing in a serious and profound way. It seems to me that we could not let these transformations pass without talking about them, without debating them, ”underlines the professor emeritus of geography Anne Gilbert.
“It is the future of the university that is being played out around this debate on academic freedom. It is the future of the university as a place of production of knowledge, of reflection, of analysis, a place which remains distant from politics and ideology. »
Climate of insecurity
As soon as it was published, the letter from the “group of 34” triggered a violent confrontation between two camps that were now irreconcilable. And the signatories, who identified with the left as with the right, found themselves “on the wrong side” of the conflict, writes one of its signatories, Marc Brosseau.
The geography professor recounts the aggressive interventions that have occurred in his classes on the part of students. His “preventive self-exclusion” from various faculty committees, fearing that his participation would cause a stir. Kafkaesque management of the administration of the University of Ottawa.
On social networks, students demand the rehabilitation, even the immediate dismissal, of the 34 teachers. In the climbing, we call to “boycott” their courses and to “vandalize” their offices, reports the professor in the French department Geneviève Boucher.
Paralyzed by the attacks, she went on sick leave. By her admission, she will censor herself in the future. “I have no desire to become the next Verushka Lieutenant-Duval”, underlines Mme Butcher in the works.
Protecting Academic Freedom
A year and a half after the start of the crisis, the “group of 34” is still waiting for the University of Ottawa to repair the broken pots. Starting with an apology for the treatment they received as well as Verushka Lieutenant-Duval.
“I would have liked to turn the page, but in my case, I don’t think it will be possible and it won’t be like before,” says Geneviève Tellier, full professor of political studies.
Something broke. The bond of trust between my university and me has been broken.
Geneviève Tellier, full professor of political studies at the University of Ottawa
The university is currently studying the report of the Committee on Academic Freedom, commissioned in the wake of the Lieutenant-Duval affair and made public last November. The “Group of 34” hopes the administration will adopt its recommendations, which unequivocally call for the protection of academic freedom. Without this, the very future of the university is threatened, he warns.
“The university must be the place for the confrontation of ideas, different points of view must be able to be expressed, otherwise we are caught up in a single thought and everyone will live in terror and self-censorship”, affirms Maxime Prevost.
Freedoms abused — Chronicle of a troubled year at the University of Ottawa
Collective under the direction of Anne Gilbert, Maxime Prévost and Geneviève Tellier
Lemeac
408 pages