U of O Watch mission, in the words of Foucault...

"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.

U of O Watch mission, in the words of Socrates...

"An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all." -- Socrates

video of president allan rock at work

Thursday, March 25, 2010

CAUT to U of O: Franky is a boob - Rock administration needs to apologize


The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has written THIS LETTER to University of Ottawa Vice-President Academic Francois Houle, in the matter of the Coulter scandal at the U of O.

In a PREVIOUS POST we suggested that the U of O's VP-Academic was a genius for intervening to protect decency on campus. This suggestion has been unambiguously contradicted by freedom of expression lawyer Douglas Christie (HERE), by the General Counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) (HERE), and now, we discover, by the CAUT also (HERE).


Looks like only President Allan Rock does not agree that Houle's move was a violation of the fundamental mission of a university - but we have established that Rock was being a spat disingenuous (HERE).

Funny how the CCLA has not written Rock a formal letter about this matter asking him to do better than his shameful press release...? Could THIS be the reason?

Barring Rock, therefore, the right, the left, and the center, agree: Franky is a boob, judging from his first considered public intervention in his new functions as VP-Academic. Only the brightest and fittest serve in the newly formed Rock executive team?

The CAUT has asked for reparation:

"We feel you owe an apology to Ms. Coulter and, even more importantly, you owe the University of Ottawa community an assurance that the administration of the University strongly supports freedom of expression, academic freedom and views the role of the university as fostering and defending these values."

Will the Rock administration do the right thing? Or will it stick to its shameful and disingenuous press release? (SEE HERE)

How much longer do U of O students need to wait before the administration stops acting like an image-managing political party and starts spontaneously and authentically recognizing and repairing its mistakes? How much longer does the reputation of the University of Ottawa need to be dragged in the mud by an autocratic and detached administration?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

FRANK Houle works for Rock. FRANK Appleyard works for Rock. Hmmmm....

Anonymous said...

Frank Appleyard works for Rock? Really? I did not know that. Obviously you have something to back that claim up right?

Also, at the risk of sounding ignorant, what is the "Hmmmm...." for? Is there a conspiracy now about people with the same name? Or was that just you....

Wait a second... Your name is Anonymous. MY name is Anonymous. NOW I GET IT, we're all just getting so brain dead from reading this blog.