Professor’s use of racial slur sparks debate at uOttawa
University’s response at centre of controversy over academic freedom
Debate about academic freedom is boiling over at the University of Ottawa. But where the N-word is concerned, there shouldn’t be a debate at all, some students and faculty say.
Over the weekend, a letter written in French and entitled “Libertés surveillées” or “Monitored Freedoms” and signed by 34 University of Ottawa professors, made the rounds on social media, with many students expressing outrage at the tone and content of the statement.
The letter disagreed with how a white professor who said the N-word in class had been treated, and said it risked academic freedom.
“The classroom (physical or virtual) cannot become a place free from the weights of history, ideas, and their representations. It is therefore inevitable that certain readings, certain concepts, even certain words will clash with susceptibilities,” reads an English translation of the letter, shared by a student.
This, however, is just the latest incident in a series of anti-Black issues that have occurred on campus in just over a year, and students and other faculty members say the response from the university hasn’t been enough.
This particular controversy was sparked when Verushka Lieutenant-Duval, a part-time professor at uOttawa, used the N-word in a class lesson and an email of her apology went viral on social media.
In a course on art and gender, Lieutenant-Duval, was explaining how the term “queer,” was at one time used only as a slur and has since been reclaimed by members of the community. She added two examples to make her point, one of which was the N-word, which she said in full.
The university’s student paper, the Fulcrum, first reported the incident early in October. In emails to the Fulcrum, Lieutenant-Duval said she was concerned by the fact that a student did not keep the class discussion and correspondence confidential and that that would affect “the freedom of expression of the students in our class.”
In a statement released Monday, the university’s president, Jacques Frémont, confirmed that Lieutenant-Duval is still employed and teaching and that a new section of the class has been created for “students who did not wish to continue their classes with their original professor.”
Frémont also acknowledged the tensions brought on by the incident for both Black students and the faculty.
But students like Hannan Mohamud are disappointed that the president did not condemn the actions of the professors.
Mohamud, who is in her first year of law school studying common law, along with Ibrahim Mohammad, who is in his second year of medical school at uOttawa and wrote a translation of the professors’ letter, both penned separate letters on behalf of their fellow students who were disturbed by the incident.
On behalf of Juris Doctorate students, Mohamud writes, “Portraying the use of the Nword as an issue of a ‘monitored freedom’ when that freedom does not extend to Black students is an abhorrent way in normalizing bigotry in classrooms.”
“They decided to actively choose, in my opinion, violence,” Mohamud said in an interview with the Star.
Véronique Armstrong, a thirdyear politics student, says a professor used the N-word multiple times in a class in her second year while reading a passage by Frantz Fanon, a Black writer.
“I just felt very angry, but I didn’t feel like the environment was safe enough to speak up and say something,” she said, noting she was one of three Black students in the class.
Finally, a white student said the class was uncomfortable and asked the professor to refrain from using that word any longer. Armstrong says one of her current professors signed the letter in support of Lieutenant-Duval.
Some BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of colour) faculty have begun drafting a statement also condemning the use of the N-word by a white professor and the way academic freedom has been used to justify her action.