Assisted-suicide expert yearns to teach again
Russel Ogden has been paid, but not allowed to lecture at Kwantlen University since 2008
Internationally known assistedsuicide expert Russel Ogden desperately wants to be teaching again at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
Yet, even though Ogden’s Kwantlen colleagues lament he has been effectively “disappeared” from the university since 2008, he continues to be paid, conduct research into assisted death, write peer-reviewed articles for prestigious publications and teach at other universities.
“I would have really liked the opportunity to ply my trade (teaching at Kwantlen). I should not be paid to not be doing that part of my job,” Ogden said Monday in an exclusive interview with The Vancouver Sun.
The National Post newspaper reported Monday that Ogden received $87,910 in the last fiscal year from scandal-plagued Kwantlen, which in 2014 faced allegations of wasteful spending in regards to executive compensation.
Ogden has been paid by Kwantlen since 2008, The Post reported, even though he hasn’t taught a single course at the university in six years and doesn’t appear to be allowed onto the Surrey campus.
Even while he has many supporters in academia, some of whom are calling the situation “bizarre,” Ogden declined to be interviewed by The Post, saying he’s “not really in a position to comment.” The university issued a statement citing a 2011 confidentiality agreement.
However, Ogden told The Sun he continues to live in Metro Vancouver and work seven days a week on his controversial research.
His studies have been approved by various research ethics committees and has led to him being present, he said, at 11 suicides or assisted suicides, including in Europe. Some involved oxygen deprivation using helium.
Describing his research as “soul- sucking,” Ogden said he has engaged in his specialty for decades to help terminally ill people who are considering suicide, and their loved ones, make an “informed and careful decision.”
Ogden’s research was featured as the first chapter of a peer-reviewed book published in the fall by UBC Press, titled Demarginilizing Voices: Commitment, Emotion and Action in Quantitative Research, edited by Jennifer Kilty. His chapter is titled Observing Self Chosen Death.
And even while Ogden has not been able to teach at Kwantlen, he taught a master’s level course last spring at the University of Ottawa. He has also had an article on assisted suicide published in Health Law in Canada.
“This is not a case of me not wanting to teach,” Ogden said.
“It’s fair for people to ask why I’m not teaching. But I would not want to say anything negative or derogatory about my institution.”
Asked why he does not indicate in his published articles that he is affiliated with Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Ogden declined to answer.
Even though Ogden is legally restricted in what he can publicly say about the dispute, several academics at Kwantlen and elsewhere are working on his case as it relates to academic freedom and free speech.
Posters are also going up at the Surrey campus, drawing attention to the “disappearance” of the noted criminologist, whose work has been followed around the world. One poster reads: “What has Kwantlen done with Russel Ogden?”
The restrictions on Ogden’s work come at the same time his area of expertise is more prominent than ever in North America.
Assisted suicide is the subject of intense debate and largely supportive polling surveys across Canada. New Quebec legislation allows a medically assisted death in certain cases. And assisted suicide was recently legalized in Washington state, which borders B.C.
Simon Fraser University criminology professor John Lowman filed a major defence of Ogden’s research methods in a Dec. 10 complaint about Kwantlen University to the Interagency Secretariat on Research Ethics, a national body overseeing academic research.
And in the book Demarginilizing Voices, Lowman and fellow SFU criminologist Ted Palys have an extremely critical chapter detailing Kwantlen’s handling of Ogden’s case. It’s titled Doublespeak and Double Standards: Holding a Rogue Institution to Account.
Even though Ogden declined to say anything negative about Kwantlen University, he did state he was not happy with the role that the Kwantlen faculty association and its lawyer played in putting together a confidential 2011 agreement with the university, which has led to him not teaching.
Ogden’s supporters, however, say he’s been silenced by a university that’s reeling from many other controversies, including wrongful dismissal lawsuits and allegations of abusive behaviour and wasteful spending on senior officials.
One scandal involves B.C. Liberal cabinet minister Amrik Virk, former minister of advanced education, who had knowledge of the questionable compensation packages when he was on Kwantlen’s board of governors.
Even though Ogden feels trapped in a kind of scholarly “exile” as a result of the dispute, he has long maintained that he researches and observes deaths for academic purposes. He never participates, in part because in Canada it remains illegal to assist in another person’s suicide.
He was once arrested by Vancouver police after he witnessed a suicide, but was quickly released without charge. His groundbreaking research in the 1990s revealed the high number of “botched” assisted suicides among those suffering with HIV/AIDS.
Ogden is also a director of the Farewell Foundation for the Right to Die, a group that advocates for assisted suicide.
The research has been “absolutely draining,” Ogden said Monday, explaining it requires developing potential relationships with an extremely wide range of people who are considering ending their own lives.
Ogden said he has told many wouldbe “research participants” that he cannot do what they would like him to do, either for ethical, psychological or legal reasons.
“Paradoxically,” Ogden said, his research often appears to act as a form of “suicide prevention.” Since he goes out of his way not to appear supportive of people who wish to take their own lives, he said it often “slows things down” and many people reconsider their end-of-life options.
Why does Ogden keep pursuing his grim research? “It goes back to the fundamental question of human existence — to be or not to be? When people are considering ending their own existence, it’s very important that they and the people around them make a fully informed and careful decision.”