uOttawa Students to Joanne St. Lewis: “Outrageous and Unjust” (link)
Student Appeal Centre Protests uOttawa’s Demand for Lawyer’s Fees from Student (link)
As background, a link to the court documents in the main action and all the court motions is HERE.
2 comments:
"Ann Coulter is a mean-spirited, small-minded, foul-mouthed poltroon... She is 'the loud mouth that bespeaks the vacant mind'."
"She is an ill-informed and deeply offensive shill for a profoundly shallow and ignorant view of the world. She is a malignancy on the body politic. She is a disgrace to the broadcasting industry and a leading example of the dramatic decline in the quality of public discourse in recent times."
Now what would happen if we replaced Rock or St. Lewis where Ann Coulter appears in the above? Would the quote (Originally spoken by Rock about Coulter.) still stand up soundly? Would the sentence still have a resonance of truth?
All of this interminable pettiness is beyond absurd. Students understand the hypocrisy, but those who are supposed to be experts seem to be the most clueless. I just feel like the administration needs to act like grown ups and not bullies. The world is watching..... and nobody's impressed. And reputations suffer. No one will ever come out a "winner." As a member of the general public I'm not at all impressed with this university nor with this administration.
My questions are this: How is suing a student for a third of his income going to improve transparency, integrity, pedagogy, quality of teaching, improved resources, increase graduation rates, lower tuition or garner more professors? How is suing a fired tenured full professor for exercising his free speech going to improve openness in the midst of repression? This just seems to be more about ego regardless of cost and what students now have to do with less or without? I just wish all of this could go back to what truly matters. Law suits don't matter. Students do. Academic freedom does. Heaven forbid, being socially just does.
1. This law suit has nothing to do with the reputation of the University of Ottawa, and everything to do with the reputation of Joanne St. Lewis.
2. You are not a member of the general public, you are a partisan commenter as evidence by your comments on both this blog and the blog of Joseph Hickey.
3. Mr. Hickey is not being sued. He is being asked to pay for the time he wasted. That how it works in Ontario. It is called fee-shifting. There are reasons for it and they are good reasons. Do a bit of research. It is not about ego, its procedure and its about discouraging people from bringing frivolous and vexatious complaints to the court. It is a lesson which needs to be learned, particularly with people like Joseph Hickey who needs to understand that his opinion is a) not always welcome, and b) not always right. Sometimes when you don't know anything about what you are trying to do, it would be better to seek out advice or to sit back and wait for the information he is seeking to come out as part of the public record later in the process.
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