Report on racism at the School of Nursing - today's press conference and Michaelle Jean

[April 29, 2011, press conference participants]

The Centre for Equity and Human Rights (CEHR) of the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa (SFUO) held its press conference about the racism in the U of O School of Nursing today.

The CEHR has received twenty racism discrimination complaints from students in the School of Nursing since 2009.

The press conference testimonies by two plaintiffs were detailed and disturbing.

There can be no doubt that Nursing has an urgent and widespread racism problem that has been disregarded for years by the university administration.

The lawyer for the plaintiffs Yavar Hameed stressed that the problem was not only from bad management but was also systemic, pointing to a lack of internal structures to solve and correct racism problems.

Unlike previous press conferences at the University of Ottawa, the university communication staff and legal counsel were nowhere to be seen on the floor. Instead, they have installed a new electronic lock on their main door and called the media behind closed doors for private conferences.

The presenters avoided naming the six university staff complained against in the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario complaints but Student Appeal Centre director Mireille Gervais had the following statements for UofOWatch.

"[Professor] Isabelle Cyr is a problem regarding differential treatment of Nursing students based on the colour of their skin."

"Kirsten Woolend, ex-director of the School of Nursing, acknowledged in 2008 -- at a meeting with me, CEHR director Francine Page, SFUO VP-University Seamus Wolfe, vice-dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences Francis Reardon, and School of Nursing administrator of undergraduate programs Joanne Larose-Dubois -- that the School of Nursing had received many complaints about Isabelle Cyr."

"It is a widely known fact that Isabelle Cyr once physically shook [assaulted] a black Nursing student."

As the event was closing, former Governor General Michaelle Jean, who now has her UNESCO office beside university president Allan Rock's office, happened by accident to walk by and stopped to chat with some of the plaintiffs. Jean inquired why they were in Tabaret Hall. After some explanation Jean asked CEHR director Francine Page to send her all the documents so she can prepare for a possible informal chat with Rock. Maybe Rock will listen to Jean? He hasn't listened to anyone else.

SEE ALL ARTICLES ABOUT RACISM AT U OF O (label=racism)
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MEDIA
Radio-Canada TV news (en francais)
Le Droit - with audio (en francais)

Rampant racism at the U of O School of Nursing::: Press conference announced

The Centre for Equity and Human Rights (CEHR) of the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa (SFUO) has announced that it will hold a press conference about the racism in the U of O School of Nursing:

PRESS CONFERENCE
Friday April 29, 2011
11 AM
Entrance rotunda, Tabaret Hall
550 Cumberland

Former School of Nursing students Anne Mpinda and Victor Ndayishimiye have each filed detailed human rights complaints with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) against six teaching and administrative staff members at the school. They are represented by human rights lawyer Yavar Hameed.

The HRTO complaints are about racial discrimination and allege systemic discrimination, reprisals and intimidation; not unlike the recent high-profile cases in the U of O Faculty of Medicine, HERE.

The CEHR also confirms that it has received no less than twenty such similar reports from students in the School of Nursing since the fall of 2009.

The director of the CEHR, Francine Page, had sounded the alarm in 2007 and followed this with an expert report to the University in February 2010. Page was disturbed to find her concerns and report effectively ignored by the University of Ottawa, under its president Allan Rock administration.

The University propaganda touts Rock as a "defender of human rights" "putting the University at the service of the world". It would be better to put itself at the service of its students, especially those being discriminated against.

The CEHR press release comes only weeks after Allan Rock's university senate brazenly repudiated a motion to reaffirm its commitment to a discrimination-free academic environment, in an effort to prevent exactly these types of problems, HERE.

Needless to say, the Student Appeal Centre's (SAC) 2008 public report about systemic racism at the University of Ottawa, that the Rock administration took great pains to deny and defame (HERE), now echos loudly in the hollow halls of this racist institution.

On his next mission abroad, Rock could save a lot of folks a lot of pain by plainly stating: "If you're black or brown avoid applying." Or, he could start actually standing for human rights by ordering immediate reparations where reparations are due rather than fight lengthy and costly denials of the obvious -- as the University shamefully continues to do.



Update: Senate member Joseph Hickey is following up with university senate, HERE. The University of Ottawa ("Canada's university" in its propaganda) is rather unique in Canada for not having a policy against harassment and discrimination. This absence of protection has repeatedly been denounced by the SEHR and SAC of the SFUO.