Denis Rancourt spoke earlier this year at Carleton University ( Photo Provided )
On March 31, controversial University of Ottawa professor Denis Rancourt was dismissed by the university’s Executive of the Board of Governors. Rancourt is now taking his case to court, a case which will be paramount to the future of academic freedom in Canada.
Rancourt was suspended from U of O in December 2008 for awarding A+ grades to all students in a fourth-year physics class in accordance to the pedagogic teaching method.
“The whole grading thing is a pretext,” Rancourt said. “They’re firing me for my dissidence. It’s a political firing.”
“The university has said in writing ‘it’s not about your pedagogical method, we’re not contesting that, it’s not about the content, or the syllabus, or your expertise or any of those things’ … they’re alleging that I would have attributed those grades arbitrarily,” Rancourt said.
Rancourt, however, said he does not believe this is the case.
“I interacted with the students, we did a lot, and in my professional opinion those A+s mean that they excelled in terms of their interaction with the material, in terms of their effort, in terms of their participation. Those were my criteria and I told my students that.”
The speed at which the university’s dismissal arrived came as a bit of a shock to Rancourt.
“I was surprised at the university’s disregard for the process,” Rancourt said. “I was very surprised by that because it really weakens their case from a legal perspective. I was surprised that they were more interested in being hasty and getting this done quickly than actually following the process or at least appearing to follow the process.”
He said the university ignored the supplementary brief he submitted, as well as the student exam copies.
“I’m entitled to submit [a supplementary brief],” Rancourt said. “They have to consider it. My deadline was March 31, that’s the official deadline. They chose to have their decisional meeting on the day of the deadline at noon before they could receive it. That’s never done. It’s unheard of, it’s unprecedented at the university to decide to have a decision on the day that one of the key documents is due. You always take time to study these documents. The collective agreement foresees that they have seven months to study this document if they want. It’s unheard of to speed things up to that extent.”
In an April 6 statement regarding Rancourt’s dismissal, the U of O said “In arriving at its decision, the Executive Committee gave careful consideration to the record that was before it, which included a lengthy written submission from Mr. Rancourt. The Executive Committee satisfied itself that all procedures required by the collective agreement with the Association des Professeurs de l’Université d’Ottawa (APUO) in this matter had been properly followed.”
Because the case will eventually be heard in arbitration, the university is making no further comment.
The significance of his arbitration is not lost on Rancourt.
“It’s a very important case and everyone is following it with great interest,” he said. “If they succeed in dismissing me, it will mean that tenure no longer exists in Canada because it is unheard of to be able to dismiss a tenured professor because of how he or she decided to grade in a classroom.”
While Rancourt takes his battle to the courts, some of his former students find themselves struggling in the wake of his absence. Sean Kelly, one of Rancourt’s grad students, said he has found himself victimized by the university for his association with the former professor.
After Rancourt was suspended, Kelly said the university attempted to help him find a substitute supervisor but he was unable to find someone with Rancourt’s expertise.
“The university was trying to be very nice to us to limit the damage and . . . assuage their own guilt,” Kelly said.
He filed a lawsuit against the university on Feb. 24 for breach of contract for removing his supervisor but was forced to drop it this week because he is unable to financially sustain it.
“The dean of the faculty of graduate of studies has refused to sign my scholarship renewal form,” Kelly said. This scholarship amounted to about $25,000. Kelly said the dean refused to sign because Kelly had not done sufficient work recently, but Kelly said he was prevented from working because he was locked out of his lab since Rancourt’s suspension and had to spend considerable time searching for a new supervisor.
“The reason that they’re doing this is because I’m associated with professor Rancourt and I’ve refused to comply with their demands to forget about [him].”
Although Kelly is confident Rancourt will win in court, he cannot wait for the arbitrator’s decision to continue with his project.
“I fully intend to finish my master’s within a year and the arbitration which will follow will quite likely take several years.”
Kelly will continue with his project under a substitute supervisor but remains unsure if his scholarship will be renewed.
Kelly’s continued support of Rancourt is not mirrored by all students. Three U of O students, two of whom were students in Rancourt’s pedagogical physics class, have been publicly critical about their former professor.
Rancourt is not oblivious to the effects of their criticisms, which have appeared in media.
“I know that arbitrators can be swayed by public opinion. I know that public opinion is largely manufactured by the media. I know that the mainstream media is largely controlled by the same powerful people who sit on the Board of Governors and the way that they cast this issue will, to a large extent, determine opinion.”