On discriminatory empathy

Look, if you haven't already seen Cloud Atlas, please do yourself a favour: close this webpage, watch the film, and then come back.

When I was young, I was incessantly critiqued for appearing "too serious." My disquietude provoked my adaptation of a relatively bemused Wilde-like persona: a mask I still wear that thinly veils a cold and calculating logician who deeply (and sardonically) loathes anything even resembling pretense.

Even in early elementary school, I remember playing a bit of a game with people.  Ironically (in hindsight), I just started acting.  I became proficient with this performativity to the degree that I was relegated to drama camps almost every summer and performing in the Sear's Festival competitively for three consecutive years for my high school's team.  I even starred in one of my high school musicals. I'll never forget the debrief after we performed a dress rehearsal of 'Tommy' for a couple classes from a local elementary school.  After the show, one of the youngins' asked me whether I planned to pursue acting and performance art professionally.  Even then, I knew that I was going to let them down by telling them the truth: that I had no intention of pursuing art professionally.  That "I can't".

Succinctly and candidly, if the people conditioned as I've been conditioned could elect not to fight for the future, then it might not end well.  Hence, if even one other contemporary demonstrated the same or a greater commitment to the Cause, I would have existentially less justification to embrace the militancy that I now practice religiously; (as noted elsewhere in this blog, this mentality has cost me several prospective romantic partners over the years).  I know that my closest historical relatives were Jesuits, zealots, and monks.  However, unlike their celestial condonations, my rationale is stubbornly grounded in empirically verifiable and reliable knowledge.  I gushed about the potential value of rationalistic morality in undergrad and have unwittingly actualized it myself for almost a decade.  Do I take pride in any of this?  Of course not. Given the human species' relative impacts on the Earth and our relegation on the geologic time scale, we might as well be on the edge of oblivion. My uncompromising commitment to the future of humanity is about as necessary as breathing from my point of view; I have a job to do.  Call it megalomania.  I call it "Monday".

It's an incomparable passion.  Most people whom I've encountered chase incentives; I am not motivated by self-interest, nor have I been since about grade 11.  It's like I'm operating with a mathematical moral justification for everything I do.  When I'm discouraged, all I need to do is remind myself of the existing math problem on the dorm wipe board.  It's changed a bit over the years, but it's still essentially a math problem.

Nonetheless, I have definitely moderated my fervor a bit since early undergrad.  The folks willing to sacrifice as I have, or more, for posterity are running out of places to hide, especially in the digital age—which gives me an ever greater responsibility to answer to the highest justice. 

I'm responsible for teaching kids—which means all of the aforementioned are subject to "school-appropriate" scrutiny and filtering.  Many of my recent students are of Christian denomination; frankly, my morality has a deeply Christian foundation despite my noted agnosticism.  I was raised Christian; I was almost confirmed with the United Church before I pulled out of confirmation in the eleventh hour after securing the same unadulterated skepticism that I practice as I edit this blog post today.  Teaching high school continuously for the last 9 years has grounded me in ways that may be incomparable to the groundedness of any other mechanism, intimate partnership included.  When you've been responsible to as many families and children as I have, your self-scrutiny of the behavior that you're modeling for others can hit thresholds unlike those of any other profession, excepting public office.

—The world I'm fighting for is not a utopia; it could still be realized within most of our lifetimes.  I have always intended for my research to contribute directly to this project by providing and refining curriculum for fostering predispositions toward non-violent conflict resolution—toward peace.  

As always, I am ever critical of my own positionality; I'm no White Savior.  I'm just a guy who cares.

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And that's the closest I'll get to an autobiography.  To dabble in the aforementioned is to play with the fire that prompted me to publish a condemnation of pride in the first Facebook note that initiated this sequence of self-publications back in 2011.  However, empathizing with our selves can be just as important, if not of even greater consequence, than indiscriminately empathizing with others.

In broaching the discussion of "discriminatory empathy", I figured it was important to begin with an attempt to empathize with my self.  I've self-published about empathy several times previously, but I don't think I'll ever do its potential importance and consequence justice.  Since, I tend to attribute it as the deciding variable among the exhaustive scourges of humanity.  Empathic discrimination—that is, electing to empathize with some but not with others—can be attributed as a cause of all violence, depending on how one defines the "empathic" and the "violating".

That's a bold claim, but please hear me out.  How does one justify the violation of an other?  Classically, one often attempts to re-characterize the other as other-than or less-than one's self or one's tribe.  In the associated literature, some scholars categorize this as infrahumanization.  But, at essence, even infrahumanization can be traced to another preferential practice of empathy.  Hence, dehumanization—or the treatment of an other as less-than or other-than human—can also be attributed as an unwillingness to exhaustively and indiscriminately empathize with others.

In every case that I've encountered, the violence enacted by an agent (including cases of absolute psychopathy) involved empathic discrimination: an agent's empathizing with some but not with others.  Importantly, this conceptualization of indiscriminatory empathy includes empathizing with the self—i.e., the witnessing, recognition, and/or expression of one's own perspective and emotions.  Metacognition is a form of empathy if the traditional definitions of cognitive empathy were assumed in this conceptualization.  (If cognitive empathy refers to the re-cognition of the cognitions of others, then cognitively empathizing with oneself becomes what we usually label "metacognition".)  Scholars of clinical psychotherapy had this figured out ages ago: the first step to empathizing with one's self is to recognize and to isolate from one's preconscious internal monologues.

Therefore, to reduce empathic discrimination is to reduce the probability of all violence.  Indiscriminate empathizing is the key to final and sustainable peace.

No one will ever practice empathy perfectly indiscriminately, but some people definitely empathize less discriminately than others.  Most people can't get past Socrates' first step.

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After watching Cloud Atlas the first time, but before reading around its development and production, I was convinced that this was the movie that the Wachowski sisters actually wanted to make when they directed The Matrix.  The Wachowski sisters have played with the themes of existential transformation and the essentially humanizing throughout their careers.  Cloud Atlas's plot(s) and characterizations engaged with these themes directly and exhaustively, which evidently undermined the film's success; it bombed in the box office, and most people I encounter haven't even heard of this epic.  

I won't spoil the film anymore than I already have, but of its literary significances, I think it's valuable as an illustration of the timelessness of this problem: Empathic discrimination will continue to predicate violence unless we elect to cease and desist such discrimination, toward our selves and toward all Others.  So long as people continue to empathize with some but not with others, violence is inevitable, regardless of political, ideological, or even moral allegiances.

That cliché (and its various iterations) of "change yourself in order to change your world" is ever prescient. If "the unexamined life is not worth living," then it's the parts of our beings that we elect not to examine that most define us. We cannot let our empathic discrimination define us.

We will never know ourselves completely, but that doesn't mean that we should stop trying.

Sometimes, people need to hear what they said.

 

On corruption

Probably a misattribution, but in lieu of reading this nonsense, just listen to Tim Minchin.

Preface: I have rewritten most of this post several times over the past couple of months since no matter how I approach revisions, this particular memorandum still seems too much like a rant.  I do not know if it is the topic or my lived experiences but apologies in advance if it still sounds like a tirade.

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One of my past professors whom I still deeply respect once affirmed to an entire undergraduate history classroom that "corruption greases the wheels of governance."  I have hated those words only increasingly since he uttered them.  Since, in my brief stint in student and administrative governance since high school, his claim has only ever been validated by my exposure.  

As someone currently fighting on the front lines of an anti-corruption movement at UofT, I feel relatively confident promising the reader that to contend one agent's corruption is to contend all agents' corruptions.  Corrupt people tend to congregate; the permissibilities of their corruptions are co-dependent.  "An attack against one is an attack against all," except these tribes play a different game with different rules.

In my five years at UofT, I think I may have demystified the potential ceilings of corruption among both student and university administrative governments, and they go far higher than I could have imagined prior to returning to Ontario from China.  During my undergrad, vocally among my friends and classmates, I had already declared university politics "as among the worst politics, because of all stakeholders, these folks should, and usually do, know better."  Yet, my then naïveté now feels total.

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These institutions prioritize classist, nepotistic, and ultimately dynastic considerations above all.  Moreover, the people managing these institutions generally care far more about control than about students' understandings.  Yet, many of the people responsible for preserving these not-for-profit corporations' marketed images would undoubtedly deny or at least attempt to qualify these allegations, but behind closed doors, they're usually playing kingmaker.  Obviously, not everyone elects to play that game or, at least, elects to play that game monolithically.  However, frankly, most faculty and staff will not bite the hand that feeds them, so why should we expect anything more of our elected student leaders?

There's an admittedly Orwellian thread running among the intentions of university stakeholders and administrators.  Generally, the principal benefactors of these institutions want people educated just enough—conscious just enough of what's actually going on day to day behind closed doors.  Not too much.  Just enough—to keep the institution operational.  Faculty included.  Anything beyond that threshold, and your increasing consciousness can become a growing threat, especially if you have the courage to speak and/or to act on it (by virtue of the crisis of conscience to try to do either in the first place).  

One cannot appreciate the exhaustive extent of corruption in our post-secondary institutions until one starts speaking truth to these folks in power.  With empiricism under continued assault, the stakes of any remaining good faith commitment to alethic coherence have never been higher, and I write that with a deep appreciation of the historicized moment.  Somehow, in the era in which people have had among the greatest access to knowledge, the knowledge project itself has endured its greatest proportionate vulnerabilities since the Dark Ages. Bertrand Russell would not have survived in 2022.

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I don't know if I will ever redeem my image of the University of Toronto.  I'm not going to gaslight myself.  I know what some of Canada's "best and brightest" have done and, especially, what they haven't done with the knowledge that they had when they had it.  

It's easy to try to argue that my experience is the exception: that my exposure has been exceptionally unique or unlikely, but I have heard one too many stories from friends and colleagues to ignore the logical implications of their real experiences and feelings.

As such, it's difficult to face my students when they ask me about UofT.  I don't think I'm doing them any favours by misrepresenting my experiences, and especially the experiences of my friends and colleagues who have been harmed and could be harmed again with the same impunity, but misrepresent I do.  As implied, we at UofT are generally engaged in a great project of misrepresentation.

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I will finish my PhD, but not with the pride that I would have had five years ago.  Universities are not immutable or indispensable; in Canada, our larger institutions' undergraduate programs continue to be integrated as public-private extensions of public high schools.

Prophetically, that same professor also once noted that "if you want to learn, just get a library card."  A small part of me regrets that I did not follow that advice.

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To conclude, I find myself returning to Camus's alleged words almost weekly.  Despite my own bias toward the fundamentality of epistemology, I believe that rebellion is more ontic than epistemic: One exists in a state of rebellion if they are truly "rebelling".  Mere thoughts of dissent or of rebellion do not constitute or predicate ontic rebellion unless one were living under (e.g.) a totalitarian dictatorship, categorically.

If nothing else, my program has taught me that it's far easier to join (or more often to submit to) those inhabiting corruption than to fight for any other alternative.  But, the same were true throughout most of recorded human history; I can think of no exception where electing for corruption within a corrupt system presented the more difficult or higher justice, regardless of what people perceived as that which they had to lose at the time through resistance.

I told my mother something off-the-cuff over Thanksgiving that still resonates with me as I finish writing this post: "Power does not give one the right to abuse it."  Upon critical reflection of my own words as part of my endless attempts to falsify of my own positions and morality, I realized that this is still artifice, still baseless: nothing gives anyone rights.  We give each other rights, since time immemorial, regardless whether we philosophize or categorize them as inalienable and/or a priori.  Since—We can also take them away, as we have done so and will continue to do so, unless We stop them from rescinding or disrespecting what We have established as Our rights.

Only would-be tyrants fear a free and honest will.

"The protagony of vice villainizes virtue."

Excerpted from a cease and desist letter.

I presented my dissertation research at a national academic conference in May.  I had anticipated that injection into the marketplace of ideas since I started (obsessively) reading Nietzsche and the surviving Socratic dialogues in high school.  It's likely that those texts were the only reason that I reached university; as my mother could still probably attest, I almost dropped out in grade 11.  As I remarked to my current class of Writing 11-12 students the other day, my grade 11 and 12 Law teacher typically conducted all class time and assessments, including the exams, through fill-in-the-blank exercises that reiterated the courses' textbooks verbatim (every. single. class.).  My classmates and I were keen enough to know that this was dubious even as teenagers.  This teacher continued to teach at my public high school for years after I left, protected by the OSSTF no less.

Clichéd clichés, I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth.  As a lower-middle class White male growing up with a single-parent mother in South-Western Ontario (with a genealogy of significant mental illness), I experienced oppression, but orders of magnitudes less than those of many of my current colleagues and friends.  This origin seems to have nurtured my empathy with those who have experienced or especially continue to experience absolute poverty—true desperation.  More than most of the people whom I've encountered in the academy, especially in its upper echelons, we often had to choose, deliberately and consistently from relatively young ages, to become the ways that we are now.  We didn't have the external pressures from our immediate communities (let alone families) to search for better lots in life; if anything, we faced opposite pressures.

However, I don't write this from self-pity.  This context is necessary to situate the subject of this post.

Why I—like those others—often confront the problem of protagony.  

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Sidebar.  I'm an English teacher.  Narrativization is an essential composite of both the learning and teaching processes of disciplinary English.  In some ways, we've never finished or transcended the Ancient Greeks' "agon".  The great contest continues unabated—among tragedians in fifth century BC Greece and among players of roles of all recreational, intellectual, and political stripes today.  However, arguably the self-consciousness of this role play and of the impulses to interpret, to retell, and to witness lived experiences through narrative has a history and developmental arc traceable to prehistory.  In other words, in some ways, the narrativization of these impulses to story can be traced to and reaffirming of the essentially human and therefore humanizing—ascriptions of prot-agon-y and antagony offering signs and signifiers of people attempting to interpret meaning from the human experience.  I don't know that we need Thomas King to confirm this, but he's still an awesome read.

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During a seminar at that academic conference, one of my department's professors contributed an interesting point regarding the liberation of inter-generationally oppressed peoples in systemically violent conflict zones.  The professor noted the importance of nurturing progatony among the oppressed.  On the surface, this object may seem rather benign and even benevolent.  However, like so many other tools of the human experience—empathy, charisma, sophistry, etc.—protagony is only as Good as the agent (self-)actualizing it.

I don't think I need to belabour societal obsession with heroes and heroism.  It's popcorn fare for the looking-glass self's validation.  These heroic narratives and narrativizations present elevated forms of protagony, appealing to their audiences' ideals.  As a gamer since toddlerhood, I grew up immersed in the protagonies of Japanese role-playing games.  It's terribly easy to inhabit these stories, since generally, people tend to find solace in the un(der)examined assumption that they may inhabit their own RPG.

But take two seconds to stare into the stars, and our collective cosmic insignificance is once again rendered obvious.  The universe probably doesn't care about us, falsifiably, and even if it did, we don't yet have the (observable) evidence necessary to validate thus.

Needless to say, we're probably not the heroes of our narratives; we might not even be Fifth Business.

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And yet, it's 2022, and people continue to heroize their choices and actions. But who among us are most predisposed to protagonization?  Our political leaders?  Sure.  Celebrities?  —I'm sure at least one or two people come to mind.  What do these folks have in common?  

Let me guess.  Do the germane characteristics validating their protagonistic candidacies involve (under-)philosophizing, a (lack of) truthfulness to their lived experiences, or a (repudiation of) the "conscientization" that this blog has alluded to since its inception?  Right.  As a virtue-ethicist, I make a point to avoid the skulljacking of virtue ethics, but the omnipresence of vice seeking validation (and most often exoneration) through protagonization has become comically conspicuous.  

Implicitly, an agent's protagonization of their actions requires an under-examination or self-deception.  Today, we endure the great irony that the people most inclined to narrativize themselves as protagonists tend to be the last to self-examine, if they ever bother to do so.  It's "those who won't take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness," as Sophie Scholl would say, who seem to be most predisposed to protagonize their actions and existences, if only as a last resort.

Crucially, this trend becomes especially worrisome among our intellectuals. After all, our "Doctors of Philosophy" have (allegedly) exhibited a threshold of love of wisdom, communicated a threshold of trustworthy truth value, and have (allegedly) habituated a threshold of consciousness and of conscientiousness critical of the former.  Intellectuals tend to be the most vulnerable to protagonizing their triumphs over adversity—as those among the most self-conscious of the gravity and magnitudes of their struggles and positionalities.

Make no mistake: A commitment to virtue can threaten the very existence of anyone protagonizing vice.  Those protagonizing vice will almost certainly experience harm in your presence, although necessarily self-inflicted. Virtue is the villainy of vice.  Moreover, the people aspiring to virtue tend to be the last people to self-identify as the protagonists of their own narratives.  Unadulterated self-examination tends to bar said individuals from the necessary myopia.

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When V for Vendetta reached theatrical release in Ontario, I paid to see it in theatres four times in just over a week (a substantial feat for a teenager pumping gas on weekends).  I knew nothing of the graphic novel at that time; I knew only that the Wachowski sisters had a hand in its production, and after ruminating over The Matrix for years, I knew that I needed to see this film—to attempt to understand it. After my first viewing, I would have rewatched it in its entirety on the spot.  The film's cultural legacy and co-opting aside, it still communicates the importance of fearlessness and of determination in the face of oppressors, of authoritarians, and of their contemporary iterations.

With few exceptions, we have almost no Disney-villain level antagonists today.  Most of the people who have been villainized have been ascribed such villainy for political purposes, usually through some collaborative gaslighting.  But this follows logically; if one has already protagonized vice, (let's call it an "hamartia" to keep my English colleagues satiated), the various varieties of prevarications tend to be one concentric circle deeper.

To conclude, the vile yet vociferous villains to virtue violate with vengeance the vocations of valor and veracity; yet, the virtuous vicars of vigorous vantage vacillate voicelessly, vetting varieties of ventures to venerably vanquish the vacuous villainy.  Voilà! The vanishing vanguard vie the vogue vignette: that the protagony of vice villainizes virtue.

Old thumbnail.

On courage

Gary Oldman deserves every accolade that he received for his portrayal of this role.

Reflecting on this post—from before I started writing it, through its major modifications while editing, to my final insights as I approached its publication—I honestly believe that this is one of the most important arguments that I've assembled in this blog to date, and it has some hot competition.  This post attempts to resolve and to delimit a broader philosophical system that I started writing about in high school as well as attempts to articulate one of the greatest existential crises posed to the academy, today.

This post lay inert, collecting digital dust in my drafts for months, labeled as "On cowardice."   As those who've consulted the terms and conditions of this blog—or lack thereof—might discern, I'm not monetizing this platform—nor do I have any intention of doing so in the future.  Hence, the writing process tends to embody Nietzschean becoming; given that I'm more or less All-But-Dissertation and that I recently discovered that my CSSE (Canadian Society for Study of Education) proposal to present my dissertation was approved, I need to false flag a justification to publish here.

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I was half way through this post when, by coincidence, I encountered what has become known as the Grievance Studies Affair, often labeled "Sokal Squared" by the academic press in reference to the more widely known Sokal Affair.  I remarked to some of my colleagues that it felt like fate that I found myself writing and editing a piece about courage just as I encountered this fearless defense of academic freedom and of the knowledge project.  

For those of you unaware of the circumstances and significances of this affair, three exceptional scholars—James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian—attempted to co-publish twenty hoax journal articles, successfully publishing seven of them.   Deliberately non-sensical, the articles included a piece re-interpreting anatomical male genitalia as socially constructed concepts.  They sought to expose problems that they perceived among pay-to-publish models of scholarship and, especially, the inadequacies among the standards of rigor, vetting, and methodology of academic journals associated with what they referred to as the academic "grievance disciplines": including gender studies, decolonizing studies, and other fields that tend to draw lineage from the post-modern philosophy and critical theory of the 1960s.

If you've read this far, I feel that I should assure you, the reader, that I believe that what they did was highly unethical.  I have no doubt about the unethical character of deliberately lying to editorial boards and to peer reviewers with ulterior motivation if one construes of ethics as an ideal system of actionable dos and don'ts.  Arguably, they could have achieved the same ends without undermining the scholarship of people researching and writing in so-called "grievance studies" because, as their critics rightly contended, their actions undermined the legitimacy and capacity of those working in these fields who respect traditional research standards of rigor, validity, and reliability.  The public perception of these "grievance" fields can directly impact their funding and therefore solvency & growth. Despite the ongoing ideological culture wars in many North American post-secondary institutions that some of these fields tend to legitimize, scholars working in, for example, gender studies and decolonizing studies have done a lot of Good in the service of the knowledge and the human projects.

However, I believe that what they did was moral.  Morality, traditionally, concerns the "whys" of action in lieu of ethics' traditional "whats" and "hows".  The morality of the academy rests on some basic assumptions with origins traceable to the Socratics.  For example, the knowledge project depended and continues to depend, in part, on the assumption of academic freedom, its associated rights and freedoms of speech and of association.  Although those scholars had adverse, if not arguably malicious, motivations—their actions could be justified as a form of counter-attack, or even a desperate defense, in the ideological culture wars that increasingly enthrall the academy.

"Empiricism" is currently under assault.  Verifiable sensory observation of phenomena no longer serves as the gold standard of evidence-based reasoning.  I don't mean to sound like an insurgent here, but academics increasingly find themselves in exile for defending what amount to experientially evidenced-based reasoned claims.  People outside of our academic institutions might find these allegations bizarre or even unfathomable, but I assure you, this is happening, and it is getting worse.  Moreover, the consequences could be existential to the future of the knowledge project.

I anticipate that I am too honest and too committed to traditional conceptions of truth to survive in the long-term in these institutions.  Although I would never engage in the shenanigans of Sokal Squared, increasingly, it'll take a lot less than those levels of professional transgression to get "cancelled" from the academy, or at least, that seems to be the general trans-disciplinary trajectory.  Predictably, this pathology terminates in (former) academics finding themselves with no other recourse than to argue that the public should defund universities.

And not to (re)tread that clichéd slippy slide, but academic freedom is probably next.

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As a teacher, I am constantly reflecting on what capacities, attitudes, and predispositions I should be attempting to foster among my students.  Recently, due in part to political shenanigans at the University of Toronto, I stumbled upon an insight regarding an ideal or vital characteristic that could logically supersede the value and function of every other bit of wisdom and virtue as conditions for human flourishing.

In some respects, this characteristic has been in front of me the entire time.  Despite my commitments to consistent self-reflection, I tend to take my own positionality and willingness to confront dishonesty and corruption for granted.  I am and will probably always be a social gadfly.  However, I only recently realized the true significance or condition of that designation.

Thought experiment: What potential human characteristic, when removed, would only compromise and/ or weaken all other human characteristics?

If you've read the title of this post, then I un-surreptitiously spoiled the surprise.  Virtue, wisdom, and and all other knowledges can be rendered inconsequential, incomprehensible, and ultimately immaterial if one lacks the courage to responsibly enact them.  Cowardice presents the ultimate source and consequence of the failure of the intellect; in fact, I would argue given my recent experiences that cowardice can render all intention and value vacuous.

But what is "courage"?  What is its essence?  What denotes it phenomenologically? I struggled with its definition significantly leading up to and while editing this post.  Though, I'm relatively confident in my identification of this last piece of the puzzle of human action or of "why [...] people do what they do."

If ascribed values constitute the sources of intention and action, the final threshold of action can be defined by this additional variable.  Undeniably Nietzschean, this willingness to enact the will presents the last barrier to enacted choice.  Following the aforementioned logic, without this willingness, the Will or volition constituted by an individual's intuitive and experientially situated values can be rendered void of meaning and of consequence.  Therefore, courage could be defined as the most valuable of values (of objects ascribed meaning by people) since it can render all other values valueless, practically.

Construed another way, inductively, what is the only human characteristic that cannot be supported by other human characteristics?  Or that can only support other human virtues?  Courage doesn't have a "source" along the same pathways of virtue, wisdom, and other empirical knowledge.  Courage cannot be traced to Kantian empirics.  Like Kant, we often interpret free will as a freedom of choice.  To enact courage is to choose to enact a choice.  In other words, our "Will"s cannot be free without it.

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I've been inspired by Winston Churchill ever since I first encountered him.  After all, he may have hated democracy almost as much as Socrates did.  But, Churchill knew that we could do worse—that we had done worse.

And I might be witnessing a precursor to one of his worst-case scenarios at the University of Toronto at the time of publication.

I've lost count of the number of people who I respect and trust who have told me that I should just give up on the University of Toronto Graduate Students' Union, including several of its former executives. Undoubtedly, my involvement has stretched my PhD studies by at least a year and a half. But, I stand by the same principle that compelled my involvement in the first place.  If UofT graduate students can't manage Good governance, what hope is there for our municipal, provincial, and federal governments in Canada?  Democracy dies in darkness.

And authoritarianism prevails where courage fails.  I've deliberately avoided drawing any contemporaneous macrocosmic comparisons publicly in my communities given that Twitter is already inundated with presentists grafting the flavour of the month onto their every myopic political concern.  But folks, this is how authoritarianism happens.

Despite my continued commitment to defending the Left as a liberal, and given the increasing authoritarian tendencies of other parties who also assume these labels, I might be destined to join Boghossian's camp.  But if only the spectrumed Right will defend cognitive liberty, where else does an academic courageously committed to truth and to the knowledge project find themselves in modern academia?

Moreover, these failures of courage in academic governance tend to osmose from the academy.  Everything I've ever taught or tried to teach my students could be rendered meaningless if my students lack the courage to stand by their senses of truth and justice.  I reflected recently that I care far less if my students understand how and why to consistently respect pronoun-antecedent agreement than if they would stand up for the people or ideas that they care about when it matters.

Ultimately, I would teach my own kids if I were ever to procreate that they should never compromise their integrity or sense of truth for the sake of preserving or shaping their reputations.  Because honestly, what is the ethical or moral character of increased clout with people who would prefer that we compromise our understanding of truth or integrity in order to achieve such ends?

State of the UTGSU (Feb. 14th, 2022)

Hey folks.  For those of you whom did not know already, I created a video about the current situation in University of Toronto graduate student politics and uploaded it to YouTube.  Given its increasing relevance and significance to the situation at UofT (and to the ongoing university culture wars, generally), I have added a link to this blog.  Please spread the word if and where you can.  I'm already in the process of creating a sequel.

On responding to (even more) Fan Mail

Hey folks.  I am nearing the completion of my next blog post in which I will consider the importance of courage, but, unfortunately, I was defamed by a body of the University of Toronto Graduate Students' Union again in a response letter from the corporation's current Internal Commissioner.  A full text version of this letter can be accessed via the following link to my Google Drive.  The document—as distributed to the 200+ people on the Board of Directors listserv in the second mailout via an official UTGSU Gmail account—is 34 pages long, mostly "annexures", so read at your discretion.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m9Al7s8cXLu67ipldmI-IwuCC-iy15mg/view?usp=sharing

In preparation for the UTGSU Board of Directors meeting tonight at which we will discuss the contents of this letter, I have prepared annotations that I will try to circulate among the Board of Directors during the meeting.  I am annotating only the body text of the letter prior to its appendices.  Again, like last time, I'll try to be as objective as possible.

Original text in red

Annotations in black

Mr. Adam Hill on Dec. 6, submitted a motion for the January council meeting (refer to Annexure 01, separate document "Impeachment Motion") to impeach the current internal commissioner elect. Unfortunately, the reasons presented in the motion for impeachment misrepresent the facts and do not provide complete information to the honorable members of the council. 

Therefore, before I give the background to the council members about the targeted harassment based on gender, race, and creed that I have been facing by Mr. Hill since stepping in the role of internal commissioner, I must first enlighten the council with the correct facts against the claims made in the impeachment motion without taking much time.

Allegation -1: Whereas motions submitted by Members of the UTGSU were deliberately
excluded from the University of Toronto Graduate Students' Union's 2021 Annual General
Meeting's agenda and materials as well as the September 2021 Board of Director's meeting
agenda, Whereas some of these motions submitted for the consideration of the membership
alleged non-compliance with the Ontario Corporations Act and the Canada Not-for-profit

Corporations Act.

Response: Mr. Hill indicated twice that his motions were excluded. 

To summarize the “Exclusion of AGM Motions” document—an unredacted record of all correspondence between the Internal Commissioner and I from the submission of the first 2021 AGM motion to the request from the Internal Commissioner to cease all contact—I sent two separate emails requesting two different motions to be considered at the 2021 AGM before the motion submission deadline.  On November 29th, I noted in a separate email that the materials prepared for the AGM on the website excluded my motions.  I sent an inquiry CC’d widely to the press regarding the continued exclusion of my motions from the second mailout on November 30th.  The emails to note that my motions were excluded from the AGM materials were subsequent to those first four emails.

First, in September 2021, Mr. Hill submitted a minority report along with a motion that was circulated and voted on in the September council meeting and was voted down by council (Refer to Annexure 2, minority report attached as a separate document). The minority report was also full of preposterous, unfounded allegations that I feel compromised my safety and integrity as well as defamed the former UTGSU council chair. However, I shared the report and the motion to all council members for reference; the Sept. 21, 2021 (mailout e-mail text is copied below as Annexure 2).

The motions submitted for the AGM by Mr. Hill (refer to Annexure 04 and 06) were detrimental
to the union's interest as they raised concerns of libel and legality, which was raised to us by
Primary Counsel, as they falsely accused the Executive Director and the legal counsel; the
motion was deemed a targeted attack towards staff as they included names (His motion
attached). 

This was never communicated to me prior to this letter, nor do I have any record of any attempts to communicate this to me.

I submitted those motions specifically in the Union’s interest, particularly the Members’ interests.  As documented in my first motion, under the Ontario Corporations Act and the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act, we could be fined per Director for not consulting our Members or seeking their consent to reincorporate before signing our Certificate of Continuance.  Moreover, we could be fined separately per Director for any attempt to alter the composition of the Board of Directors without the Membership’s consultation and consent.

The executive team discussed it internally and due to the continued targeted harassment I experienced by Mr. Hill, I asked the executive team members to convey to Mr. Hill that his motion was out of order and that he should direct his correspondence towards the Finance Commissioner (FC email Annexure 03). 

Legal definition of harassment in Canada:

“264 (1) No person shall, without lawful authority and knowing that another person is harassed or recklessly as to whether the other person is harassed, engage in conduct referred to in subsection (2) that causes that other person reasonably, in all the circumstances, to fear for their safety or the safety of anyone known to them.

Prohibited conduct

(2) The conduct mentioned in subsection (1) consists of

(a) repeatedly following from place to place the other person or anyone known to them;

(b) repeatedly communicating with, either directly or indirectly, the other person or anyone known to them;

(c) besetting or watching the dwelling-house, or place where the other person, or anyone known to them, resides, works, carries on business or happens to be; or

(d) engaging in threatening conduct directed at the other person or any member of their family.”
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-264.html

The only way my actions could be construed as harassment would be my repeated communication of my concerns to the Internal Commissioner as an elected Director and Member of the Union.

The Finance Commissioner had volunteered to share this correspondence, but in the end, chose not to correspond with Mr. Hill. 

Mr. Hill proceeded to share his motions along with my notice of the AGM sent to the board, which included my credentials to nearly 44 news outlets, organizations, institutions, and the office of the premier of Ontario (see Adam Hill email attached as Annexure 04). In doing so, not only did Mr. Hill compromise my safety and identity but my reputation as well. 

What other recourse would one of our Members have if their motions were going to be deliberately excluded from an Annual General Meeting?  Especially when said motions could have existential consequences for their Union?

In another attempt, Mr. Hill sent a notice of escalation followed by the impeachment motion ( Annexure 05 e-mail sent by Mr. Hill on Dec. 1, and Impeachment motion sent on Dec. 6 a day before the AGM). 

This motion was submitted for wording as I fully intended to communicate this motion at the beginning of the AGM.  Due to a ruling by the Chair, and to the Membership’s upholding of that ruling, this impeachment motion was, and remains, out of order.  It has not been bylawfully moved and seconded at either a General Council meeting or a General Members’ meeting.

Despite his repeated attempts to bully and belittle me, I have continued to maintain my silence to prevent disrupting the organization's functioning during these times of uncertainty.

I do not know what the Internal Commissioner is referring to.  If anything, the opposite is the case.

Screenshot for reference:

For context, the Internal Commissioner attempted to insult my intelligence in writing via the Internal Commissioner’s Gmail account after I inquired as to how information or knowledge of an active, confidential appeal currently being processed by the Board of Appeal (a sacred, arms-length body of the Union) may have been leaked to the Executive Committee.

Mr. Hill had the option of presenting his motions on the floor at the December 2021 AGM, but
he chose not to. 

This would violate long-standing precedent and enable anyone attending the AGM to attempt to move motions from the floor; this is why we haven’t done this in the past and also why the UTGSU maintains a motion submission deadline for AGMs.

Instead, he sought cause to perpetuate further confrontation with me. 

Please see the attached record of all correspondence, unredacted, between the Internal Commissioner and I, from the submission of my first AGM motion to the request to cease all contact.  I requested a ruling for the exclusion of the motions because the Board of Appeal wrote to me that they cannot adjudicate an appeal without a ruling.

See screenshot for reference:

Fearing for my safety and having endured months of back-to-back attacks and aggression from Mr. Hill, I chose not to respond. In no part of our role descriptions is tolerating harassment expected. At the beginning of our meetings, we usually read and follow an equity statement that I would implore Mr. Hill to respect. In no way are the actions coupled with his behaviour acceptable in the University of Toronto Graduate Students' space.

I have never disrespected the Equity Statement.  I am a high school English teacher.  I can’t do my job in good faith without respecting the contents of our Equity Statement.

Furthermore, during the start of our December 2021 AGM, while I was delivering welcoming
remarks, Mr. Hill openly labeled me a "fascist" after several attempts to interrupt the meeting
were thwarted. 

My exact words were “Is this just fascism?” which was asked when the Internal Commissioner, serving as Chair at the time, refused to entertain any discussion before seating Hamish Russell as Chair.  Given that Russell was not the current General Council Chair since the duly appointed Council Chair resigned just prior to the AGM, the jumping straight to vote to resolve the seating of Russell as Chair for an Annual General Meeting of a multi-million dollar corporation, especially without even the opportunity for questions, would be considered extremely exceptional and unprecedented.  We were less than five minutes into the meeting at the time.

Over 95 students were in attendance to witness this. To further demonstrate the
callousness of Mr. Hill's repeated behaviour I present to you this relatable scenario as a
comparative example. A member whose motion was not included was informed that the motion
was out of order (and thus could not be included). The same member's other motions were
presented to the members of the AGM.

Allegation – 2: Whereas the audited financial statements did not receive the required two weeks'
notice and advanced distribution required under UTGSU standing bylaw or the three weeks'
notice required under the Ontario Corporations Act,

Response: The executive team conveyed in the AGM that the financial statements shared met
the advance notice time under the standing UTGSU bylaw. Financial Audit and Draft budget
was presented on Nov. 23 2021 to Council, and the AGM package was uploaded on Nov. 22 at
the UTGSU website, and shared both to the Council listserv and through the Digest to general
membership. The AGM took place on Dec. 7, which meant there was at least 15 days notice and distribution of the said documents.

The AGM package was uploaded to the website prior to the two week requirement for notice, but it was not distributed to the Membership via email at least a full two weeks in advance of the meeting bylawfully and as has been long-standing precedent (and this can be confirmed by merely cross-referencing the dates when the original AGM email was sent to our Members versus when the AGM took place).  Under 109(1), the Ontario Corporations Act has provisions for physically mailing shareholders (Members in our case) if electronic notice requirements cannot be achieved. The executives who attested to adequate notice and distribution lied on record during the AGM.

Allegation -3: Whereas no attempt was made to reschedule the 2021 Annual General meeting
despite numerous inquiries and requests by Members
Response: There were no requests received other than from Mr. Hill and Ms. Alexandrova to
reschedule the Annual General meeting. Given the history of disruption from both actors, there
was no reason to reschedule the Annual General Meeting. It should also be noted that we are
currently navigating an ongoing global pandemic. We owe our membership service, advocacy,
representation, leadership– to mention but a few. It is extremely challenging, not to mention
psychologically draining, to keep getting manipulated into dealing with Mr. Hill's behavior
towards me.

Allegation – 4: Whereas under "G4.1.3 Meetings of [standing] committees must occur at least
once per calendar month, and committees should attempt to meet at least twice per month
(including meetings that fail to reach quorum)," Whereas the Policy and Operations Committee
has not met since Apr. 7, 2021, despite multiple unanswered questions and requests from
appointed members of the Committee to meet or to discuss issues germane to the Policy and
Operations of the UTGSU, particularly its application for continuance.

Response:

The Executive Committee sought to refill the Policy and Operations Committee beginning in
September 2021. Mr.Hill was the sole member until October 2021. Due to the continued
harassment from Mr. Hill, it was difficult to determine if holding a Policy and Operations
Committee meeting would be wise due to ongoing concerns. I feel that Mr. Hill is using this as
cause to cry foul– however, realistically, I question the rationale one would have to call a
meeting solely with the individual who has been hostile to me since the beginning. Mr. Hill's
behaviour has been reported over a period of three years, with nothing done about it.

At the last meeting of the Policy and Operations Committee in April 2021, Ben Hjorth alleged that Jesse Velay-Vitow and I were "neo-fascists" when Jesse moved a motion to recommend to the Board of Directors that we address old business first at each subsequent Board of Directors meeting.  I filed a formal complaint regarding Ben Hjorth’s conduct, but it was never addressed by either the Internal Commissioner chairing the Committee nor by the appointed Equity Officer.

Screenshot for reference: 

There are a multitude of complaints lodged against Mr. Hill with specific regard to his direct role
in creating an unsafe environment for members, documented since February 2020 (Annexure
10). 

It’s a representative democracy.

During his tenure on the Policy and Operations Committee, there has been nothing
produced by the committee other than an environment where members continuously argue with
one another about personal issues rather than produce substantive work. It is impossible to work alongside these individuals.

In addition to devaluing the work of everyone on the Committee, I can promise that it wasn’t the appointed members of the Committee who were responsible for this, prior to January 2020.

The policy and operations committee did not meet quorum to operate until October 2021. 

We can meet, but we cannot conduct business as I wrote in multiple emails to the Internal Commissioner while the Committee remained defunct.  We still could have accomplished a lot of work.

The continued targeted harassment by Mr. Hill towards members has made the Policy and Operations committee a danger zone not only for the Chair, but other members as well. 

I strongly believe that it is the exact reason that the committee suffers to maintain members.

Furthermore, General Council knows that the UTGSU has been having trouble securing a Chair.
The Chair Nomination Committee had to extend their deadline three times due to lack of
applications, and while there has been a Chair for every meeting, including the meeting in July
2021, we have been unable to find a suitable replacement as former Chairs have refused to take part and due to the nature of General Council, it is near impossible to bring someone with little to no experience with the UTGSU's Rules of Order.

Allegation – 5: Whereas the UTGSU Bylaws public document hasn't been updated with
amendments since Feb. 27, 2020,

Response:
Since my re-election, I have been working on a bylaw review and organizational restructure.

Quoted directly from the bylaws:

“7.7 Duties of the Internal Commissioner
The duties of the Internal Commissioner shall be:
7.7.1 To be responsible for ensuring meetings of the Executive Committee and
Council are scheduled, that agendas are created for these meetings, that
proper and adequate minutes are prepared, and to sign one (1) copy of
the approved minutes;
7.7.2 To be responsible for the duties of the General Council Chair in her or his
absence;
7.7.3 To facilitate and monitor the Union’s Bylaw and Policy updates;”

During this time, the bylaws were not updated in order to maintain consistency for members
while we updated the UTGSU bylaws to be in compliance with the Canada Not-for-profit
corporations act. 

Every current and potential body of the Union relies on this document in order to function lawfully.

However, we did communicate and share relevant bylaws to General Council
and the membership. An example would be changes to the CRO nomination committee, it was
shared directly to the General Council as was the case in October and November 2021.

I spent nearly ten months reviewing the bylaws, which the two former internal commissioners
did not update during their respective tenures. There has not been a transition report from former Internal Commissioners since 2019, which is a standard practice for outgoing Executives.

The document our Internal Commissioner was reviewing was based on a complete, painstaking rework of the formatting and structure of the old bylaws that I conducted while serving as Internal Commissioner.  Check the versions before and after my tenure.

During the time in which I was first elected, I was not fully informed of my duties and have
made every effort to improve.

I spent countless hours working with the UTGSU lawyer and the Executive Director in
reviewing each and every bylaw. The three of us presented the updates and changes to the 
General Council and general membership in a special town hall meeting and the AGM. The
proposed restructure and the bylaw updates were approved in the 2021 AGM.

A townhall is not a General Membership meeting.  Moreover, the townhall took place after the Executive Director signed the Certificate of Continuance on June 21st.

Allegation -6: Whereas the Executive Committee ceased ratification of minutes and consent
agenda in the summer of 2021,

Response: As in previous years practices, the meeting highlights are available online with the
decisions rendered by the Executive Committee being recorded. The Bylaws do not mandate a
weekly Executive meeting, but a weekly executive report. As the Executive opted to meet biweekly, reports were folded into two reports to avoid duplication or confusion.

The consent agendas of Executive meetings include all motions passed online.  Any gap in this record would constitute a breach of the Ontario Corporations Act and of precedent.

The UTGSU has been upfront with delays in updating the UTGSU, which was communicated
back in the July Council meeting. In September, a new full time staff member was hired but we
also lost the Communications and Engagement Specialist. 

The Union Affairs Coordinator worked to organize and archive the Executive minutes, as well as get any missing minutes signed for the UTGSU's annual audit.

Therefore, I consider all the allegations made by Mr. Hill as continued targeted attempts to
harass me, given this is not the first time he has attempted to tarnish and defame me. 

Why would I defame someone after being constantly defamed myself?  I know what it feels like.

Since winning my first election in November 2020, my safety and wellbeing have been compromised, causing me extreme mental stress, especially during the pandemic where everyone is struggling to cope with life (have also attached previous e-mails from him as a separate document as Annexure11). I am also a mother, with two young children and Mr. Hill's ongoing harassment is impacting my private, social and family life as well.

The "Minority Report" has been one of several attempts of Mr. Hill towards me and other postbearers of the UTGSU. General Council has first hand witnessed during numerous council
meetings during and before my tenure, Mr. Hill's stellar record of repeatedly slandering
executives and former Chairs of UTGSU. 

Legal definition of slander: 

“Definition

298 (1) A defamatory libel is matter published, without lawful justification or excuse, that is likely to injure the reputation of any person by exposing him to hatred, contempt or ridicule, or that is designed to insult the person of or concerning whom it is published.”
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-298.html

The toxic environment Mr. Hill creates continues to make the UTGSU an unsafe space for myself who identifies as a new migrant racialized Muslim woman of color. Frustrated and lost of what to do, in December 2021, I issued a No-Contact Request and redirected Mr. Hill to speak with the External Commissioner. I have also attached a series of emails directed at me.

Prior to joining the University of Toronto as a doctoral student, I worked at a very senior level
position for the U.S. Department of State and had lucrative pay. As a result, I have nothing but
exceptional evaluation reports throughout my eight years of service and have received several
honor awards for the work I delivered. However, since joining the UTGSU as a twice-elected
representative, I have experienced repeated marginalization, harassment and bullying. I am a
Brown Muslim woman, and the first racialized Women to be the Internal Commissioner since
2017, it is not a coincidence that two former Internals are causing such disruption due to their
own perceptions of my identity and competence.

During the Summer of 2021, I fell severely ill and was repeatedly rushed to the ER. Despite my
poor health at the time, I continued to perform my duties as the UTGSU Internal Commissioner.
No council meeting or executive meeting was delayed or postponed, nor did I take any time off
due to my health. During this time, given the extent to how personal my situation was, only the
Executive Director and one other member of the Executive Committee were aware of how ill I 
was. As I've already mentioned,I am a full-time doctoral student and a mother of two young
children, who have been badly affected by the pandemic.

The harassment I have faced in these last two years is not the kind of treatment any student,
executive, or staff should experience. The UTGSU has and should maintain a zero tolerance
policy with regards to harassment. Despite several attempts, General Council has failed to
provide a safe space to its members, and I have beared the brunt of working in a toxic
Organization.

General Council should protect the interest and integrity of its members. I am afraid that I have
come to a point where unless there is a cease to this harmful and damaging behaviour, I am left
with no option but to explore other avenues outside the union space to defend my rights, and
hold those people accountable who have impacted my well being and continuously violate my
human rights.

Some of the content of this letter arguably contravenes the directions of a cease and desist letter communicated to the UTGSU Executive and Board of Directors by my lawyer after I was defamed in a separate instance by a UTGSU body during the April 2020 Executive Elections.  Given the track record of this government, I'm not exactly expecting a retraction and apology tonight.