Denis G. Rancourt
academicfreedom.ca

Dean André E. Lalonde

"IPC rules in ATI case at U of O: Dean, VP-Academic and Legal Counsel conspired to send dubious letter questioning dissident professor’s ‘physical and mental well-being’"

INTRODUCTION

The Denis Rancourt case at the University of Ottawa (Ottawa, Canada) is a major ongoing academic freedom case being presently investigated by a Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) Independent Committee of Inquiry and expected to go before the courts as a significant labour dispute. [Endnote-a]

The case has been covered by national and local media in both Canada and the US (New York Times -twice, Globe and Mail -twice, National Post, CBC radio The Current, TV Ontario). [Endnote-b]

Rancourt has presented his views on the case at a conference on academic freedom at New York University. [Endnote-c]

Academic workplace expert Professor Kenneth Westhues’ independent report concluded that Rancourt was subjected to an academic workplace administrative mobbing [Endnote-d].

The present example can be understood as one incident in the broader administrative mobbing phenomenon described by Westhues and enacted by the Allan Rock administration of the University of Ottawa. Several of the players mentioned by Westhues appear here also.

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Stephen Lendman

David R. Griffin is Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Theology, Emeritus, Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA where he's still co-director of the Center for Process Studies. He's authored and/or edited three dozen books, mainly in his field, but notably and heroically on 9/11 truth, Osama bin Laden, and his newest titled, "Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee's Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory." More on it below.

Cass Sunstein is a well-known University of Chicago and Harvard Law School Professor before being appointed Obama's Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, in charge of "overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs," among other duties.

Distinguished Law Professor, activist, and international law and human rights expert Francis Boyle said this about both law schools and the University of Chicago's political science department, steeped in neo-con Straussianism:

"Do not send your children to the University of Chicago where they will grow up to become warmongers like (Paul) Wolfowitz and (John) Ashcroft. The University of Chicago is an intellectual and moral cesspool," referring to its political science department and law school.

Its extremist economics department is much the same, indoctrinating students with predatory capitalist ideology. Boyle's "Harvard's Gitmo Kangaroo Law School: The School for Torturers" article advised:

"Do not send your children or students to Harvard Law School where they will grow up to become racist war criminals! Harvard Law School is a Neo-Con cesspool." "Harvard is to Law School as Torture is to Law." [Commenting on Sunstein when he was mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee, Boyle, calling him a] "Neo-Con," [said he'd be a] "lethal" choice.

Professor Emeritus James Fetzer, Founder, Scholars for 9/11 Truth, took sharp issue with Sunstein's attempt to discredit its proponents, saying his

"Conspiracy Theories" [report (discussed below) is a] "corrosive approach" [and a] "massive blunder" [...] "obviously false!" [In fact,] "No one can know which theories are true or false without investigating them." That a Harvard Law professor would suggest it "is simply stunning," yet unsurprising given the source.

Sunstein is a notorious neo-con, abhorrent of First Amendment and other democratic freedoms, believing the rule of law is best served by subverting it.

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Denis G. Rancourt
Activist Teacher Blog

Especially left and liberal professionals and service intellectuals but also right-wing members of the intelligentsia vehemently attack and ridicule “conspiracy theories” such as the present 911 Truth movement.

Why?

It’s as though power did not covertly orchestrate its predation of us? Is that not the modus operandi of power?

Is it so difficult to believe that the complex and highly successful military attack on US soil that was 911 (levelling three gigantic sky scrapers, blasting a hole into the Pentagon, and destroying four commercial jets and their passengers) was not orchestrated by a religious zealot from a cave in Afghanistan and executed by failed Cessna pilot trainees with box cutters? Or that those who measurably benefited in the trillions had nothing to do with it?

What the hell? Not even (admittedly rare) authoritative mainstream reports seem to matter [1].

What ever happened to “war is a racket” and “follow the money”?

In rigorous compliance with the true meanings of "academic freedom" [2] and "freedom of the press" virtually no academics or mainstream journalists have made it their research to find truth or to radically (at the root) question the establishment version.

Indeed, all the major and considered-radical academic pundits such as Noam Chomsky and Ward Churchill, have actively avoided the possibility that the 911 attacks could have been known or aided from within the finance-corporate-military complex.

What keeps them from crossing that line? What makes them demean attempts to cross that line? [3]

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Denis Rancourt

Palestine became "the occupied territory" from which Palestinians were
driven out and settlements built for Jewish squatters. Jordan, Syria and
Lebanon are full of refugee camps. Palestinians were driven off their
lands by means of numerous Zionist massacres. [Editor] Photo: A
Palestinian man at a refugee camp in 1949.

Surely the Israeli government would agree that the right of a nation state to exist is a question of international law.

Under international law, no other country has ever demanded or been granted that another nation state be forced to officially recognize the claimant nation’s “right to exist”, under the threat of military reprisal no less.

But since this is an original and unresolved question of international law and since Israel has forcefully put it on the table, it is relevant to examine whether Israel is following established principles of international law, such as the Geneva Conventions for example, or foreign country assassinations and kidnappings, or international waters commando attacks of civilian ships, etc.

These specific questions of international law are not complicated. The laws and international treaties are written in clear language, and Israel’s actions are also clear. Global civil society (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Red Cross, etc.) and all independent international law experts that I have heard or read are unanimous in the answer. See HERE.

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Denis Rancourt

Analysis of a temper tantrum gone viral

“When Liberal Party heavyweight Allan Rock took over as president at the University of Ottawa this September [2008], many wondered what would be in store for Denis Rancourt.” ~ Jesse Freeston, journalist [1]

“We conclude that the charges advanced against Denis Rancourt are a contrived pretext, that they are preposterous as reasons to summarily remove a tenured professor, and that, therefore, the real reasons must lie elsewhere.” ~ Members of College and University Workers United [2]

“I have been following, with interest, the case of Marc Kelly - an under-graduate at the University of Ottawa who appears to be the victim of an outrageous vendetta brought against him by the President of that University, Allan Rock.” ~ blogger (sophos) [3]

It is difficult to know how decisions are made because hierarchical institutions do everything they can to hide their true inner workings.

Nonetheless the chronology of events and the leakages of some documents allow one to advance plausible versions.

Until Rock became president of the University of Ottawa in 2008, the previous administration, starting in 2005, was involved only in relatively moderate schemes to contain me as a radical physics professort in my incessant applications of pedagogical advances and social justice and community outreach practices.

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Stephen Lendman

"What is needed is a complete lifting of the blockade. Goods and people must be free to enter and leave. Gaza especially needs construction material(s), which must be allowed to come in without restrictions." ~ Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri

On June 17, Haaretz writer Barak Ravid and Reuters headlined, "Israel to ease Gaza land blockade," saying:

"Israel's security cabinet voted Thursday to ease its land blockade of the Gaza Strip, following its deadly raid on a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for the (mischaracterized) Hamas-ruled territory," in fact, its legitimate government.

An official statement said:

"The Security Cabinet conducted an extensive discussion over the last two days regarding adjustments in Israel's Gaza policy.

It was agreed to:

● Liberalize the system by which civilian goods enter Gaza.
● Expand the inflow of materials for civilian projects that are under international supervision.
● Continue existing security procedures to prevent the inflow of weapons and war materiel.
● the Cabinet will decide in the coming days on additional steps to implement this policy.
● Israel expects the international community to work toward the immediate release of Gilad Shalit," the captured Israeli soldier on June 25, 2006 near the Kerem Shalom crossing, southeast of Rafah - one soldier compared to thousands of Palestinian civilians, held illegally in Israeli prisons under horrific conditions, including torture and other forms of abuse.

According to Raed Fattouh, Palestinian supplies coordinator for the Territory, the approved list will include all food items, toys, stationery, kitchen utensils, mattresses and towels, excluding most of what Gaza needs, including construction materials to rebuild.

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Denis Rancourt

Psycho-biological basis for image leverage – General model

Family and friends keep the First World financial-corporate elite bosses from murdering brown people in the developing world. Not directly of course but via a psycho-biological survival reflex: We don’t feel secure living with overt psychopaths.

In other words, for the elite bosses to continue practicing genocidal predation for power and profit it is necessary that the predation be cast in a false cover of humanitarian aid, democratic development, solidarity, progress, and the like, and that the most overtly murderous practices be cast as necessary in a fight against evil.

If sufficient care is not taken to secure this cover of mental imagery, then the bosses’ actions will appear more to be what they are, murderous and psychopathic, and the bosses’ children may not feel comfortable sitting on the bosses’ laps and the bosses’ partners may not feel comfortable sleeping in the same bed…

Actually, this problem is solved within the elite nuclear family with a strong family culture of elitism and racism. And it is solved in the bosses’ communities of friends with a strong community culture of classism, elitism, and racism.

But these gated communities are not hermetic. The elite classes have contacts and interactions with the more vibrant broader society. That’s where things get tricky. If the broader society sees the bosses as being psychopathic then by reflection the gated community will see itself as defective and this will represent a serious challenge to its self-image and to its sense of security.

One reaction is for the gated community to further isolate itself, to deepen its elitism, classism, and racism and to build higher walls around its community but this strategy is not sustainable [1]. Often, just the potential for the broader community to develop a negative impression of the elite bosses is enough to somewhat keep the elite psychopaths in check.

A main battlefield therefore is the mental environment in the broader society. The elite bosses own the media and control the schools and the institutions. They work hard and continuously at branding themselves and their finance-corporate projects in a positive light. Energy extraction giants are “green”, in fact greener than ever. Finance giants bring development to the world – one wonders why we need NGOs. NGOs alleviate any guilt or second thoughts from the rampages of exploitation and wholesale destruction. An elaborate mesh of lies is constantly constructed and maintained in order to keep the bosses hidden and their dirty work clean.

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Jeff Schmidt / Stephen Lendman

Canadian Professor Denis Rancourt

Challenging Canadian Civil Liberties Association Members for Opposing Academic and Expression Freedoms at the University of Ottawa - by Jeff Schmidt

Denis Rancourt is a distinguished, tenured Professor of Physics, a recognized expert in his field, and an Environmental Science Researcher at the University of Ottawa, Canada.

Yet because of his activist position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he was unfairly fired and barred from campus on threat of arrest - a violation of his tenure, academic freedom, and beliefs about human rights and equal justice.

Author Jeff Schmidt wrote the following article and letter, calling on Canadian Civil Liberties Association board members to repudiate their organization's attack on a man to be honored, not vilified or abused.

Stephen Lendman

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Stephen Lendman

On October 21, 2008, for the first time in school history, the University of Ottawa (U of O) Faculty of Science, without cause, deregistered undergraduate Marc Kelly, an exemplary student, expelling him for the semester and preventing him from completing the final three courses he needed to graduate. The official email sent him read:

"The Faculty of Science has been asked to deregister you. (This) message is to notify you that you are no longer registered...."

The official reason was the Department of Physics' displeasure over the nature and methods of his valid, legitimate research, twice secretly rejecting it, then informing him through pro forma letters saying,

"It is common sense that (your research) has to use physics tools and physics knowledge."

Kelly was never contacted or questioned. When he tried approaching Physics Chair Bela Joos for an explanation, he refused to see him, suggesting this action wasn't over academic performance, but for publicly supporting tenured Professor Denis Rancourt, unfairly fired as explained below and in detail in an early April article titled, "Targeting Academic and Speech Freedoms: The Case of Canadian Professor Denis Rancourt."

In March 2009, it was for his political activism - specifically, courageously supporting oppressed Palestinians, criticizing the university's refusal to academically boycott Israel, and gallantly backing what U of O officials and President Allan Rock opposed - a former Canadian politician, UN ambassador, and staunch Israeli supporter.

Affected also was Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, student and former Fulcrum Publishing Society (FPS) Ombudsman (U of O's English-language student newspaper) until his March 2010 Board of Directors dismissal for supporting Rancourt, criticizing offensive FPS reports about him, refusing to stay quiet and go along, and confronting Business Manager Frank Appleyard's violation of FPS rules by simultaneously working for President Allan Rock and the FPS. His case was discussed in an April article titled, "Targeting Activist University of Ottawa Students."

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Stephen Lendman

Until his early March Board of Directors removal, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya was Fulcrum Publishing Society (FPS) Ombudsman, the English-language student newspaper at Canada's University of Ottawa (U of O).

It resulted from his critical reports, including a preliminary February 23 one for FPS's editorial mistreatment of Professor Denis Rancourt, fired in March 2009 for his political activism - specifically his courageous stance on Occupied Palestine.

In 2007, after criticizing university opposition to academically boycotting Israel, repression against him intensified under new president Allen Rock, a former Canadian politician, UN ambassador, and staunch Israeli supporter.

Nazemroaya accused the Fulcrum of "publishing opinion pieces against Dr. Rancourt. (They've) strongly criticized him, his university classes, his position, and his brand of activism."

In his January 9 report, Nazemroaya cited illegal U of O "covert surveillance," adding that "The Fulcrum has a duty to cover all news concerning campus life in an unbiased way and to the best of its abilities," especially over denying a distinguished tenured professor academic freedom and firing him for his views - the way a police state silences dissent.

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