Dr. Joseph Facal: “The University of Ottawa is just the tip of the iceberg” [L’Université d’Ottawa n’est que la pointe de l’iceberg]

Thank you, Dr. Joseph Facal for your thoughtful article published yesterday in the Journal de Montréal (https://bit.ly/3jokwgj).

Below is a quick translation for you, thanks to Bambi’s faithful online friend, Mr. Google Translate.

Do you also see the increasing nonsense in Canada’s universities and, by extension, society?

If so, what can we collectively do about all this, in your opinion?

And if not, are your truly convinced of the added value of such ideologically-based positions? Or are you too politically correct to dare to question them like Dr. Facal?

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“Being ridiculed full-time does not hold back the University of Ottawa’s leaders.

The institution wants to hire an Assistant Professor in “Anti-racist Education”.

The contest ended yesterday.

“The research program would focus on anti-oppressive and inclusive education, anti-colonial perspectives, diasporas, critical theory, human rights and racialized perspectives […]. ».

Science?

A university professor is supposed to teach and do research.

Both teaching and research must aim for objectivity, which does not prohibit – it is the nature of trial and error that characterizes discoveries – speculation.

It is pure and simple hoaxes to claim “anti-racist” scientific research.

By definition, there is no “scientific” research if the answers are known in advance, or if you are only looking for what will reinforce a predetermined conclusion.

It is essentially militant discourse, more or less sophisticated catechism, spiced up with pseudo-scholarly expressions, conveyed by people who want academic positions.

And it works, as illustrated by the job advertisement mentioned above: positions, scholarships, public subsidies, etc.

It has come so far that hundreds of academics in Québec are currently mobilizing against the new criteria for awarding FRSQ research grants, which require candidates to explain how their project advances this ideological program.

Let’s get this straight: of course there is racism and racists, here as everywhere.

But these pseudo-researchers do not wish to clearly define the phenomenon.

They build and brandish a symbolic weapon, whose three sharp points could be expressed thus.

First, all of “white” society is racist.

Second, anti-white racism is marginal, if not non-existent, since only the white majority has the power to impose its racism on non-whites.

Third, the White who does not see how he is racist is a prisoner of his unconscious biases.

He is necessarily guilty and must ask for forgiveness.

Many of these academic pseudo-researchers are extraordinarily aggressive.

It’s not just because they’re fanatical.

It is also because they know that their academic production is so weak that it would hardly resist an evaluation according to the usual scientific criteria, that this examination must be prevented by violently attacking those who would like to look at it closely.

To justify their nonsense, they will invoke their “academic freedom”, the one they are so quick to want to suppress in others.

The cleverest have even found a way to make money with this new “anti-racism”: small companies of consultants moving full speed ahead to offer their services to sell training in EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion) in order to bring your employees in the luminous path of virtue.

React!

Many academics do not like that we denounce the abuses in academia.

It is true that such nonsense offends those who do serious work.

But it is precisely the fact of looking away instead of reacting that allows evil to spread”.