Hamas and Feminist Dissonance

2025/03/12 Leave a comment

Sigh…:

It was predictable that Hamas officials and their radicalised international supporters would deny that sexual violence against Israeli women and men was committed on 7 October 2023. But denials from the academic field of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies are more surprising because they appear to violate two of the field’s salient principles: support for women’s sexual autonomy and insistence that women who lodge charges of sexual violence should be believed. Instead, a number of academic feminists have not only rejected Israeli claims, they have also embraced Hamas, along with all the reactionary patriarchal baggage of radical Islam, thereby abandoning their own stated values.

This subversion of academic feminism has been unambiguously apparent in multiple events organised by women’s and gender studies programs across the US since the 7 October attacks. The most recent of these was held on 11 February, when the Gender and Women’s Studies department at the University of California at Berkeley sponsored a webinar panel discussion titled “Feminist and Queer Solidarities with Palestine.” The original abstract for the event read:

“Some of the more important accomplishments of feminism include the insistence on “believing women” who come forward with accusations of sexual assault, and the awareness of increased sexual violence during militarized conflicts. Yet these achievements are currently being turned against real feminist concerns in Palestine. This talk will look at how Zionism has weaponized feminism, so as to serve Israel’s genocidal intent, by upholding debunked accusations of systematic Hamas mass assault, while ignoring documented reports of Israeli abuses.”

The abstract was taken down after UCB law professor Steven Davidoff Solomon published a critical op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on 3 February. Solomon anticipated that the panelists’ talks would likely “celebrate antisemitic violence” and create “a hostile environment for women” on campus, thereby violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Two days later, UC Berkeley’s chancellor Rich Lyons responded to Solomon in a letter to the Journal:…

Source: Hamas and Feminist Dissonance

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Dave Snow: When political scientists get political

2024/02/29 Leave a comment

Believe not unique to political science and his conclusions based on extensive article analysis.

Some of my academic friends, in broad agreement with Snow’s depiction of the shift, point out however that most academics prefer to publish in higher profile international journals given greater weight in tenure and related decisions:

…. I draw three main conclusions. First, Canadian political science scholarship is clearly shifting in important ways. For better or worse, papers published in the Canadian Journal of Political Science reflect the discipline itself. While the discipline has not undergone a wholesale change (as seems to be the case in history), a sizeable proportion of Canada’s flagship political science journal is composed of papers using critical approaches and methodologies that place a greater emphasis on narratives of historical marginalization, particularly with respect to Indigenous Peoples and decolonization. 

Second, the journal’s openness to critical methodologies and identity diversity has been accompanied by a narrowing of its ideological diversity. While authors’ policy recommendations are by no means ideologically homogenous, they generally range from centre-left to far-left. This tilt is most obvious in papers that focus on decolonization, but it is present throughout the entire journal. Of 227 papers published over the last five years, I did not find a single one that provided anything approximating a conservative policy recommendation. By contrast, even the journal’s most empirically rigorous quantitative papers often contain recommendations such as “political parties should recruit and promote more women candidates” and “Policy tools specifically designed to problematize, target and alleviate racial economic inequality also seem needed.” Conservative scholars used to publish mildly conservative policy recommendations in the journal. Those days are now long gone.

Third, the journal editors’ statement is sadly reflective of similar statements made in Canadian higher education regarding equity, diversity, and inclusion, insofar as it refuses to acknowledge any previous progressive change. The Canadian Journal of Political Science had already clearly opened itself up to diverse perspectives and methodologies in recent years. Several papers in a 2017 special issue had already identified some of these changes. Yet this did not stop its new editors from claiming that the discipline was still engaged in “gatekeeping” on behalf of “white androcentric paradigms.” Thankfully, political scientists are well-equipped to use data to test the truth of such speculative arguments.

In spite of the challenges facing our universities, Canadians continue to profess high levels of trust in academics, including those in the social sciences and humanities. To retain such trust, we must demonstrate a commitment to the core purposes of the university: intellectual curiosity and the pursuit of truth. We do ourselves no favours when we abandon these goals in favour of political projects. 

Dave Snow is an Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Guelph.

Source: Dave Snow: When political scientists get political

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Marche: When extremist activists drive the left to oblivion, what will remain?

2024/01/29 Leave a comment

Well worth reading:

…The foundation of Canadian multiculturalism rests on a basic piece of common sense: Leave your shoes at the door. Importing the world’s geopolitical nightmares into our country would end multiculturalism, and right quick. If the police and the courts allowed Ukrainian Canadians to vandalize the businesses of Russian Canadians who support Vladimir Putin, or if Sikhs were allowed to vandalize the businesses of Narendra Modi’s supporters, the result would be chaos, despite the entirely justifiable rage of those communities.

But common sense, as usual, doesn’t apply when it comes to the Jews.

Naomi Klein, Canada’s most famous living political writer, is a prime example of how far the left has declined into self-consuming purification, having become a prominent defender of hate-motivated mischief over the past three months. “The extraordinary raids, arrests and property seizures of the Indigo 11 represent an attack on political speech the likes of which I have not seen in Canada in my lifetime,” she wrote in the aftermath.

Ms. Klein’s defence of the Indigo 11 is grounded in the idea that Indigo is a fair target because Ms. Reisman has supported Israel and its military, co-founding an organization that provides scholarships and other awards for soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces. By her logic, hundreds of thousands of Jews in this country could become legitimate targets, given that, through one vehicle or another, a vast number has given money to the state of Israel and, thus, the IDF, at some point over the course of their lives. She has also staunchly defended Ms. Jama, whom she has called “morally courageous” – a woman who, just to reiterate, claimed that the reports of the rapes committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 were “misinformation.”

Ms. Klein, of course, has just published a book about misinformation – and her book is still available behind the very window that was vandalized. Boycotts, divestment and sanctions are for others, one supposes.

The old phrase typically used to describe such loud and credulous cause-pushers was “useful idiots.” But describing tenured radicals such as Ms. Klein or academics such as those among the Indigo 11 as useful would be a misnomer: They are quite useless. Everywhere they survive, they are losing. Academic humanities departments, which regularly promote identity politics using government funding, are struggling: In Ontario, there was a 20-per-cent decline in undergraduate enrolments in the humanities between 2008 and 2017. The extremist champions of the establishment left are driving progressivism toward a lonely, impotent future….

Source: When extremist activists drive the left to oblivion, what will remain?

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Palestinian politicians lash out at renowned academics who denounced president’s antisemitic remarks

2023/09/15 Leave a comment

Sigh:

Palestinian politicians on Wednesday raged against dozens of Palestinian academics who had criticized President Mahmoud Abbas’ recent remarks on the Holocaust that drew widespread accusations of antisemitism.

They lambasted the open letter signed earlier this week by over a hundred Palestinian academics, activists and artists based around the world as “the statement of shame.”

The well-respected writers and thinkers had released the letter after footage surfaced that showed Abbas asserting European Jews were persecuted by Hitler because of what he described as their “social functions” and predatory lending practices, rather than their religion or ethnicity.

“Their statement is consistent with the Zionist narrative and its signatories give credence to the enemies of the Palestinian people,” said the secular nationalist Fatah party that runs the Palestinian Authority.

Fatah officials called the signatories “mouthpieces for the occupation” and “extremely dangerous.”

In the open letter, the legions of Palestinian academics, most of whom live in the United States and Europe, condemned Abbas’ comments as “morally and politically reprehensible.”

“We adamantly reject any attempt to diminish, misrepresent, or justify antisemitism, Nazi crimes against humanity or historical revisionism vis-à-vis the Holocaust,” the letter added. A few of the signatories are based in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.

In Geneva on Wednesday, Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, blasted Abbas’ comments as “overtly antisemitic” and distorting of the Holocaust. She said the open letter from the Palestinian academics was “stronger almost than what I had to say.”

“There’s no question about it: These kind of statements must stop, because they do nothing to advance peace, and worse than that, they spread anti-Semitism,” Lipstadt told The Associated Press outside an event on antisemitism attended by dozens of diplomats on the sidelines of a session of the Human Rights Council.

The chorus of indignation among Palestinian leaders over the letter casts light on a controversy that for decades has plagued the Palestinian relationship with the Holocaust. The Nazi genocide, which killed nearly 6 million Jews and millions of others, sent European Jews pouring into the Holy Land.

Israel was established in 1948 as a safe haven for Jews in the wake of the Holocaust, and remembering the Holocaust and honoring its victims remains a powerful part of the country’s national identity.

But the war surrounding Israel’s establishment displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, who fled or were forced from their homes in what the Palestinians call the “nakba,” or catastrophe. Many Palestinians are loathe to focus on the atrocities of the Holocaust for fear of undercutting their own national cause.

“It doesn’t serve our political interest to keep bringing up the Holocaust,” said Mkhaimer Abusaada, a political scientist at Al-Azhar University in Gaza City. “We are suffering from occupation and settlement expansion and fascist Israeli polices. That is what we should be stressing.”

But frequent Holocaust distortion and denial among Palestinians has only drawn further scrutiny to the tensions surrounding their relationship to the Holocaust. That unease may have started with Al-Husseini, the World War II-era grand mufti of Jerusalem and a Palestinian Arab nationalist. He was an enthusiastic Nazi supporter who helped recruit Bosnian Muslims to their side, and whose antisemitism was well-documented.

More recently, Abbas has repeatedly incited various international uproars with speeches denounced as antisemitic Holocaust denial. In 2018, he repeated a claim about usury and Ashkenazi Jews similar to the one he made in his speech to Fatah members last month. Last year, he accused Israel of committing “50 Holocausts” against Palestinians.

For Israel, Abbas’ record has fueled accusations that he is not to be trusted as a partner in peace negotiations to end the decadeslong conflict. Through decades of failed peace talks, Abbas has led the Palestinian Authority, the semiautonomous body that began administering parts of the occupied West Bank after the Oslo peace process of the 1990s.

Abbas has kept a tight grip on power for the last 17 years and his security forces have been accused of harshly cracking down on dissent. His authority has become deeply unpopular over its reviled security alliance with Israel and its failure to hold democratic elections.

The open letter signed by Palestinian academics this week also touched on what it described as the authority’s “increasingly authoritarian and draconian rule” and said Abbas had “forfeited any claim to represent the Palestinian people.”

Source: Palestinian politicians lash out at renowned academics who denounced president’s antisemitic remarks – Yahoo! Voices

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Les longs délais de traitement des visas nuisent aux universitaires

2023/02/03 Leave a comment

More concern in Quebec regarding visa delays, particularly with respect to conferences and academics:

Les longs délais de traitement pour obtenir un visa de visiteur au Canada causent de plus en plus de maux de tête à des organisateurs de conférences à Montréal comme à Toronto, qui comptent sur la venue d’experts et de participants de l’étranger. Cette difficulté d’obtenir un visa dans les temps complique la tenue de plusieurs de ces grandes rencontres, allant même jusqu’à les compromettre.

Originaire du Maroc, AbdelazizBlilid collabore avec Stéphane Couture, un professeur du Département de communication de l’Université de Montréal, pour une conférence qui doit se tenir au mois de juin à Montréal. Malgré son souhait d’enfin rencontrer son collègue canadien, qu’il n’a jamais vu en personne, M. Blilid est résigné. Avec un délai officiel de 216 jours sur le site Web d’Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada (IRCC) pour obtenir un visa de visiteur, le professeur marocain n’a même pas encore pris la peine de déposer une demande.

« Si la situation reste comme telle, je ne demanderai pas de visa, et je manquerai ce deuxième colloque aussi », laisse-t-il tomber, en anticipant qu’il devra y assister à distance. Il commence à être habitué : la dernière fois, un long délai de quatre mois l’avait aussi dissuadé à déposer une demande de visa pour assister à un autre colloque.

L’été dernier, à la suite d’un article rapportant de longs délais de traitement pour les visas de visiteurs, le ministre de l’Immigration Sean Fraser avait réitéré son engagement à diminuer le temps d’attente à la fin de l’année 2022 pour le ramener aux normes de service. Or, comme Le Devoir le révélait mercredi, non seulement les délais n’ont pas baissé six mois après la promesse du ministre, mais ils ont plutôt explosé.

Stéphane Couture a reçu récemment une subvention du fédéral pourorganiser cette conférence, à laquelle40 intervenants et 200 participants sont attendus. Il avait en tête d’inviter des experts du Sénégal, du Maroc et du Cameroun avec qui il collabore. Mais devant les délais qui s’allongent, en particulier pour le Sénégal, où ils sont de 462 jours, il songe à tout reporter. « Une [solution] serait de tenir la conférence dans un autre pays », a dit le professeur.

Pour lui, ces longs délais de traitement nuisent non seulement à ses activités de recherche, mais également à toute son université. « Il y a une attractivité qui n’est pas là. Ce n’est pas très sérieux », soutient-il. « La mission de l’Université de Montréal, c’est d’être l’université francophone la plus influente du monde. Mais si ça prend un an et demi pour avoir la permission de venir visiter Montréal […] alors que mon collègue marocain dit que ça lui prend une semaine pour pouvoir aller en France… »

Les organisateurs de grands événements internationaux y penseront à deux fois avant de choisir Montréal comme ville hôte, craint M. Couture.

Plusieurs embûches

Longs délais de traitement, difficulté d’avoir de l’information concernant l’état d’une demande, acceptation ou refus de dernière minute : pour avoir été responsable de la logistique des participants pour différents congrès internationaux, Laura Sawyer, directrice générale de l’Association internationale de la communication (en anglais, ICA), sait de quoi elle parle.

Mme Sawyer a elle-même dû intervenir auprès des ambassades et des consulats pour aider des participants à obtenir le visa leur permettant d’assister aux divers congrès annuels de son association.

Cette année, le 73e Congrès de l’ICA, qui aura lieu à la fin mai à Toronto, accueillera plus de 4000 participants, dont plus de 3300 viendront de l’extérieur du Canada. Et selon leur nationalité, un grand nombre d’entre eux auront besoin du précieux sésame.

« Nous partageons la frustration des universitaires dans le monde face aux difficultés liées à ces voyages internationaux », a-t-elle affirmé au Devoir. Des difficultés qui se sont exacerbées depuis la pandémie, affirme-t-elle,et qui ont aussi un impact sur la logistique du séjour, dont la réservation des hôtels.

Sans pouvoir juger quatre mois à l’avance de l’ampleur du problème, Laura Sawyer, dont l’association compte plus de 5000 membres répartis dans 80 pays, s’attend encore une fois à devoir personnellement intervenir auprès des autorités migratoires canadiennes.

Les limites de la distance

Pour Mme Sawyer, même si les participants qui n’auront pas obtenu de visa pourront suivre le congrès à distance, il y a une limite à ne jamais pouvoir se rencontrer. « La valeur d’une conférence ne réside pas seulement dans les présentations et les panels, mais aussi dans les conversations de couloir, les événements sociaux, le réseautage », dit-elle. « C’est extrêmement frustrant quand un universitaire renommé, et qui est crucial pour un panel, se retrouve dans l’impossibilité d’entrer dans le pays hôte de la conférence. »

Assister aux conférences en ligne peut être une solution, mais c’est toutefois loin d’être idéal, croit aussi Stéphane Couture.

« Mettez-vous à la place de ces personnes-là. Si la conférence dure quatre jours en décalage horaire via Zoom, ils vont venir à deux ou trois réunions », laisse tomber le professeur. Il aurait aimé que ses collègues venus d’ailleurs restent quelques journées de plus que le colloque pour visiter la ville et tisser des liens. Toute la richesse des rencontres informelles est réduite à néant, déplore-t-il.

Une situation ironique, poursuit-il, quand on considère que la subvention fédérale qu’il a reçue se nomme Connexion, et que le but était « de connecter les gens ». « La dynamique qui permet des connexions va être grandement perdue, croit M. Couture. Les personnes africaines vont structurellement être désavantagées. »

De son côté, l’Université de Montréal indique que les universités canadiennes sont intervenues dans les derniers mois à ce sujet, au même titre que pour les permis d’études des étudiants étrangers.

Source: Les longs délais de traitement des visas nuisent aux universitaires

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China fights back with sanctions on academics, institute

2021/03/29 Leave a comment

No surprise. Pleased that we were able to pressure steering committee members of International Metropolis to abandon holding their 2020 conference in Beijing:

The imposition of tit-for-tat sanctions on researchers by China after the European Union imposed bans on Chinese officials, has ratcheted up pressure on academics, particularly those whose research involves topics deemed sensitive to China.

Experts said the sanctions further narrow the space for China research and increase fears in the academic community that China could target more overseas academics in future because of their China-linked work. 

On Friday China announced sanctions against four organisations and nine individuals in the UK, mainly parliamentarians but also including Joanne Smith Finley, a reader in Chinese studies at Newcastle University, for what the Chinese foreign ministry called “maliciously spreading lies and information” about Xinjiang.

Smith Finley said on Friday: “It seems I am to be sanctioned by the PRC [People’s Republic of China] government for speaking the truth about the Uyghur tragedy in Xinjiang, and for having a conscience. Well so be it. I have no regrets for speaking out and I will not be silenced.”

Newcastle University said in a statement: “Academic freedom underpins every area of research at Newcastle University and is essential to the principles of UK higher education. Dr Jo Smith Finley has been a leading voice in this important area of research on the Uyghurs and we fully support her in this work.”

Andreas Fulda, associate professor at the University of Nottingham in the UK and an expert in Europe-China relations, said via Twitter that “this uncalled-for escalation by the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] means that there cannot be ‘business as usual’ for British academia. We need to start a vigorous debate about how to deal with the CCP’s political censorship. Self-censorship is not an option.”

This latest announcement came three days after China named two researchers – Adrian Zenz, a German expert on Xinjiang who is currently senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in the United States, who has been targeted by China recently; and Björn Jerdén, director of the Swedish National China Centre at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs in Stockholm – as well as an entire institution, the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS), as being barred, along with their families, from visiting China, Hong Kong and Macao, it was announced on Tuesday.

MERICS is one of Europe’s biggest China research institutions with over 30 scholars and specialists on China affairs turning out major reports.  

“They and companies and institutions associated with them are also restricted from doing business with China,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. 

The ban comes as the EU on 21 March imposed its first sanctions on China since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, imposing travel bans and asset freezes against four Chinese officials and one organisation over the mass persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. In coordinated action, the United Kingdom and Canada this week also announced sanctions on Xinjiang officials.

China’s official Global Times newspaper claimed Jerdén “fabricated rumours about Confucius Institutes describing them as China’s ‘brainwashing’ tools and ‘espionage’ institutions”. 

Jerdén has firmly rejected “the sweeping and groundless charges” that he had been spreading ‘lies and disinformation’.

“China’s sanctions against scholars and thinktanks are unprecedented but not surprising,” Jerdén said via Twitter. The Chinese Communist Party “has made clear that it doesn’t tolerate independent research on China”.

Jerdén also alluded to the tightening space for China research, saying: “It has become difficult to do research about China without interference from the Chinese government. As China becomes more important around the world, this highlights the need for a strong and independent China research community in Europe.”

“It is completely unacceptable that China imposes sanctions on academics who conduct free and open research,” said Marie Söderberg, chairperson of the board of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, where Jerdén works, in a statement issued on Tuesday. Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Ann Linde also denounced the ban on researchers. 

Targeting of a research institute

Global Times claimed MERICS “has actually been colluding with anti-China forces over the years since it was established in 2013”. 

MERICS said in a statement on Monday that “MERICS very much regrets this decision and rejects the allegations”. 

“As an independent research institute, we are dedicated to fostering a better and more differentiated understanding of China. We will continue to pursue this mission by presenting fact-based analysis, also with the aim of creating opportunities for exchanges and dialogue – even in difficult times,” it said.

But academics note that the sanctions went beyond tit-for-tat action. In a separate editorial on 23 March, Global Times said MERICS was sanctioned not simply because of its research but because “it is the largest Chinese research centre in entire Europe. Cutting off ties with China means its research channel will hardly be sustainable and its influence will be critically hit.”

Sheena Greitens, associate professor and expert on East Asia at the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin in the United States, said that in the past the party state used “uncertainty” to get people to self-police. Beijing “is now making parameters much more clear” with its statement that it wants to cut off MERIC’s research pipeline, she said. 

“Repression tactics against China scholars used to be ‘rare but real’. They are increasingly not rare,” said Greitens. 

The blanket targeting of an entire research institute is “something entirely new”, said Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute, a think tank in Berlin, Germany. He said the move was designed to intimidate other China scholars in the West into reining in criticism of the Communist Party.

Rory Truex, assistant professor at Princeton University in the US and an expert on authoritarianism and repression in China, said: “This does constitute a real shift in rhetoric and has implications for China studies. The [Communist] Party is now making it explicit that if you study the wrong thing, you will face consequences.”

Directors of a range of major European research institutes and China studies centres at universities said in a statement this week: “We are deeply concerned that targeting independent researchers and civil society institutions undermines practical and constructive engagement by people who are striving to contribute positively to policy debates. This will be damaging not only for our ability to provide well-informed analysis but also for relations more broadly between China and Europe in the future.

“We believe that mutual dialogue is crucial, especially at difficult times, and deeply regret the inclusion of academic researchers and civil society institutions in the current tensions. We will stand by our colleagues who have been targeted this way.”

China’s sanctions, announced on 22 March, also included European parliamentarians pushing for action on the rights of the Uyghur Turkic minority in Xinjiang, as well as those pushing for changes in China’s policy on Taiwan which it claims as a Chinese province, and rights agencies and organisations which the Chinese government considers to have been “interfering in China’s internal affairs for a long time.”

China also sanctioned the Political and Security Committee of the European Council, the Subcommittee on Human Rights of the European Parliament and the Alliance of Democracies Foundation in Denmark.

Source: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post-nl.php?story=20210325144041486

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Canadian academics may fear reprisal for criticizing China – but they must not self-censor

2020/10/24 Leave a comment

Worth noting:

In the past few decades, the Communist Party of China has worked, wherever possible, to limit criticism of its country by foreign voices. Now, the Chinese government has a new weapon for suppressing critical voices that it deems harmful to its national image.

This summer, China passed its draconian national-security law for Hong Kong – aimed at bringing pro-democracy protests to heel – which features harsh punishments for an overly broad array of acts of protest and allows Beijing to pursue offenders regardless of their citizenship and the places where they committed the alleged crimes. This effectively gives the government the ability to place anyone, anywhere in the world, on a fugitive list. Numerous people in Hong Kong and in the West have already been arrested or are wanted by the government under this law.

This has had a real-world chilling effect on the discourse in Western democratic nations, and especially in their academic institutions, where free speech is a matter of paramount importance. In response to China’s proclaimed extra-territorial power, several prestigious British and American universities have implemented measures aimed at shielding students and faculty, regardless of their national origins, from prosecution by Chinese authorities. At Oxford University, students were asked to submit some papers anonymously; at Princeton University, students of Chinese politics will put codes down to identify their work instead of their names. Anonymous online chats and declining to penalize students who don’t want to participate in politically sensitive topics have also been considered.

But these actions are ultimately concessions to an authoritarian regime and prevent genuine debate about the Chinese government. This has no place in democratic institutions, which can, should and must be unreservedly critical about all issues, including China. Such policies risk handing the Chinese government a victory in its efforts to control the discourse in the West – and by making a threat that, for many, is an empty one.

In his book On Tyranny, historian Timothy Snyder cites examples such as Nazi Germany to show how most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given by individuals who “obey in advance” and adapt by “anticipatory obedience” – that is, by conceding to the tyrant without even being asked. This only teaches tyrants that their actions do not have consequences and that they can go further. Today, China is the new global tyrant, but Canadians cannot just roll over in advance. The Chinese government simply cannot pursue or jail all its critics from all over the world. Canadians without ties to China can criticize this government all they want and simply avoid travelling there.

The situation is far trickier for Chinese and Hong Kong international students, who likely have to go back home in the future. They must be protected if discussing politically sensitive topics would put their safety or their families’ safety at risk. But such protective policies can still enable these at-risk students to participate and be assessed. They could be encouraged, for instance, to email their views to their teachers, who could then communicate their views to the class. However, because freedom of expression is so pivotal, students should be allowed to attach their names if they wish. There may be no perfect policy.

But without freedom of speech, a university cannot be said to exist. Sadly, genuine debate about the Chinese government has been intimidated into self-censored silence. According to the Vancouver Sun, some China scholars have decided to “keep their mouths more or less entirely shut,” and there is concern that worried academics would offer up “timid” analysis. Many professors and researchers also referred to this fear in an open letter published in the The Globe and Mail last year, which asked China to release detained Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. “We who share Mr. Kovrig’s and Mr. Spavor’s enthusiasm for building genuine, productive and lasting relationships must now be more cautious about travelling and working in China and engaging our Chinese counterparts,” they said. “That will lead to less dialogue and greater distrust, and undermine efforts to manage disagreements and identify common ground.”

The new law represents a wake-up call to Canadian universities, which now confront the stark reality that if we give the Chinese government a foot, it’ll take a mile. But it is not too late for them to say no to the tyrant, to affirm their autonomy, and to safeguard our sovereignty and dignity.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canadian-academics-may-fear-reprisal-for-criticizing-china-but-they/

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Canada 150 research chairs draw scientists fleeing Trump, guns and Brexit – The Globe and Mail

2018/04/02 Leave a comment

Continues a series of anecdotes regarding the relative attractiveness of Canada:

The day after Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election, Alan Aspuru-Guzik, a prominent professor of chemistry at Harvard University, picked up the phone and called Canada.

For Dr. Aspuru-Guzik, who specializes in developing advanced materials for energy generation, the 2016 result was a signal to close up shop. Born in the United States and raised in Mexico, Dr. Aspuru-Guzik has family roots that trace back to Spain, Poland and Ukraine. It’s the kind of varied background, he said, that instills a predisposed wariness of political authoritarianism and economic instability. And the Trump presidency has put his instincts on high alert.

“Many of my colleagues have told me that they will leave the United States if things get worse,” Dr. Aspuru-Guzik said. “The difference is that I already think it’s worse.”

On Thursday, Dr. Aspuru-Guzik is set to be named one of 20 newly hired Canada 150 research chairs at a briefing in Ottawa. He plans to leave his position at Harvard this summer to take up a new role at the University of Toronto, where he will continue his research and aim to spin off startup companies from his scientific work.

“Great science is all about great people. So being able to attract someone of Alan’s calibre is a coup for this country,” said Alan Bernstein, director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research in Toronto. It was Dr. Bernstein who was on the other end of the line when Dr. Aspuru-Guzik made his postelection call, setting the wheels in motion for his eventual move.

A total of 25 Canada 150 research chairs will be established at Canadian universities under the one-off program, supported with $117.6-million in federal funding. Four chairholders were already named late last year, including computer scientist Margo Seltzer who, like Dr. Aspuru-Guzik, is leaving a faculty post at Harvard to come to Canada.

“I think it speaks to what Canada is doing here in science,” federal Science Minister Kirsty Duncan said. “We’re in a global competition for talent.”

Several of the appointees who spoke to The Globe and Mail before Thursday’s announcement were enthusiastic about what they perceive to be a collaborative, pro-research culture in Canada. But many also expressed a sense of relief when speaking about what they were coming from.

The haul of prominent scientists attracted to the new chairs suggests that a predicted brain gain for Canada owing to reactionary politics in the United States and elsewhere is having an impact and that scientists are indeed voting with their feet.

For example, when asked what she would be giving up by leaving North Carolina’s Duke University to come to the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Anita Layton, a biomathematician whose work relates to kidney function, summed it up in two words: gun violence.

Dr. Layton, who did her graduate work in Canada and whose parents live in Toronto, explained that her children, ages 14 and 10, have recently been in lockdown exercises at school to practise for an armed assault.

“This is their world … It’s normal life for them and I find it really sad,” she said.

Family considerations played a role in her move, but she added that Waterloo’s strong mathematics department offers just as many professional advantages as Duke, with the added benefit of $350,000 in funding tied to her research chair which ensures years of continuing support.

Funding stability was a key factor for Judith Mank, an expert in the genomics of diversity, who will be moving her laboratory from University College London to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Like that of a number of British-based researchers, Dr. Mank was thrown into turmoil by the outcome of the 2016 Brexit vote.

“I got really worried because all of our funding is from the European Union and we’re not sure if we’ll be able to access that,” she said.

At UBC, Dr. Mank will be supported by a $1-million funding tranche that goes with her top-tier Canada 150 chair.

The same amount has been allocated to the University of Saskatchewan for James Famiglietti, a hydrologist currently with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California who will become the director of the university’s highly regarded Global Institute for Water Security.

Dr. Famiglietti is well known for his public appearances in the United States, particularly during California’s recent, prolonged drought and testimony before Congress. A specialist in remote sensing, he has expertise in gauging water resources from space, and the impact of climate change on those resources.

He said the real advantage he anticipates in coming to Canada is in being able to access parts of the world that are undergoing water stress but where U.S. federal employees are typically prohibited from visiting.

“The goal is to begin reaching out to the hottest of the hot spots for water scarcity around the world,” Dr. Famiglietti said.

Among the newly selected chairs are several Canadian researchers, including Katherine O’Brien, a global health vaccinologist who is heading to Dalhousie University after her 30 years at premier research facilities in the United States and around the world.

“It was the right time for me to come back,” she said, avoiding any discussion of U.S. politics.

But for Dr. Aspuru-Guzik, the motivation for his move is clear: “I believe that life is short and that I should live in a place that is consistent with my values.”

via Canada 150 research chairs draw scientists fleeing Trump, guns and Brexit – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Canadian Studies profs hold conference on how to stay critical without Harper around

2016/10/03 Leave a comment

While Twitter commentary has been biting, my take is that it is refreshing to have a group acknowledge its implicit (and sometimes explicit) biases.

A similar reflection others (e.g., public servants, the media) might also be warranted, although my sense is the media is becoming more critical as the government’s time in office becomes longer, with the related decisions (or non-decisions):

Canadian Studies professors slammed Stephen Harper’s Conservative government so much that they’re literally holding a conference in Ottawa to discuss how to keep their critical edge now that he’s gone.

“The loss of the Harper government for Canadian academics is not unlike the loss of George W. Bush for American comedians,” the description of the conference’s theme says.

“The question in this moment of optimism (which may well have passed by the time this conference comes around) is…What do we do now?”

Called “After the Deluge: Reframing/Sustaining Critique in Post-Harper Canada,” the conference will take place at Carleton University on Oct. 28 and 29.

The conference’s theme notes Canadian Studies professors have “long prided themselves on a robust critique of the Canadian State,” and outlines how the Conservative government under Harper antagonized scholars.

 It singles out the elimination of the long form census and budget cuts to Library and Archives Canada as examples of “attacks” on research infrastructure.

“The Harper government also hit the world of Canadian Studies at its doorstep by cancelling the Understanding Canada program in 2012,” it says.

The theme also questions whether Canadian Studies in general has become too “premised on oppositional critique of the state,” and whether that’s really the best approach for their research.

“Are generative, collaborative, appreciative, and assets-based approaches to Canadian Studies a failure of critical vigilance, or a long-overdue paradigm shift?” the conference’s theme ponders.

Peter Thompson, an associate professor at Carleton who’s helping organize the conference, said the event will be less blunt than the theme implies.

“The idea is not just bashing the Harper era,” he said. “It’s about to what extent is there a change, and looking at that with clear eyes. We’re not assuming that there’s a change in government so things are automatically better.”

Thompson — who was very careful to keep the discussion apolitical — did acknowledge that with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau overturning some of the Conservative government’s most controversial policies, there is the potential for contemporary research to become too soft.

“I don’t want to assume what people are going to say at the conference,” he said. “But yeah … it’s about making sure that critique, and that the sharpness of the critique, is still there even though things have changed.”

Papers presented at the conference will touch on areas such as national security, national symbols, and cultural policy, Thompson said.

The conference is organized as part of the Canadian Studies Network, and will also host the network’s annual general meeting.

Source: Canadian Studies profs hold conference on how to stay critical without Harper around | National Post

Filed under Government Tagged with ,

Military trying to cut recruitment targets for women despite expert’s report

2015/06/09 Leave a comment

Military, RCMP, CSIS.001RCMP envy (the RCMP successfully managed to negotiate lower targets). Declaring victory by changing the goalposts.

Seriously, there are particular challenges for both the Canadian Forces and the RCMP, but this approach only gives the impression that changing the targets is more important than improving recruitment and retention.

The above chart summarizes the Canadian Forces, the RCMP and CSIS. Only CSIS has a strong employment equity record, but the nature of their work, analogous to much policy work and IT makes it that much easier.

Interestingly, all three organizations do not post their reports. These have to be requested from the Library of Parliament (which is efficient in providing them):

The Canadian Armed Forces is now in consultations with Employment and Social Development Canada and the Canadian Human Rights Commission over how those targets are calculated in hopes they can be brought down to what the military argues are more realistic levels.

Lt.-Cmdr. Meghan Marsaw said in an email that the most recent consultations with ESDC and the human rights commission were held over the winter, though she couldn’t say when any new targets would be set “as further consultation is required both internally and externally.”

Documents obtained by the Citizen last year showed the Canadian Armed Forces wanting to cut the target for women from 25.1 per cent to 17.6 per cent. It also wanted to change the targets for visible minorities from 11.7 per cent to 8.2 per cent, and for aboriginals from 3.3 per cent to 2.6 per cent.

Military officials would not confirm whether those are still the proposed targets.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission is currently conducting an audit of the Canadian Armed Forces to determine if the military is taking adequate action to increase diversity within the ranks. The commission regularly audits all federal departments and agencies.

Some have previously cautioned against cutting the targets for fear the Canadian Armed Forces will then scale back efforts to increase the number of women as well as visible minorities and aboriginals in uniform. They say the military should strive to represent the country’s demographic make-up.

However, others say that maintaining unrealistic targets could force the military to dilute recruiting standards. They also say it could draw away resources better put to other uses.

Military trying to cut recruitment targets for women despite expert’s report | Ottawa Citizen.

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

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