Brock to strip ex-prof of titles

Tweets on account of retired prof attacked Indigenous people

Brock University is distancing itself from a retired political science professor whose social media accounts shared racist and derogatory messages aimed at Indigenous people this week.

In a Friday statement Friday the university said it was moving to strip retired professor Garth Stevenson — formerly the head of Brock’s political science department — of his status as a professor emeritus after posts on Stevenson’s Facebook and Twitter accounts attacked Indigenous Canadians as “snivelling,” and ignorant pagans who were making Canada “unfit for civilized people.”

The posts expressed scepticism that Indigenous nations lived in Canada before the arrival of European settlers, that he would never speak to an Indigenous person again and told another Twitter user to die a painful death.

“Brock has no connection whatsoever with his view and abhors comments that have been posted on his social media sites,” said the statement by Tom Dunk, Brock’s provost and vice-president academic.

In a emailed statement, Stevenson stood by his posts, calling the issue "a tempest in a tea pot."

"I am sure many aboriginals are fine people and at one time I knew and got along with several of them. But I have been driven over the edge by the systematic campaign over the last few years to blacken the reputation of our first and best prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, a campaign in which prominent aboriginals and some of their white ‘liberal’ fan club have played the predominant part."

Stevenson wrote that "any intelligent person" would know that he was not speaking on be-

half of the university in his posts because he is retired.

Posts from Stevenson’s accounts drew quick and harsh criticism Thursday morning following a diatribe posted to his Facebook page Wednesday about a play at the Shaw Festival.

“Before it began I had to endure one of the actors standing on the stage and reciting a tribute to the aboriginal people who supposedly lived in Niagara-onthe-Lake before settlers arrived. He actually praised them for their ‘stewardship of the land’, as though they had any notion of such an idea,” reads the post. “Frankly I am getting sick and tired of the kowtowing to socalled ‘First Nations’ or ‘Indigenous’ or whatever they call themselves. This is OUR country, not theirs, and we don’t need to apologize for being here. I don’t give a rat’s ass who lived in it before Europeans arrived .... ”

Later posts from Stevenson’s Twitter account attacked Indigenous people and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in response to news that the City of Victoria was removing a status of Sir. John A. McDonald from city hall because of the role he played in violence against Indigenous people.

“F*** you Justin and f *** your Indigenous friends, who never even developed written languages or invented the wheel but are now acting as if they own this country,” one post says.

Another post, in response to another Twitter user critical of the racist messages, said “You son of a bitch I hope you die painfully. ?”

Brock president Gervan Fearon said the university is “appalled, and shares the pain and frustration felt by many members of the campus community, and in particular members of the Indigenous community.”

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