Tag Archives: Legal issues

Jennifer Chan :: Out of Asia: Topologies of #racism in Canada (#UBC David Lam Chair) #ubcnews #ubceduc #ubysseynews #bced

Out of Asia: Topologies of Racism in Canada

Jennifer Chan

ABSTRACT: This case study recounts my harrowing experience through a great Canadian equity swindle—involving two internal university equity investigations, BC Human Rights Tribunal, and the BC Supreme Court—to bring to account a deeply flawed and allegedly discriminatory academic hiring process. I situate my human rights complaint in the larger socio-political context of Canada becoming “too Asian.” Download the article from Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor.

For the background, chronology, and case records, see our coverage in the Workplace blog. Briefly:

BCHRT’s decision on 24 January 2012 to hear the Chan v UBC and others [Beth Haverkamp, David Farrar, Jon Shapiro, Rob Tierney] case (21 December 2010 HRT decision24 January 2012 HRT decision) was moved to the Supreme Court for a judicial review (see The Ubyssey’s [UBC student newspaper] feature article for the backstory to the case). The Supreme Court then ordered the BCHRT to review its initial decision (29 May 2013 BC Supreme Court judgment). The BCHRT turned and dismissed the case on 19 December 2013.

*Note: Exactly what was “recalibrated” through the “Review” is unclear. Comparatively, when advertised in 2005 and 2009, the Name of the Chair was the “David Lam Chair in Multicultural Education.” The April 2016 Ad or CFA still indicates the same. So the Chair title was not recalibrated. In 2005 and 2009, the search sought scholars who contributed to multicultural education and now in 2016 the search seeks scholars who contributed to multicultural education and “social justice studies” so that was not recalibrated. One could readily argue that multicultural justice and social justice are interchangeable. In 2005 and 2009 multicultural education was not defined but in 2016 a definition of multicultural education is given: “commitment to anti-oppression, anti-racism, intersectionality, and decolonization.” But that does not appear to be a recalibration inasmuch as it just gives a definition.

Clampdown on academic freedom at #UBC blamed on spam law #ubc100 #ubcnews #ubysseynews #bced #caut_acppu

Administrators in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia clamped down on academic freedom today by shutting down its shared listserv after 17+ years in what looks like a knee-jerk reaction.

In addition to blaming the clampdown on faculty members for sharing “their own perspective regarding one or more aspects of the work and trajectory of the Faculty,” the reasoning given was Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), effective 1 July 2014.

The Dean and Associate Dean explained:

In response to changes to the requirements for the organizational use of email at UBC following the implementation of the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL http://universitycounsel.ubc.ca/files/2014/06/CASL-FAQs-2014-05.pdf) we have made some changes to how we are using Faculty-generated broadcast email lists. These changes only apply to those email lists created and moderated by the Faculty. The major implication of CASL resides in the definition of “consent” to email exchange.  Following the implementation of CASL, we need to be attentive to email recipients’ implied or actual consent to receive emails.

While CASL specifically addresses the intent of a “commercial electronic message” (CEM) and spam, UBC administrators have decided to stretch this to all messages and email, warning that email to a colleague, and one might infer student, who has not given “consent” to be a recipient can be grounds for legal or punitive action.

The CAUT’s initial analysis leaves faculty members wanting:

CAUT will monitor the enforcement of the CASL, and will provide members with any relevant updates as these decisions may provide further clarity about what the law means for academic staff associations.

The implications here are scary but more frightening is UBC managers’ inability to distinguish between academic and commercial messages or distinguish between the legalism of spam and academic freedom.

#UBC in damage control, making ‘mockery’ of sexual assaults #ubc100 #ubcnews #bced #highered

Laura Kane & Geordon Omand, Canadian Press, November 24, 2015–The University of British Columbia seems more concerned about handling a public relations crisis than taking meaningful action to help women feel safe after multiple allegations of sexual assault, says a complainant.

Glynnis Kirchmeier, who is planning to launch a human-rights case against UBC, published an open letter to the university’s interim president on Tuesday.

In the letter, the former student questions why Martha Piper issued a public apology but didn’t directly contact her or other students who made complaints.

“I was surprised to learn on Sunday that you had issued an apology to ‘the women in these cases who feel they have been let down by our university,”‘ she wrote.

“Did you mean to include me? I did not receive a personal communication from you, though you could have asked associate VP Dr. Sara-Jane Finlay for my email and phone number.”

She and other former and current students held a news conference Sunday, when Kirchmeier announced her plans to file a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. The women said the university lacks a clear policy for handling sexual assault reports and that it took a year and a half to act on six complaints about a PhD student.

Kirchmeier was not assaulted by the student but said she witnessed his behaviour and reported it to the university in January 2014. She said UBC failed to act on complaints by her and others until last week, when it said the student was no longer at the university.

Read More: Vancouver Sun

#UBC lack of policy on sexual assault #ubysseynews #ubcnews #ubc100 #bced

Emma Partridge, Ubyssey, November 20, 2015–A much anticipated documentary by the fifth estate has made some startling discoveries that ultimately cast an unflattering spotlight on how UBC handles sexual assault and the university’s lack of an overarching sexual assault policy.

According to CBC, Dmitry Mordvinov, who was working towards his PhD in history, was accused of multiple sexual offences that were committed two years ago. However, Mordvinov was only expelled from the university last week.

UBC spokesperson Susan Danard issued an emailed statement Friday evening responding to the story.

“It is important to understand that BC privacy law prevents us from disclosing information about or responding to specific cases mentioned in the media. What we can say is we continuously strive to improve our collective response to sexual violence through education. We can do better and we will do better,” read part of the statement.

Several women came forward to the fifth estate to tell stories of assaults committed by Mordvinov. One preferred to remain anonymous, but another, Caitlin Cunningham, went on record. She told the CBC that after reporting her attack to the university, UBC encouraged mediation between herself and Mordvinov.

According to the CBC’s reporting, Monica Kay, director of conflict management, perpetuated a sense that the survivors should keep their experiences to themselves. At this time, Kay has not responded to requests for comment.

When The Ubyssey spoke with Clark Lundeen, assistant principal of Green College — the residence in which Mordvinov was staying while studying for his PhD — he said that reports of sexual assaults would be taken very seriously. Based on the findings of an investigation, the survivor would be referred to on-campus resources for support.

“Confirming is a difficult thing. If we receive a complaint from somebody at the college who alleged that they’re a survivor of sexual assault by somebody, then we take it very seriously and make sure that their safety will be made a priority and that includes … not sharing information that might compromise their privacy,” said Lundeen in that interview.

Although Lundeen would not reveal anything that could have potentially comprised the privacy of the survivor and the alleged assault victim, he could confirm that a report of sexual assault had been filed at the college within the last two years. According to Lundeen, the response by Green College “would be very similar to how it would be handled in any other residence managed by Student Housing and Hospitality Services.”

According to Janice Robinson, director of Residence Life and Administration in Student Housing and Hospitality Services (SHHS), should a survivor disclose their experience the response would be that the residence advisor offers peer support and focuses on getting the survivor the resources and help they need.

“At that point, a residence advisor would also share with the Residence Life manager that a resident has disclosed,” said Robinson. “From there, the Residence Life manager would coach [the] residence advisor on how to be the most supportive that they could, and that would include making sure that the student knows about resources on campus and off campus.”

When asked to address the issues raised by the fifth estate documentary, SHHS, Green College and Piper all insist that UBC takes the issue of sexual assault seriously. However, if CBC is correct in their findings, it took the university almost a year to expel the graduate student who they were officially aware to have assaulted a woman in the spring of 2014.

All of this is ultimately complicated by the fact that UBC does not have a single overarching policy on what to do in the event of a sexual assault. When asked about the progress of such a policy in Senate, both Piper and interim Provost Angela Redish said the question ought to be directed to the VP students, Louise Cowin, who was not present.

According to Ashley Bentley of the AMS Sexual Assault Support Centre (SASC), it is problematic that UBC lacks such a policy to deal with assaults and instead relies more on Policy 3 — dealing with harassment and discrimination in general.

“My experiences from talking to clients, to survivors of violence and to members of this community is that the lack of a policy by UBC makes it seem like they aren’t supporting survivors — that they’re not caring,” said Bentley. “It’s not necessarily to say that a policy solves everything, but what I do think it does is it has clear set guidelines and processes in place which at least make survivors feel like they have options.”

Many other universities have an overarching policy on sexual assault, such as Queen’s and University of Toronto to name a few. According to Bentley, UBC is “quite behind, honestly.”

 

Read More: Ubyssey

Discrimination case against #UBC now 8+ years #ubc100 #ubcnews #bced #highered

Kelly v UBC, a discrimination case against the University of British Columbia is now entering its 9th year and will continue into the foreseeable future. From 2005-2007, Dr. Carl Kelly was enrolled in the Family Practice Residency Program administered by the Faculty of Medicine. Kelly has ADHD and a Non-Verbal Learning Disability (NVLD). On 29 August 2007, Kelly was terminated from the program for unsuitability. He then filed a grievance and human rights complaint against UBC for its failure to accommodate.

In December 2013, the BC Human Rights Tribunal awarded Kelly $385,194 for lost wages due to discrimination and $75,000 for injury to dignity. The HRT concluded: “the gravity of the effects of the discrimination in this case warrants a substantial award for damages for injury to dignity, feelings and self-respect which is beyond the highest award that has yet been made by this Tribunal.”

UBC appealed and sought judicial review.

Last week, on 24 September, the BC Supreme Court’s Justice Silverman wrote: “The Tribunal’s Decision to award $75,000 is not based on principle and cannot be supported by the evidence. In my view, the discretionary decision which resulted in that award was ‘exercised arbitrarily’ as those words have been interpreted in s. 59(4) of the ATA.  That section also denotes that such a decision is patently unreasonable. Therefore, I find that this portion of the Decision was patently unreasonable and must be set aside.”

So it’s back to the HRT.

#UBC @AllardLaw, anybody home? #ethics #ubcnews @joelbakan #lawstudents #bced

UBC Allard School of Law? Legal ethics at UBC? Where are you at this moment when we know full well at the University of British Columbia that (nearly all?) secret agreements are dangerous to shared governance and law?

Is it not time to question the UBC Office of the University Counsel’s professional ethics? University Legal Counsel is compromising its values in legal practice, is it not?

  • integrity;
  • independent judgment;
  • respect for people;
  • upholding the public trust and the rule of law;
  • commitment to the mission of the University; and
  • professional excellence.

So much for the laudable, now laughable, Stewardship Statement:

UBC continues to strive for transparency and accountability by implementing a strong system of internal controls, protected disclosure and investigative procedures, and identifying its stewardship mandate in various policies and procedures.

What of the ethics of the Legal Counsel or lawyers at UBC that hammered out this non-disclosure agreement between the University and President Gupta?

Confidentiality and non-disclosure are not always sacrosanct, correct? Blanket secrecy here is unhealthy, isn’t it? Privacy is not always in the public interest or the best interests of the University, agree?

Concerned? File a Complaint with the Law Society of BC.

Lots of questions…

New Workplace Issue: Academic Bullying & Mobbing #highered #ubc #caut

New Workplace Issue #24

Academic Bullying & Mobbing

Workplace and Critical Education are published by the Institute for Critical Education Studies. Please consider participating as author or reviewer. Thank you.

CFP: Academic Mobbing (Special Issue of Workplace) #edstudies #criticaled #occupyed #bced #yteubc

LAST Call for Papers

Academic Mobbing
Special Issue
Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor

Editors: Stephen Petrina & E. Wayne Ross

Editors of Workplace are accepting manuscripts for a theme issue on Academic Mobbing.  Academic mobbing is defined by the Chronicle of Higher Education (11 June 2009) as: “a form of bullying in which members of a department gang up to isolate or humiliate a colleague.” The Chronicle continues:

If rumors are circulating about the target’s supposed misdeeds, if the target is excluded from meetings or not named to committees, or if people are saying the target needs to be punished formally “to be taught a lesson,” it’s likely that mobbing is under way.

As Joan Friedenberg eloquently notes in The Anatomy of an Academic Mobbing, the toll taken is excessive.  Building on a long history of both analysis and neglect in academia, Workplace is interested in a range of scholarship on this practice, including theoretical frameworks, legal analyses, resistance narratives, reports from the trenches, and labor policy reviews.  We invite manuscripts that address, among other foci:

  • Effects of academic mobbing
  • History of academic mobbing
  • Sociology and ethnography of the practices of an academic mob
  • Social psychology of the academic mob leader or boss
  • Academic mobbing factions (facts & fictions) or short stories
  • Legal defense for academic mob victims and threats (e.g., Protectable political affiliation, race, religion)
  • Gender norms of an academic mob
  • Neo-McCarthyism and academic mobbing
  • Your story…

Contributions for Workplace should be 4000-6000 words in length and should conform to APA, Chicago, or MLA style.

FINAL Date for Papers: May 30, 2014

#UBC passes course copyright policy with minimal consultation #bced #bcpoli #highered #caut

The University of British Columbia’s Board of Governors passed a new “Use of Teaching Materials” policy on February 26 with minimal consultation with the Faculty Association of UBC (FAUBC). Unless faculty members indicate on course materials that their use is protected or unless they file “a prescribed Use of Teaching Materials form” form each course each time its offered, the University now claims the right to use the materials as administrators see fit:

…if a UBC Instructor makes his/her Teaching Materials available for use by others, unless that UBC Instructor places restrictions upon the Teaching Materials he/she shares in accordance with Section 2, UBC may, through its Faculties, Departments and individual Instructors, use, revise, and allow other UBC Instructors to use and revise the Teaching Materials to facilitate ongoing offerings of Credit Courses. The contribution of all UBC Instructors to the development of such Teaching Materials will be acknowledged in accordance with accepted scholarly standards unless the UBC Instructors advise UBC, at any time, that they do not wish such acknowledgement.

FAUBC President Nancy Langton cautioned faculty members:

If you share your teaching materials without taking any additional steps, you will be deemed to have given permission for anyone in the UBC teaching community to use and revise your materials at will. This deemed consent is irrevocable. It is not clear what the policy means when it refers to “sharing” teaching materials. This may include situations such as if someone asks to see your syllabus, or a case you wrote, or you post your materials on a public website.

In addition, you will have to ask UBC to “relinquish the rights” it will apparently acquire through Policy 81 prior to trying to publish your teaching materials. Although you will still technically own the copyright, this a hollow right if others may use and/or revise your material without your explicit agreement or permission.  Generally, under the Copyright Act, only a copyright owner can use, revise, or reproduce a copyrighted work or give others permission to do so.  We do not believe that Policy 81 is fully compatible with your rights as copyright owners under the Copyright Act.

The Association very much supports the notion of sharing teaching materials, and many of us do that. But traditionally, letting someone see your syllabus (or case, etc.) has not been equivalent to granting that person the legal right to use and revise the material as they see fit. Under the new policy, that’s what this will mean.

While the policy was being developed, the Association advised the University that the only acceptable version of Policy 81 is one that would involve opting into the policy, rather than opting out. Under an opt-in policy, members who want to share their teaching materials for others to use and revise without the copyright owner’s permission could mark them as such. The University refused this compromise. Instead, if you do not opt-out, your deemed consent to the use and revision of your teaching material is irrevocable.

The Association advises you that, given Policy 81, if you do not wish others to have the right to use, revise and/or reproduce your teaching materials, it is important that you mark anything that you do share in a manner that indicates that the material is for reference only.

Reasonable hostility: Academic freedom & speech under threat #highered #edstudies #criticaled #bced #bcpoli #ubc #yteubc

No disrespect, but… Politic for politic, as faculty and student activism over the last decade was generated in response to administrative measures taken to devalue academic budget lines and increase debt loads, administrators formed policies that shored up their powers to police campus speech and launch investigations. Following an introduction of a Respectful Environment policy in 2008, in anticipation of an upcoming political protest on campus in March 2009, the President of UBC circulated a “Respectful Debate” memo warning students and faculty to “pay special attention to the rules that govern our conduct” for speech. Legislation of respect entangles or snares the left and right in the same finely meshed dragnet attenuating civil liberties. This also recalibrates a network of surveillance media and technologies, challenging nearly all protections in the workplace. Some self-identified centrists or voices of reason welcome the new measures, adopting roles of third persons while reporting to administrators that loose lips sink scholar-ships.

In Canada and the US, these new respectful workplace policies, which anticipate or respond to workplace legislation and court decisions, mean that academic freedom and charter or constitutional rights noticeably contract at the campus gates. Watching postsecondary institution by institution adopt similar respectful workplace policies, the Executive Director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), issued a memorandum in late March 2009 advising vigilance: “the test of ‘disrespect’ identified in these policies is for the most part experiential and subjective – notions like ‘feelings of shame’ or ‘embarrassment’ crop up repeatedly.” He subsequently asserted, “a major problem in Canadian universities is not that too many people are asserting their academic freedom, but that too few are.”

Similar policies in the US are compounded by the Supreme Court’s 2006 Garcetti v. Ceballos opinion that “when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline,” reinforcing managerial discretion and prerogative. Although academic freedom remains a special concern of free speech rights and was deferred by the Court in Garcetti, legal analysts such as Harvey Gilmore concur that “Garcetti has now become the definitive statement on a public employer’s discretion in managing office operations, and that discretion includes controlling an employee’s speech made in the scope of the employee’s professional capacity.”

Following legislation in four other provinces, on 1 July 2012 new legislation in BC came into effect through an amendment of the mental disorder section of the Workers Compensation Act. The new amendment in Section 5.1 provides for potential compensation if the disorder

(i) is a reaction to one or more traumatic events arising out of and in the course of the worker’s employment, or
(ii) is predominantly caused by a significant work-related stressor, including bullying or harassment, or a cumulative series of significant work-related stressors, arising out of and in the course of the worker’s employment.

For legal preparation for this legislation now common across Canada, universities such as UBC folded a large scope of potential infractions into their respectful workplace policies. What stands as protection for disability or “mental disorder” and against “bullying or harassment” under the law is extended in higher education policy to common modes of academic speech—commentary and criticism—that might be articulated in the wrong tone.

Offices of Human Resources introducing or monitoring respectful workplace policies oversimplify speech by stressing, “it is not what you say but how you say it that counts.” Repeated in HR across higher education and curiously by some administrators, this folksy maxim come respectful workplace policy draws on centuries of etiquette texts. “Rather than seeing public talk occasions as needing politeness or civility, a better norm” Karen Tracy proposes, “is reasonable hostility.” She effectively hashes out parameters for democratic communicative practice and flips this “aphorism on its head, it is not merely how something is said, but what a person says that matters.”

Only certain types of face-attack are legitimate and desirable in local governance situations. ‘Reasonable hostility’ is the name for acts that are. Reasonable hostility involves person-directed attack; it is remarks that imply disrespectful, undesirable things about others. Targets of reasonable hostility will judge speakers uttering those remarks to be rude, disrespectful, unfair, and so on…. A speaker might be cognizant that his or her remarks may have this effect, but their purpose is to express outrage about a wrong.  The speaker sees self’s central aim as witnessing a truth or expressing righteous indignation.

Faculty and students are bookended by a reformalization of academic speech on one side and a normalization of administrative equivocation, deception included, on the other. Can voices of critique and voices of liberty speak together, with reasonable hostility, as a voice of truth? Can the left and right speak (together)?

Read More: Petrina, S. & Ross, E. W. (2014). Critical University Studies: Workplace, Milestones, Crossroads, Respect, TruthWorkplace, 23, 62-71.

Time for reflection on racial equity in Education at #UBC #ubced #yteubc #bced #bcpoli #edstudies #idelnomore

The Ubyssey‘s coverage of the UBC Professor Jennifer Chan’s complaint of racial discrimination in her application to the David Lam Chair in Multicultural Education has been outstanding. Jonny Wakefield’s feature article on the background and Sarah Bigam’s synoptic article on the final dismissal of the case provide models for media.

The case law assembled for this will be indispensable to future complainants on employment equity and protected ground of human rights:

The term of the 2009 awardee of the David Lam Chair expired in December 2013.  Respondents in this case (Beth Haverkamp, David Farrar, Jon Shapiro, Rob Tierney) finished or are winding down their terms. It is time for the Faculty of Education to phase in a period for reflection on racial equity within the ranks. The Lam Chair should itself should be left vacant, without a faculty member holding for two years. Leaving a Chair vacant is not at all uncommon in Universities. In Education, for example, the David Robitaille Chair in Mathematics, Science, and Technology has been dormant and vacant since 2010. With administrative terms winding down, the spring will be time for our new Dean, closing in on his third year, to ‘shuffle the cabinet’ and appoint a new administration to take affirmative action on racial equity in Education.

Aboriginal rights forum Dalhousie U #idlenomore #edstudies #bced #ubc #ubced #bcpoli

IDEALaw: Aboriginal Rights in the Spotlight

Canadian Civil Liberties Association–January 25, 2014–On January 24th-25th 2014 academics, practitioners, community members, and students have been gathering at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University to discuss and examine the state of Aboriginal rights in Canada. The biennial IDEALaw conference has never seen a comparable response in numbers and media interest. The line up of speakers, cultural events, and discussion focus of the conference has created a buzz in Halifax.

Organized by students, the conference attempts to address a number of pressing issues facing Aboriginals. Environmental concerns, poverty and criminal law issues, and police and institutional responses to protest are all on the bill. The conference was develped to encourage discussion and openness to new approaches, different perspectives, and engaging the public in legal and political action in response to community concerns. While the conference is ongoing, all talks thus far have addressed the chilling effects of organised and concerted rights abuses on the civil liberties and human rights of Aboriginals in Canada and abroad.

The conference opened with a fascinating and rousing talk by Sheila Watt-Cloutier on human rights. Her experience as head of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference and own experiences as an advocate for Inuit in Canada and overseas gave a fascinating and “on the ground” perspective on alternative ways to perceive climate change. Her commentary on and analysis of the success attached to the ICC’s Petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Seeking Relief from Violations Resulting from Global Warming Caused by Acts and Omissions of the United States set the tone for continued discussion into the night. Of particular interest to most was the role of democratic and social rights and their protection in communities facing significant and overwhelming changes due to environmental impact.

Read More: CCLA

How far is too far when it comes to religious accommodation?

Matthew Coutts, Daily Brew, January 9, 2014– Is it appropriate to allow university students decline to participate in a class assignment because it would force him to interact with female students, or should they be expected to set their “firm religious beliefs aside” in their search for higher education? And how should technology play into the decision?

That question is at the centre of a debate ongoing at Toronto’s York University, where a sociology professor and university brass have clashed over whether a student’s religious belief should allow him to skip class assignments that bring him into contact with women.

The debate stems from a decision made by Professor Paul Grayson in September, when a male student in an online sociology course asked to be excused from an in-person assignment that would bring him in contact with female students. The students claimed “firm religious beliefs” as his reason for not wanted to intermingle with female students.

Grayson denied the request on the ground that it marginalized and punished female classmates. York University officials, however, approved the student’s request for religious accommodation and ordered Grayson to allow the student to remain absent from the session.

The student acquiesced and ultimately completed the project. In the meantime, however, the professor and university have locked into a battle that could write the playbook for future arguments around religious accommodation.

“If for religious reasons you exempt a student from interacting with females, there are religious reasons people could advance for not interacting with blacks, Jews, gays, you name it,” Grayson told SunNews Network. “In the bible and in religious practice you can find a basis for that kind of appeal.”

University Provost Rhonda Lenton retorted in a statement that every accommodation request is considered on its own merits. She said the circumstances of this case led the university to conclude the accommodation could be made.

“A deciding factor in this case was that it was an online course where another student had previously been given permission to complete the course requirement off-campus,” Lenton announced. She later told CBC’s Metro Morning that, “Had it not been an online course, it is my view that … the advice that would have been given to the professor and to the student is that this is a course that is being delivered on campus and in person, and part of the assignments are to work with other students in the class.”

Lenton notes that another student was allowed to skip an in-person assignment, suggesting it was an accommodation the professor was willing to make under some circumstances. Grayson said in interviews that a student taking the course from Egypt had previously been shown leniency due to his or her distance from campus.

Indeed, details published in the National Post suggest that the student at the centre of the debate enrolled in the online sociology course out of a belief that it would allow him to finish his degree without intermingling with other students – specifically females.

If that is the case, then it could be seen as an attempt by the student to work within the framework of York – accommodate the university and its inclusive environment, you could say – to balance his religious beliefs with his desire to complete his degree.

It is not clear what religion the student holds, and Grayson has said he consulted several religious leaders before coming to his decision. It should be noted, however, that when the professor denied the accommodation request, the student agreed to participate without further complaint. He even thanked Grayson for the way he handled the situation.

Lenton said that while the student and teacher were able to come to an agreement, “the broader issue of religious accommodations in secular universities remains an important societal concern that warrants further discussion.” The Ontario Human Rights Commission is reviewing the case.

Part of that review should be the role technology has played in all of this. Is it truly reasonable to expect religious accommodation through online courses? Should such a course allow members of society to harbor personal beliefs that will surely come to a head later in life?

Regardless of whether the course is online or not, the student in question will graduate with a degree from York University. Is the school comfortable attaching their reputation to a student who may, upon entering the job market, beg out of meetings because female co-workers and bosses will be in attendance?

York University should have one set of standards across campus. Accommodation is important but reason should still be a factor, whether the student is logged on from home or sitting in a classroom.

Chan v UBC discrimination case sent back to BC Human Rights Tribunal

The University of British Columbia’s petition to dismiss Dr. Jennifer Chan’s complaint of racial discrimination must go back to the BC Human Rights Tribunal says a 29 May 2013 BC Supreme Court’s judgment. The BCHRT’s decision on 24 January 2012 to hear the Chan v UBC and others [Beth Haverkamp, David Farrar, Jon Shapiro, Rob Tierney] case was moved to the Supreme Court for a judicial review. In addition to the BCHRT decision and Supreme Court judgment, the Ubyssey’s (UBC student newspaper) feature article provides a background to the case.

In the Supreme Court judgment, Madam Justice Loo argues that the BCHRT must assess whether “the complaint has been appropriately dealt with in another proceeding.” A decision within the BCHRT to hear the case must address UBC’s argument that “internal university processes [used to hear Chan’s appeals] qualified under the Code as ‘proceedings’ that had appropriately addressed the substance of” Chan’s complaint. Chan “asserts that she has exhausted the internal complaint mechanism of UBC and that it was flawed.”

Muzzling scientists is an assault on democracy

David Suzuki, Rabble.ca, April 9, 2013–

Access to information is a basic foundation of democracy. Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms also gives us “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.”

We must protect these rights. As we alter the chemical, physical and biological properties of the biosphere, we face an increasingly uncertain future, and the best information we have to guide us comes from science. That scientists – and even librarians – are speaking out against what appear to be increasing efforts to suppress information shows we have cause for concern. The situation has become so alarming that Canada’s Information Commissioner is investigating seven government departments in response to a complaint that they’re “muzzling” scientists.

The submission from the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre and Democracy Watch alleges that “the federal government is preventing the media and the Canadian public from speaking to government scientists for news stories – especially when the scientists’ research or point of view runs counter to current Government policies on matters such as environmental protection, oil sands development, and climate change” and that this “impoverishes the public debate on issues of significant national concern.”

The complaint and investigation follow numerous similar charges from scientists and organizations such as the Canadian Science Writers’ Association and the World Federation of Science Journalists, and publications such as the science journal Nature. Hundreds of scientists marched on Parliament Hill last July to mark “the death of evidence”.

The list of actions prompting these grievances is long. It includes shutting the world-renownedExperimental Lakes Area, axing the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, eliminating funding for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences and prohibiting federal scientists from speaking about research on subjects ranging from ozone to climate change to salmon.

All of this has been taking place as the federal government guts environmental laws and cuts funding for environmental departments through its omnibus budget bills. It has justified those massive environmental policy changes in part by saying the review process was slow and inefficient, but research by scientists at the University of Toronto, published in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, “found no evidence that regulatory review in Canada was inefficient, even when regulators had an ongoing load of over 600 projects for review at any given time.”…

Read More: Rabble.ca

Lessons of Harvard’s secret email search

Dan Gillmor, The Guardian, March 11, 2013— According to Harvard Universityemail subject lines are not “content”. This remarkable claim comes in a university statement, sardonicallycalled a “partial apology” by the Boston Globe, attempting to explain why Harvard semi-searched email accounts of 16 “resident deans” to find out who’d leaked information about a student cheating scandal to the press.

The statement attempted to put to rest a mini-uproar set off by theGlobe’s initial report on the leaker probe methods. In attempting to explain what had happened, and to assure the Harvard community that people’s emails weren’t being scanned wholesale, the statement answered some questions but only provoked others.

Most of all, the entire episode highlighted several realities in today’s working world: notably, the folly of using an employer’s email system for any purpose that might ever prove controversial.

I won’t even attempt to sort out the Harvard explanation; it’s too convoluted. But I do want to point to the bizarre assertion mentioned at the top of this piece. The statement says, in part:

“The search did not involve a review of email content; it was limited to a search of the subject line of the email that had been inappropriately forwarded. To be clear: no one’s emails were opened and the contents of no one’s emails were searched by human or machine.”

I have news for the deans under whose names this statement appeared. Like most people who send email, I try hard to make the subject line relevant enough that the recipient will be inclined to open the missive and read it. Other highly relevant material in my email includes the name of the person I’m sending it to; the date; the time; the internet address of the machine I’m using; and the network I’m sending from. None of those is the message itself, but they are “content” in every way that matters. That data form the basis for all kinds of inferences and knowledge about me.

I take for granted that Harvard, like all employers, has a right to look at pretty much anything it pleases on the machines that are part of its network, and I’d put administrative email accounts, as these were, fairly high on the list. That doesn’t mean Harvard is necessarily doing the right thing, or that any employer exercising its internal snooping rights, except in the rarest of circumstances, is being honorable with its employees.

It does mean that employees should always assume that their employers’ networks are under surveillance, at least internally.

Read More: The Guardian

Chan v UBC Hearing Scheduled at BC Supreme Court

The BC Supreme Court has scheduled a Hearing date for the Jennifer Chan v UBC and others [Beth Haverkamp, David Farrar, Jon Shapiro, Rob Tierney] racial discrimination case for Tuesday 13 November 2012 at 10am.  In January this year, BC Human Rights Tribunal decided to move the case to Hearing. In March, UBC petitioned to the BC Supreme Court for a judicial review to challenge the BCHRT’s decision. The Hearing is now in front of the BC Supreme Court and open to the public:

The Supreme Court is located at 800 Smithe Street (between Hornby and Howe).

The case involves the David Lam Chair in Multicultural Education selection process in Fall 2009. Please see the Ubyssey’s (UBC student newspaper) feature article for background to the case.

Two new, similar complaints were accepted for filing by the BCHRT:
1) by an aboriginal Law Professor at UBC alleging denial of Tenure and Promotion on the basis of race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, marital status, family status and sex.

2) by an anonymous Professor in BC alleging denial of Tenure and Promotion on a basis of her ancestry and place of origin.

New Issue of Workplace Launched

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor has just published Issue #20, “The New Academic Manners, Managers, and Spaces.”  This issue includes key conceptual and empirical analyses of

  • the creation and avoidance of unions in academic and business workplaces (Vincent Serravallo)
  • the new critiquette, impartial response to Bruno Latour and Jacques Ranciere’s critique of critique (Stephen Petrina)
  • the two-culture model of the modern university in full light of the crystal, neural university (Sean Sturm, Stephen Turner)
  • alternative narratives of accountability in response to neo-liberal practices of government (Sandra Mathison)
  • vertical versus horizontal structures of governance (Rune Kvist Olsen)
  • teachers in nomadic spaces and Deleuzian approaches to curricular practice (Tobey Steeves)

Workplace Issue #20 Table of Contents:

Parallel Practices of Union Avoidance in Business and Academia

The New Critiquette and Old Scholactivism: A Petit Critique of Academic Manners, Managers, Matters, and Freedom

Cardinal Newman in the Crystal Palace – The Idea of the University Today

Working Toward a Different Narrative of Accountability: A Report from British Columbia

The DemoCratic Workplace: Empowering People (demos) to Rule (cratos) Their Own Workplace

Bridges to Difference & Maps of Becoming: An Experiment with Teachers in Nomadic Spaces for Education in British Columbia

We invite you to review Issue #20 for articles and items of interest. Thanks for the continuing interest in Workplace (we welcome new manuscripts here and Critical Education),

Institute for Critical Education Studies (ICES)
Workplace Blog

Workplace bullying: Family of Journal Editor Who Committed Suicide Sues U. of Virginia

The Chronicle: Family of Journal Editor Who Committed Suicide Sues U. of Virginia

Two years after Kevin Morrissey, a former managing editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, killed himself following complaints he made about workplace bullying by his boss, the former VQR editor Ted Genoways, Mr. Morrissey’s family has filed a $10-million wrongful-death lawsuit against the University of Virginia, which publishes the award-winning journal.

The suit also names as defendants several current and former university employees, including Mr. Genoways and John T. Casteen III, who is president emeritus and continues as a faculty member at the university.

The lawsuit, filed last Wednesday in Virginia circuit court on behalf of Mr. Morrissey’s siblings and his father by Douglas R. Morrissey, one of Mr. Morrissey’s brothers, says the university failed to adequately respond to numerous complaints Mr. Morrissey made about Mr. Genoways in the weeks before his death. Mr. Morrissey complained at least 25 times, the suit says, to the offices of the president, human resources, and employee relations, saying Mr. Genoways had banned him from the journal’s office for unspecified “unacceptable workplace behavior.”

Legal battle ends, “larger struggle continues” for professor denied tenure because of her politics

Legal battle ends, “larger struggle continues” for professor denied tenure because of her politics

The North Carolina Supreme Court won’t consider a petition of discretionary review by professor Terri Ginsberg, who was denied tenure several years ago after her outspoken criticism of Israeli policies.

Ginsberg, a film scholar, has said that following her public criticism of Israeli policies, she endured immediate retaliation from the administration of North Carolina State University, where she was a professor of film studies. As I reported in January 2010, she was “punished with partial removal from — and interference in — duty, non-renewal of contract and rejection from a tenure-track position” in 2008.