Professor apologizes for using racial slur

The professor at the centre of a firestorm at the University of Ottawa has apologized for using the N-word in an online discussion with students.

Verushka Lieutenant-Duval, a part-time professor of visual arts, told Radio Canada in a French-language interview that she agrees there “is no place” for the word.

“I would like to reiterate my apologies to the Black community, or to anyone,” Lieutenant-Duval told the network. She did not respond to emailed requests for comment from the Citizen.

The incident and the resulting controversy over academic freedom versus students' complaints exploded in Quebec.

Even Premier François Legault weighed in, accusing the university of a “significant blunder” by suspending Lieutenant-Duval while it investigated. She returned to work last week and resumed teaching her class.

Legault said Tuesday he felt a responsibility to respond because of the attack on Lieutenant-Duval, a francophone.

“We are not going to mix racism in with francophones,” Legault was quoted as saying in the Montreal Gazette. “So I think I have a certain responsibility (to speak out on this matter) even if it is happening in Ottawa.”

Last week more than 30 uOttawa professors signed an open letter, written in French only, that acknowledged “certain words run up against sensitivities” but that universities are the places for critical thinking and academic freedom.

History professor Pierre Anctil, who signed the letter, said he never expected the issue to blow up the way it did.

But he has no regrets.

“I signed it. It seemed reasonable to me,” he said. “I think some misunderstood completely what we were trying to do and that we were promoting racism. We denounced racism.”

Like most of the academics who signed, Anctil is francophone. Divisions in language and culture are part of why the dispute has resonated so deeply in Quebec, he said.

“The terms don't mean the same in French and English. Some francophones think the term is usable, it won't provoke a reaction — while in English it's unacceptable.

“At the University of Ottawa it's a double risk. There's the risk of cultural misunderstanding and of language misunderstanding. And along those lines there's an abyss that people can fall into.”

Anctil teaches courses about anti-Semitism but doesn't use anti-Semitic words in his lectures. Professors, he said, need to warn students if a lecture is going to deal with hurtful topics and language.

“I would stress that we do not promote the use of the word. That would be foolish and racist (but) that's not the point we were trying to make.”

The issue is simple for Prof. Baljit Nagra of the Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) Professors and Librarians at the University of Ottawa. She wrote a petition to oppose those who framed the dispute as one of academic freedom.

The petition says non-Black people who use the word show “wilful ignorance” about its racist history.

“Stop saying the n-word,” it urges. “This should be self-explanatory.”

Saying it's a matter of academic freedom is “insulting” to academics in other countries who face imprisonment or even death for their views, she said. It's also wrong to look at the uOttawa controversy as a misunderstanding between English and French.

“Anti-Black racism and the oppression of White Francophones are not analogous,” she wrote in her petition, which was signed by 28 members of the BIPOC caucus.

“I can do a whole two-hour lecture on the N-word without ever saying it,” said Nagra, a criminology professor who teaches who teaches about racism in the justice system.

“If you are not Black, you should not use it. In any context. It's white entitlement that you don't want to be told you can't say one word.”