Juno News - May 10, 2021


Another Canadian professor cancelled, but she’s fighting back

Mentioned
Rima Azar
A ＂COVID-Zero＂ approach is not sustainable 2021 Meets 1984

Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

149.81

Word count

630

Sentence count

42

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In February of this year, Associate Professor of Health Psychology Rima Azar from New Brunswick's Mount Allison University was subjected to an investigation and institutional denunciation over some supposedly controversial posts she wrote on her personal blog titled "Bambi's AFCAR." Here's a sample of some of the thoughts she expressed that were apparently so outrageous, she had to be investigated by her university.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Back in February of this year, Associate Professor of Health Psychology Rima Azar from New Brunswick's Mount Allison University was subjected to an investigation and institutional denunciation over some supposedly controversial posts she wrote on her personal blog.
00:00:24.420 That blog is titled Bambi's AFCAR. Here's a sample of some of the thoughts she expressed that were apparently so outrageous, she had to be investigated by her university. Professor Azar wrote that Canada is not a systemically racist country. She defended the merit principle and said that those applying for university faculty jobs shouldn't be given preference based on what race they are. And she said that Black Lives Matter is a radical movement.
00:00:52.900 I don't know about you, but I think Professor Azar is correct on all of those points.
00:00:58.280 Now, we're still back in February here, when the university administration circulated an email to all students and all staff with a statement that said,
00:01:07.960 Serious concerns have been expressed about posts related to systemic racism, sexual violence, gender and colonization. We neither support nor agree with the inappropriate comments that have been posted to this blog.
00:01:21.760 We recognize that comments such as these are hurtful to many people in our community and more widely.
00:01:29.800 Now, again, because of her opinions, Professor Azar was investigated for discriminatory conduct.
00:01:36.220 Now, that investigation has concluded. As the public, we won't be privy to what the investigation found, but we do know from a May 4th letter released by Mount Allison University that Professor Azar was suspended without pay for six months.
00:01:53.520 So, she won't be teaching in the upcoming fall semester, and who even knows if she'll get her job back after that.
00:02:01.220 And the university also recommended that she undergo diversity, equity and inclusion training. Classic.
00:02:07.860 This professor, though, she's not simply accepting the treatment she's receiving.
00:02:12.780 She is fighting back and currently raising legal fees to sue Mount Allison University for defamation, stating that they are ruining her reputation based on false allegations.
00:02:23.380 So, good for her, frankly.
00:02:25.420 As of the time I am recording this video, Rima Azar has already received over $20,000 in donations, even though the page has been up for only a couple days.
00:02:33.920 There's one paragraph that Professor Azar wrote on her fundraising page that I quite like, so I'll read it out here.
00:02:41.180 I will use the funds raised to cover my personal legal defense fund.
00:02:45.540 I love my students, job, colleagues, university, province, and beautiful country beyond words.
00:02:51.080 My story is beyond academic freedom.
00:02:53.460 I precisely chose to move to Canada for democracy and freedom of expression.
00:02:58.100 Why are we doing this to ourselves?
00:03:00.600 And she's right. Why do we do this to ourselves?
00:03:03.140 A handful of students at Mount Allison University, a tiny, tiny minority of loud voices, said that they wanted this professor reprimanded or censored.
00:03:14.040 And just like that, the university does it.
00:03:16.640 There were even some students and student groups that were calling for more drastic measures.
00:03:21.840 The Mount Allison University Black Students Union, on their Instagram page, straight up said that they want this tenured professor fired.
00:03:29.140 Fired.
00:03:30.000 Because they want the university to honor its commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion.
00:03:35.460 I'm not going to play up Rima Azar's identity credentials, but let's be clear about what's going on here.
00:03:41.940 The Black Students Union, in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion, wants this Arab-Canadian female professor fired because they don't like her perspective on certain sociocultural matters. 0.84
00:03:55.720 So, all of this is in the name of diversity and inclusion.
00:03:59.720 I'm Lindsay Shepard with True North.
00:04:01.720 Thanks for watching.
00:04:02.720 If you like our coverage and commentary, help keep us going by making a contribution at tnc.news slash donate.
00:04:09.720 See you next time.
00:04:10.720 See you next time.