Denis Rancourt is a self-described “anarchist” and “dissident,” an internationally recognized researcher in physics, and a blogger who writes bluntly about social activism, climate change, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But it is the challenge to his dismissal as a tenured professor at the University of Ottawa—a rare occurrence in Canadian academe—that has brought him the most recent attention, raising questions about academic freedom and its limits.
Mr. Rancourt was dismissed in 2009 after 23 years at Ottawa, setting off a lengthy, still unresolved legal battle between the scholar and his former university. In June an arbitration hearing on the dispute ended after 30 days of deliberations over two years. A decision is expected in 2014. In theory, the arbitrator could decide that the dismissal constitutes an erosion of academic freedom or merely a provocative professor’s failing to respect agreed-upon university procedures.
“This is a case certainly about a university that is very, very uncomfortable with an individual and the fact that he is extremely vocal in his criticism,” says Sean McGee, the lawyer representing Mr. Rancourt for the Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa, which took up his grievance. “One of the things the arbitrator will decide is, How far can you go in all the senses with your criticism of the university?”
For its part, the university has painted Mr. Rancourt as a bully who has flouted rules and repeatedly defied his superiors’ orders.
The relationship between the professor and the administration was not always so fraught. In 2001, Mr. Rancourt was even featured in a University of Ottawa publicity campaign, “Can you recognize Canada’s university of the 21st century?”
But since then, the mutual admiration has withered. Before and after his dismissal, Mr. Rancourt filed more than two dozen grievances against the institution. Several still await arbitration. Of nine settled grievances, the faculty union has won six on his behalf. He lists the grievances on his Web site, where he continues to write a blog sharply critical of university policies and administrators.
In 2006 he provoked a controversy when he allowed 10-year-old twins to register for one of his courses. After the university reversed their registration, he publicly supported the mother’s case for age discrimination before the Ontario Human Rights Commission. (The commission dismissed the case on technicalities.) He also backed several of his students who filed a lawsuit against the university demanding the appointment of more teaching assistants. Over the years, he was disciplined several times by the administration before being dismissed by the institution’s Board of Governors.
During the arbitration hearing, both sides fired charges and countercharges, and numerous facts are in dispute. An important part of the case—one that touches directly on academic freedom—involves the right of a professor to grade as he or she sees fit.
The university argued that Mr. Rancourt had committed “a serious form of academic fraud.” The accusation was made by Lynn Harnden, the university’s lawyer, as reported by the Ottawa Citizen. He was describing Mr. Rancourt’s unorthodox pedagogy, which supposedly included his promise on Day One of a fourth-year physics class to award all of the students grades of A-plus. He allegedly went on to give the high marks despite a specific order from a dean not to do so.
“If you endorse how this professor conducted himself, that would represent a threat to the credibility of the principle of academic freedom,” Mr. Harnden told the hearing. “The principle of academic freedom does not protect the right of professors to engage in academic fraud.”
Mr. McGee, the faculty-union lawyer for Mr. Rancourt, says that the principle of academic freedom extends to how professors grade. He concedes that his client holds “very, very, very countercultural” views about pedagogy but says Mr. Rancourt believes deeply in the need to rethink the teaching of physics. Mr. McGee contends that protecting a professor’s right to speak up is all the more vital when you don’t agree with the opinions expressed. “It is the hard cases of protection that build the rights of the individual,” he says.
Strong Protections
Mr. Rancourt has described his approach as “student centered” and says he relied on continuing evaluations, not tests, to measure comprehension of physics concepts. “Socrates did not give grades,” he told The Chronicle at the time of his suspension. “My job is to educate. Over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that what we’ve been doing with the grading system doesn’t work. We are creating obedient employees, but not people who think.”
In a recent interview, Mr. Rancourt says his dismissal only strengthened his resolve to fight for his beliefs. “Personally, I was not emotionally or psychologically scarred by this. I always felt the grading thing was a pretext by the administration to get rid of me.”
He describes his post-dismissal life as one of an intellectual: “I can still think, read, and do calculations.” He has written a book of essays about human rights, helped write several published scientific papers, and has been invited by colleagues at Carleton University and even the University of Ottawa to deliver guest lectures.
Asked if he wants to return to teaching at Ottawa, he is quick to reply. “Absolutely. That’s the hope. We have asked the arbitrator to order me back to work.”
Caroline Milliard, Ottawa’s manager of media relations, says via e-mail that the university has no comment, because the case is in arbitration.
Not surprisingly, observers are loath to predict the outcome of such a high-profile and complicated case, though some say access to arbitration, typical in dismissal cases, indicates Canada’s strong protections for professors to speak their minds in and outside of the classroom.
“Academic freedom in a cross-Canada sense is better protected than it is in the United States,” says Jon Thompson, a professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of New Brunswick and an expert on academic freedom and due process.
With labor rules that are consistently strong across the provinces, “there’s much better opportunity for professors who come under attack internally or externally on academic freedom to succeed,” he says.
Still, Mr. Thompson worries about a weakening of academic freedom in a global political climate that has become more anti-intellectual and anti-union, with growing support in Canada for restrictive labor laws.
While there have been few arbitration cases quite like Mr. Rancourt’s—many disputes are settled long before a hearing—one notable ruling found in favor of a professor. In 2004 an arbitrator concluded that York University, in Toronto, had infringed on the academic freedom of one of its professors, David Noble (since deceased), when he distributed fliers questioning the influence of what he called pro-Israel interests in the university’s fund-raising operation. Without naming the professor, the university issued a news release denouncing the flier as “highly offensive.” The arbitrator ruled that York had undermined the professor’s right to criticize the institution and ordered it to pay Mr. Noble $2,500 in damages.
More recently, the definition of what constitutes academic freedom has sparked a dispute between faculty and administration representatives nationally. In 2011, the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada issued a statement on academic freedom that came under fire from the Canadian Association of University Teachers for the narrowness of the wording, which included no references to protection for “extramural utterance and action.”
Some higher-education experts, however, warn against speculating on the implications of the Rancourt case for academic freedom in Canada. “The situation is enormously complex and complicated, with a whole range of issues,” says James L. Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, which set up an independent three-person panel to investigate the dispute.
“The documentation was voluminous,” he says of the inquiry. “It stretched 27 linear feet ... and took six months to digitize.” The panel has yet to submit its findings, which carry no legal weight but, based on the history of past reports from such panels, can carry moral authority.
If the arbitrator decides that Mr. Rancourt’s unconventional grading falls within the bounds of academic freedom, his lawyer, Mr. McGee, contends that the onus will be on the university to spell out accepted approaches to evaluating students if it wants to ban such unorthodox practices.
But higher-education scholars in Canada note that academic senates are typically the forum for such discussions. “University charters in Canada assign responsibility for academic-policy issues to the university senate, and while there are clearly variations by institution, academic policies related to grades are clearly the responsibility of the senate,” says Glen Jones, a professor of higher education at the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, in an e-mail.
Without commenting on the Rancourt case, Harry Arthurs, a former president of York University and a scholar in labor and employment law, says universities must be vigilant in safeguarding academic freedom. “Clearly, people legally and morally are entitled to due process,” he told The Chronicle. “And if you are moving against someone to restrict their behavior or to get rid of them, you should be scrupulous about ensuring their procedural rights are protected.”
