Beyond the "word that begins with an N"
The Lieutenant-Duval affair shook the academic world. But didn't fix anything. How to protect freedom of education?
At UQAM, in feminist studies, she taught what “gender-based analysis” consists of, an approach recognized to contribute to equality between men and women during the development of a project or project. 'a public policy.
So she often used the words "woman" and "man" in class. Necessarily.
Each time, a student strongly opposed it. According to him, a cisgender woman like her did not have to use those words, since society forbids men who think of themselves as women to call themselves women.
"He always interrupted me with a smirk," said the ten-year-old lecturer, who requested anonymity for fear of losing her livelihood.
It lasted two months, in the fall of 2018. It was constant. Stunning. The teacher had lost all pleasure in teaching. She was just dreading her next class. "What's it going to be again this week?" Is he going to be there? "
The student - who is queer, but not transgender - had convinced three or four others to support him in his rehabilitation campaign.
The teacher speaks rather of psychological harassment.
One day, a handful of students walked into her classroom before class started to hand out flyers. “Be careful with your words,” it was written. To speak of men and women to describe people, we still read, was to show transphobia.
Without a word, an activist walked up to the teacher's desk to put a leaflet on her keyboard, while she was writing her lesson plan.
That day, the teacher had had enough. “Stop for two quick seconds,” she told them. Yes, men, women, it exists. Whether you are convinced that identities are imaginary, that doesn't change anything: categories exist! "
She gave her class, as usual, in a tense atmosphere. Then there was a pause. “When I came back, my entire desk was covered with leaflets. They had put it all over the whiteboard. "
She broke down. “I said to myself: it's over. It is the end. It had been going on for two months. I was at the end of the line. To the end. "
She fell off work.
***
Let’s forget for a moment the fall’s wrangling over the “word that begins with an N”. Let us forget the recoveries, the amalgamations and the slippages - undoubtedly inevitable - that the Lieutenant-Duval affair caused.
Let's reframe the debate. It is not a question of claiming the right to utter racist insults at all times.
Nor to refuse to admit the hateful charge that certain words carry.
It is about academic freedom. Of this fundamental mission of universities: to educate. This is the ability of teachers to do their
essential work without fear of getting carried away by a word, a sentence or a concept.
This freedom is eroding, little by little.
In September, the report of the chief scientist of Quebec, Rémi Quirion, noted that the rise of "political correctness" in the debates of society gave rise to forms of censorship. “These phenomena reach the universities, of which they even begin
to disturb the capital function of space of free debate. "
In October, the Lieutenant-Duval affair illustrated this vividly. It rocked academia. In the series of four chronicles that I am presenting to you, players in the field are saying: how to better protect the freedom of education?
Since the fall, I have spoken to dozens of teachers. They teach at UQAM, Université de Montréal, McGill,
University of Ottawa and Université Laval.
Some went through hell in class. Others have self-censored to prevent their courses from going off the rails. All are worried. They feel this wind blowing from American campuses - this dogmatic current which, under the pretext of defending diversity,
demands absolute uniformity of thought.
***
At UQAM, it was not the first time that the queer student had appeared in the lecturer's class.
A year earlier, he had enrolled in the course “Homosexuality and society”. The teacher gave there to read
texts written in the 1950s describing homosexuality as a pathology.
"He came to see me to tell me that it was doing him violence. At one point I said to him, “If this hurts you, don't come, because this class is about the history of social treatment of homosexuality. We're not going to reinvent it. ” "
- A lecturer from UQAM who requested anonymity
The door was there; she was not holding him back. He chose to stay.
“He took another class with me a year later. I didn't understand it right away, but he had given himself a mandate.
He was coming to settle accounts. "
***
The lecturer came up against the unshakeable moral certainties of her student. “He was in a position
where academic knowledge was worthless, since it was dominant knowledge. "
She wondered what he was doing at university, if he didn't believe in the knowledge that was taught there. She finally understood.
“They are not in the majority, but these students are screwed up . They don't come to class to learn, they come to revolutionize. "
“We are seeing the emergence of a generation of students who have read about experiential knowledge and who arrive with the conviction that we have nothing to teach them,” confirms Rachel Chagnon, former director of the Institute for Feminist Studies of the 'UQAM.
M me Chagnon clearly remembers the events of fall 2018. "It was still very naive at the time. It was the first time
that we had faced this kind of issue; lecturers confronted with hostile environments. "
She remembers the shock of her colleague who called her, in tears, after discovering her desk covered with leaflets.
“It was clear to us that she was the victim in that story. "
The Institute encouraged her to file a complaint. The faculty has been notified. But it didn't lead anywhere. UQAM does have an “intervention committee” aimed at ensuring a healthy and safe work environment, but little is known
about the existence of this committee, according to Ms. Chagnon.
“It's always very difficult to file a complaint against a student,” she said. Especially for the lecturers,
who are on contract and who are very fragile. "
And especially when the university depends very (too) largely on student-kings to ensure its funding.
In the end, the lecturer felt left to her own devices. “Fortunately I had a good shrink. She is not yet fully recovered.
She gave up teaching feminist studies.
So she often used the words "woman" and "man" in class. Necessarily.
Each time, a student strongly opposed it. According to him, a cisgender woman like her did not have to use those words, since society forbids men who think of themselves as women to call themselves women.
"He always interrupted me with a smirk," said the ten-year-old lecturer, who requested anonymity for fear of losing her livelihood.
It lasted two months, in the fall of 2018. It was constant. Stunning. The teacher had lost all pleasure in teaching. She was just dreading her next class. "What's it going to be again this week?" Is he going to be there? "
The student - who is queer, but not transgender - had convinced three or four others to support him in his rehabilitation campaign.
The teacher speaks rather of psychological harassment.
One day, a handful of students walked into her classroom before class started to hand out flyers. “Be careful with your words,” it was written. To speak of men and women to describe people, we still read, was to show transphobia.
Without a word, an activist walked up to the teacher's desk to put a leaflet on her keyboard, while she was writing her lesson plan.
That day, the teacher had had enough. “Stop for two quick seconds,” she told them. Yes, men, women, it exists. Whether you are convinced that identities are imaginary, that doesn't change anything: categories exist! "
She gave her class, as usual, in a tense atmosphere. Then there was a pause. “When I came back, my entire desk was covered with leaflets. They had put it all over the whiteboard. "
She broke down. “I said to myself: it's over. It is the end. It had been going on for two months. I was at the end of the line. To the end. "
She fell off work.
***
Let’s forget for a moment the fall’s wrangling over the “word that begins with an N”. Let us forget the recoveries, the amalgamations and the slippages - undoubtedly inevitable - that the Lieutenant-Duval affair caused.
Let's reframe the debate. It is not a question of claiming the right to utter racist insults at all times.
Nor to refuse to admit the hateful charge that certain words carry.
It is about academic freedom. Of this fundamental mission of universities: to educate. This is the ability of teachers to do their
essential work without fear of getting carried away by a word, a sentence or a concept.
This freedom is eroding, little by little.
In September, the report of the chief scientist of Quebec, Rémi Quirion, noted that the rise of "political correctness" in the debates of society gave rise to forms of censorship. “These phenomena reach the universities, of which they even begin
to disturb the capital function of space of free debate. "
In October, the Lieutenant-Duval affair illustrated this vividly. It rocked academia. In the series of four chronicles that I am presenting to you, players in the field are saying: how to better protect the freedom of education?
Since the fall, I have spoken to dozens of teachers. They teach at UQAM, Université de Montréal, McGill,
University of Ottawa and Université Laval.
Some went through hell in class. Others have self-censored to prevent their courses from going off the rails. All are worried. They feel this wind blowing from American campuses - this dogmatic current which, under the pretext of defending diversity,
demands absolute uniformity of thought.
***
At UQAM, it was not the first time that the queer student had appeared in the lecturer's class.
A year earlier, he had enrolled in the course “Homosexuality and society”. The teacher gave there to read
texts written in the 1950s describing homosexuality as a pathology.
"He came to see me to tell me that it was doing him violence. At one point I said to him, “If this hurts you, don't come, because this class is about the history of social treatment of homosexuality. We're not going to reinvent it. ” "
- A lecturer from UQAM who requested anonymity
The door was there; she was not holding him back. He chose to stay.
“He took another class with me a year later. I didn't understand it right away, but he had given himself a mandate.
He was coming to settle accounts. "
***
The lecturer came up against the unshakeable moral certainties of her student. “He was in a position
where academic knowledge was worthless, since it was dominant knowledge. "
She wondered what he was doing at university, if he didn't believe in the knowledge that was taught there. She finally understood.
“They are not in the majority, but these students are screwed up . They don't come to class to learn, they come to revolutionize. "
“We are seeing the emergence of a generation of students who have read about experiential knowledge and who arrive with the conviction that we have nothing to teach them,” confirms Rachel Chagnon, former director of the Institute for Feminist Studies of the 'UQAM.
M me Chagnon clearly remembers the events of fall 2018. "It was still very naive at the time. It was the first time
that we had faced this kind of issue; lecturers confronted with hostile environments. "
She remembers the shock of her colleague who called her, in tears, after discovering her desk covered with leaflets.
“It was clear to us that she was the victim in that story. "
The Institute encouraged her to file a complaint. The faculty has been notified. But it didn't lead anywhere. UQAM does have an “intervention committee” aimed at ensuring a healthy and safe work environment, but little is known
about the existence of this committee, according to Ms. Chagnon.
“It's always very difficult to file a complaint against a student,” she said. Especially for the lecturers,
who are on contract and who are very fragile. "
And especially when the university depends very (too) largely on student-kings to ensure its funding.
In the end, the lecturer felt left to her own devices. “Fortunately I had a good shrink. She is not yet fully recovered.
She gave up teaching feminist studies.
Isabelle Hachey
The Presse
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