In Hindsight, Sometimes Not Caring Is the Wisest Option.

Caring runs aside passion which leads to conviction & such fuels spark-filled, friction-enducing teaching in a uni world where bums in seats & credentials are king. Care too much & they will hunt you.

I’ve been suspended from the University of Guelph (officially Guelph-Humber (GH), but Guelph-Humber is a collaboration of Guelph and Humber; students earn a Guelph degree, and they tend to take the Humber part off their resume - sorry, Humber, the truth hurts). Guelph is the senior parent and is completely responsible for the management of GH.

Since last November for the crime of hurting an antisemite and his group of fellow travellers’ feelings when I called Hamas Nazis and dared to say I stood with Israel, I have been defamed, attacked, banned, banished, ridiculed, threatened with huge fines, threatened by organizations for defamation based on something I didn’t write, had property stolen, the list is long. Yes, for calling a group designated as a terrorist org, I was also virtually called a paedophile, and the Vice Provost signed that claim. So, a big thumbs up from her.   

See the accompanying article on how the University of Guelph’s official free speech policy has been rubbished in their treatment of me. They might as well stick it in a ripped orange binder and bury it in a time capsule. It is pure disconnected optics, a deceitful effort to present them as something they have no intention of becoming, that is, practitioners and endorsers of free speech. 

I don’t think Guelph-Humber or Guelph management alone has even thought about my positive right to free speech; their thinking is very punitive. The Guelph-Humber VP (and human rights Claimant) is close with the activist accuser, and there is no question of “If you offend someone and allow it, isn’t that the essence of freedom of speech?” 

 I attempted to meet the union at the university, but they refused to meet in person or talk on the phone. Union CUPE President Fred Hahn, who thinks cartoons of Israeli divers turning into bombs that kill Palestinians are amusing and whom his members endorse almost as heartily as he endorses Hamas, with his Oct. 7 reaction being, “Let the uprising begin” is the leader of the group that is my sole and only option for legal counsel and support.

Complaints against unions fail statistically 99% of the time. They will be clear and immune from a bad faith judgement if they return one of your emails or wait till you are fired, doing nothing, and then grieve that.

If your union doesn’t like Israel or Jews, and you have anti-semitic management, and your case involves whether you have the human right to criticize Hamas, good luck to you. Those two beefy bodyguards you see that say they will support you? They will probably kill you.

The other union - OPSEU, is similar and recently adopted BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) measures. I am sure Israel is following the vote closely, or was it just symbolic to put those annoying Jews or Jew-loving members in their place? Still not as insane as that Anti-Palestinian Racism secondary training - will the UNHRA people teach it? Will there be a course on how to crash fences, will they play the game “Kill the Jews” in class, and will they assign Protocols of the Elders of Zion as reading?

Their assertion that they can separate their politics from their actions is not plausible, and I am experiencing their threadbare Jew support in my fight, a pure free speech issue, which, unfortunately for me, involves Israel. I am being squeezed between a fiercely anti-Semitic management and a lukewarm anti-Israel union that is, again, in Canada, my only permitted legal representation.

It is like getting on a plane and sitting between two 6’ 5” 400-pound landwhales who like to sprawl and eat those red Cheetos. 

Unions assure me that their politics do not affect their support of pro-Israel members. I can’t meet them on campus anyway, as Guelph/Humber threatens me with arrest and a $10,000 fine if I step foot on campus.

Neither the union nor management has answered my question about where they get the authority behind their dictates. This university is supposed to be a rule, not a “wing it” driven university; however, when you base law on the mere fact that words have left their mouth, it is beginning to sound a bit too 15th-century monarchical for me.  

But they have unlimited cash and a team of lawyers, and I will not test them.  Wow. From being the Norm on campus (anyone who watched the TV show Cheers) to being treated like a skunk that has found its home in the university and that all university forces are desperately trying to catch gives me whiplash.

A boss that took all my daughter’s fragile toys out of my office, my dad’s will and other personal items, said not a word to me, boxed them up and threw them in a closet months ago. A friendly student snitched on them and I had to threaten the police to get them back - but I am the bad guy according to the union and management. OPSEU takes the side of management about 60% of the time. They have filed one grievance that I forced them to by having to cut and paste from the rules on their own website and explain to them how it was my right to tell them what to do.

Strange how nobody agrees with OPSEU and Management on the write to handle and move my personal effects of 13 years without contacting me. Only those two; with friends like OPSEU, it makes life easy for management.

But I was raised right and have little concern with persons with broken moral compasses like these two sets. Stealing private materials without consultation was a disgusting violation of privacy and fundamentally indecent.

A fine for going on the campus where I am an employee, have worked 13 years, have never caused a disturbance other than when I brought my dogs, and have university teaching contracts for the fall makes little sense. The frustrating thing is to quote chapter and verse of their own policy on why this isn’t allowed, and their gutless counsel refuses to respond.

Indeed, asking questions of the union or management gets me about as far as when I ask my puppy why she destroyed a bag of guinea pig litter, giving our entrance that Xmas in July motif.  And management’s ears don’t go back like Malibu’s. She actually looks cute and shows some contritiion. Management growls at you and tears the bag open more.

This is all because a professor, the VP and the Manager of (non) Human Rights decided to go to war with me after I insulted Hamas, etc. Let me check my Hamas indicator machine.

Sorry, they are still Nazis; a hint that the Muslim Brotherhood has Nazi affiliations is that their founder Al-Banna referred to himself as the Führer of the Brotherhood. He was not called head cheese, boss man, or captain, but “Führer.
-it sounds like “Nazis”. I just read a piece by Chris Hedges, who claimed there was no anti-Semitism before Israel came along in the Middle East. It sounds like he’s been attending the Vlad Putin school of historical accuracy. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was great pals with the Fuhrer, and they even formed their own SS unit with snazzy Hugo Boss uniforms. But they were SS - but not in a mean Nazi way. And women can also have a penis.

If Guelph and Humber were pro wrestlers, they would be Roddy Piper and his evil twin.  

The bureaucrats who put a cheery “Contact Our Team” button near their “Free Speech Standards” forgot to add “except in real cases, then hang him high.” Of course, after repeated tries, they refuse to respond. The real world is so messy for them; they are wearing white pants and can’t step out, but they, like the HR department, might still be working at home because of COVID-19.  

As far as this “Free Speech” standard, it’s so much easier just to Chat GBT something quick, tweak it, run it past some committee who are more focused on who ordered vegan and then approve it, whatever. It's all good - but the thoughtless effort shows. 

When I was initially suspended, I asked, “Why?” 

The only administrator who wasn’t “stuck in traffic” said, I‘m not sure, but something about a post, I haven’t read it.” 

Then, I was pulled out of my classes, banned from the university course software, and banned from communicating with anyone associated with the institution, including past, past, present, or future. Just for a laugh, I amended their human rights policy document, which is oddly a wiki; I added to it but deleted it after:

I became immune from prosecution but took out the free M & Ms for life clause.

As to the complete ban on communication with my entire community (again, don’t forget my crime, I called Hamas Nazis to a guy in Pakistan.) - such a ban is unlawful; only a judge can order that, but when I asked a student how things were at GH one morning, I had a nasty letter from a lawyer telling me not to talk to students.  

I thought it was just cancel culture veering into my lane, but at that point, I still had hope and thought that sober minds and sanity would prevail and that these absurd accusations would soon be just a speck in the rearview mirror.  

But nine months later, I found out that on the same day, I was suspended based on “the precautionary principle/go to hell” charges, staff and faculty were told by a mysterious senior administrator (the only person who could fire me in the university is the Claimant) that I would be terminated, they said me calling Hamas terrorists was “disgusting” - and this started to taint my good faith.

Below is an unnamed staff member announcing that I would be terminated; the reference to brothers is just made up. I had an unblemished teaching record, high ratings, four textbooks, probably eight test banks published, and multiple cases, and many students said I was the best professor in the department.

But the staff member told hundreds of students I have been Houdini, slipping out of imminent firing situations for years. She prefers the professors who answer keys before exams, but she might be bitter. I am not sure.

This is a staff email in which she is proselytising students of my crimes and imminent demise.

But that wasn’t enough; Considering I’m banned from campus and speaking to anyone, I’m sure I’m just catching a few dribbles off a cascade of invective -  so I’m just sitting on the point of the tip of the iceberg. It feels quite centred in my rectum; I know one loyal staffer began, while on the job, to pull students aside and tell them that she had inside university sources and had witnesses who had seen police lead me away after assaulting a student in a classroom, that they had been trying to fire me for years, that I had gone to a student’s house and threatened their parents and that no matter what, come hell or high water, her top level executives sources have said: “I would be terminated.”.

On the day you are suspended, you hear the verdict; you lose your enthusiasm for what they call due process and prefer to write sarcastic posts on Substack, which I am sure is not allowed, according to my employers.

But Toby and Malibu will not snitch on me.

I am unsure about the Guinea Pigs. I have removed their cell phones, and they can’t communicate on hay and carrots. They are not MacGyfer type intelligent.  

I have learned that cold lies are powerful and sticky, and some portions always remain in people’s minds. When I tried to defend myself by writing to staff and telling them this wasn’t true or telling the defamers themselves to stop lying, I was met with threats from school lawyers. They have sent me so many threatening letters, along with some public safety officials who send violent invectives threatening me with $10K fines, police arrest, etc., that I must start a new stack on the ping-pong table under T for threats.    

I’m unsure if this public safety/self-proclaimed president/Lord Queen of the Underworld will soon institute a local university-based capital punishment method. Perhaps she’s following medical evaluation examples of capital punishment on YouTube and hunting for threat inspirations.  

I thought threats had to be based on policy. For her, I didn’t know we lived in little North Korea in Etobicoke, ON. Perhaps there is a sign above the door that I have missed. 

But I cannot fight a multimillion-dollar public corporation in court. I am one person with limited means.

Students told me I was always the “Chill Professor” (their phrasing: I am too old to use “chill” in a sentence), and I thought that gave me immunity. I thought doing a good job, writing textbooks and private test banks, staying late to help students, not to mention giving my phone number out to desperate students looking for last-minute project help, meant something—but what foolishness!  

My students wouldn’t believe these lies, would they? They will rally to my defence, burst into the Department Head’s office, trumpets blazing, defending me.  

Two did, but the rest chose to believe the assault story. Faculty spread it to students. It's strange how people with PhD and high IQs can believe that despite no video (student phones or official cameras), police or security record, and no heated conversation, they are partially convinced I did a criminal act- even though I was at home after being punted from campus. As humans, we love to believe the worst; it is a bit of genetic schadenfreude, perhaps, but let’s stop saying educated people are more decent.

The cleaning lady, Elizabeth, is a gem, and she has more moral fibre in her little finger than all those persons with all those letters after their names. 

I planned to retire with a nice lunch, not having staff making up and spreading lies about fictional criminal actions. The best-laid plans of Mice and Men Gang aft a Gley,” Robbie Burns said. My grandfather knew it by heart.

I remember that from when I was five, and my dad read me poetry, even though not much stuck; all I remember in the Canterbury Tales is someone farting, which at that age made a strong impression on me. 

Today, at the same time, the administration threatens and hisses at me in this grand festival of humiliation and abuse - this was never the plan.  

After Stalin died, and they were fighting for power, I think there was more due process, and management was more responsive than what I am seeing. 

The school's refusal to tell staff members (one foolish one decided to try to convince a student of my fictional crimes via text, so I have all her texts) to cease the slander and libel was not assuring. The school seem to be enjoying it. 

What to do?  

I tried absurd strategies to create justice. In hindsight, all it did was raise my blood pressure.

Legally, since universities have some 17-year-olds and there is a “duty to report” if criminal allegations are made, the staff, faculty and students had an obligation to report my alleged crime. I contacted the school on this, but the beauty of digital communications is the power to ignore it; it’s not like looking someone in the eye and asking a question; in such cases, they need to give you something.

But digitally, it’s easy to make your “no” just a non-response, none of the messy human interaction problems.  

We are now a society where contrary opinions are expressed via silence, creating insecurity and hurt.

I decided to go to the police station and ask why they hadn’t started an investigation into my supposed criminal behaviour, but I couldn’t get myself arrested. 

Somehow, I thought I should shake things up, make the university pee or get off the pot. Either I was a criminal, or it was defamation. But the police weren’t going for it; a wily desk sergeant sent me on my way. 

The police said they needed to have it reported, and for a widely accepted lie —according to the approximately ten friends I still had there—not one staff, student or faculty member had called the police.  

But then I remembered that the lie had the police or security handcuffing me and marching me off, so I should have known my diabolical plan to make the police investigate me for something I didn’t do wouldn’t work.  

And to be honest, it was some spectacular confidence or white privilege that led me to try to bait the coppers into investigating me - and, of course, clearing me, so I could shove such exoneration in the face of the Defamation crew and their rapidly growing group of followers.  

It was cheaper than hiring a defamation lawyer, and while it wouldn’t have earned me any cash, it might have stemmed the bleeding. 

But it didn’t work.  

I am a poor and inexperienced criminal.  

My biggest crime on campus was bringing my two Westies to class, wherein my youngest pup pooped on the floor in the middle of a lecture on Advertising and then ran away and up the stairs and on the elevator.  

Of course, I had to clean it up, catch Malibu,  and then try to blame the poop on the students - this comic diversion failed spectacularly. 

My pup had run into a class of dog haters. Security kicked my dogs out; ironically, since it was a few days before Halloween, they were wearing jailbird uniforms. Technically, Malibu and I are in the same boat, but she is less bothered by it than I am. 

Malibu

But back to the story, I need to increase my Adderall dosage. 

I was served a human rights complaint four weeks after my suspension for maybe saying something bad; the complaint was bursting with invective; he virtually called me a paedophile, saying I shouldn’t be around students, said I should be fired, I was an Islamophobe, racist, serial killer, a violent risk to decent society, puppy kicker, okay, I added the last few.  

I had violated rules, but they weren’t sure what; I was just really bad. I looked up their human rights code; it was open-source, a Wiki, so I added a caveat that said I would never get in trouble. I also added that they owed me M & Ms for life. It’s in the rules, dammit, follow the rules, what are you, some kind of commie?

But remember, at any university, if you belong to one of the chosen categories, you can say what you want in a human rights complaint, you can’t be sued for defamation, and you will never get a legal bill. 

But the complaint was an angry, hate-filled rant of gossip and hearsay. He had teamed up with the highest-ranking administrator in the university, and he was a Jew-hating superstar with 63K followers! I pissed off someone who had known the VP for many years and was very well-connected, sort of like backing into the Mafia Don in the Costco parking lot—bad move. 

The strange thing was that my accuser had multiple complaints against him for anti-Semitism; he posted maps with Israel cut out, said those Jews shot their hostages, there were no tunnels in Gaza, posted Romanian comics who thought pretending to speak poor English and made jokes about Jews making clothing from Gentile skin, being Satanic, sub-human etc, was just a barrel of laughs.  

Below are a few of my accuser’s fully public and open LinkedIn and twitter posts, I only followed him a month, I worked full time and readying 8–10 posts a day was interfering with my job. Also attached are staff member texts to students telling them that I had assaulted a student and that four weeks before I even received the Human Rights Complaint the senior executive had already decided I would be fired because I was disgusting.

The accuser posts this anti-Semitic internet sensation; she is the surrogate for the Claimant and the accuser, and she makes jokes about Jews making skin out of Gentile skin and calls Jews Satanists.

These are only three out of 500 anti-Semitic posts he has made displayed, and he is fully supported by the VP (with her signature); the Human Rights Office dismissed Jewish human rights complaints against him with, to my knowledge, no action; they didn’t even bother to ask for a signature on the complaints forms, what’s the point, they have just deleted it anyway, (just two human rights complaints; everyone else is too frightened after seeing what has happened to me for saying I stood with Israel).

Within minutes, literally minutes of his complaint, I was kicked out of the building. Within minutes of far more serious and substantive complaints being submitted against him, the delete button was pushed, and there is nothing to see here.

Imagine being a young Jewish student when our noble professor talks down Israel in his class; this non-mythical student (he has a name, and this happened) also has seen his people denigrated by this professor on Twitter (X, like anyone uses X, the worst name change in history) LinkedIn, FB, the professor has called Jews Nazis and accused them of creating a new Holocaust.

The student seeks defence and protection, but they tell him to go away. They are busy helping his accuser. He knew he had several professors who supported him, me being one, but I have been forced off campus, and he can not do anything. I can no longer protect those I sought to protect. I saw this coming, and I was there. The student must endure students screaming “FUCK ZIONISTS” in the hallways and having Palestinian flags pulled out at graduation. The school does not care.

The irony is so rich a bite or two of it will leave you full.

This professor has the full support of the University of Guelph and Humber College. They believe they can control who I speak with, no social media, they hissed (I don’t consider Substack social media; it uses too many three-syllable words), they want to control where I travel, and I am banned from talking to such people as my neighbour, who graduated from Guelph-Humber.

The University of Guelph-Humber, under present management, makes the Soviet Union a bastion of freedom.

See below for some more of my accuser’s gems, plus a tiny selection of staff (my co-workers) spreading cold lies; they shouldn’t use text; it's so dumb.

This person writing below is well known; when I told her to stop, the school said I was harassing their employees - her right to defame me was inviolable.

But again, the human rights complaints against him were dismissed without suspension and, to my knowledge, without a response other than “Nothing to see here; move along.”  

The Human Rights crew went from Super Cop to Office Barbrady from South Park. 

But I’ve told this story, which was not my intent; it was just context.  

My story was about bad faith.  

Bad faith is a condition where you believe your accusor's pretension to offer a reason or due process theatre, and they are not sincere.  

I know that times are tough, but I didn’t like the idea of the main prosecutor and witness taking on the additional role of serving as judge against me; it seems cost-cutting may have gone too far. Yes. The Claimant, who has twice said she wants me fired, judges my fate.  

But I am still talking about bad faith.  

The university's lack of real skin in the game would weaken its bad faith. But would it? When I saw the senior administration fight, desperate to make sure I wasn’t paid (which was illegal; you must be paid under suspension) and that it wasn’t their money, I knew it wasn’t looking good. 

I haven’t seen the bills, but I can do the math, and I guess the university has already spent upwards of $300K toward my sacking.  It’ll be well over a half million by the time they are done. They spend like a drunk sailor who has just been elected MP when trying to get me canned. 

But when it comes to my salary and making sure that they were able to cancel all my benefits this semester, they act like my benefits were being pulled directly from their wallet after they had just trekked three miles uphill—both ways—through a raging Winnipeg snow storm to withdraw their last dollars from an ATM, so they might feed their five starving children. 

So, my faith in the legitimacy of the process against me and my faith in the union’s doing anything more than the minimum has exited to stage right after nine months. I spoke to the union official on the phone, my only union call,  and she assured me their private political opinions did not influence them. I’m sure this is their intention. Still, no response to questions posed nine months ago.

My brain is not that quick, it never was, but I thought that if an innocent young black man had just found out that his judge was in the KKK and was told the same judge had booked him (the innocent man) into a cell of a private jail that the judge had just started up, this young man might also see his faith going bad, rotting quickly, leaving nothing but moral stench.

My situation wasn’t so dire, though; under Bill C-63 by Trudeau, I could be potentially jailed; when you have subjective laws, they just become political tools for putting away those you don’t like. But the metaphor about the KKK works for me. Funnily enough, my accuser’s friends are getting praise from the old Grand Duke KKK wizard himself. You know what they say about birds, feathers and flocks.

But John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” has won (former KKK Klansman and head) David Duke’s endorsement as “a modern Declaration of American Independence” and a vindication of the ex-Klansman’s earlier work, presumably including his pathbreaking book, “Jewish Supremacism” (commented on by Eliot Cohen, 2006)

But this is about bad faith.

I wish my bad faith were not tinged with bitterness; that is on me, not anyone else. I am as optimistic as the chicken being pulled out of his cage by the farmer with an axe in one hand while that hardworking farmer'swife is dragging in a bloody chopping block.  

I think optimism in some situations is repackaged idiocy. 

I see why bad faith is so destructive on a societal level. Bad faith doesn't mean you merely disagree with someone; it means the holder of bad faith, who is also accusing someone else of having bad faith, believes there is no separation between the person and the argument. They are a bad person motivated by ill motives (they may not be self-aware enough to know it themselves), but they are irredeemable, the enemy. 

Of course, we don't listen well to those we don't trust.  

Social and digital media have done tremendous prep work preparing a bad-faith society. 

Digital communication has replaced face-to-face communication, the latter down 40%. When I was growing up, if you didn’t spend time with your friends, you spoke on the phone, and if you didn’t do that, you were alone.  Read a book.  (That’s another Substack.) 

Digital culture has simply cut into the time we used to spend speaking face-to-face. It created a whole new culture of weak-tie or parasocial relationships. I have found out that those casual interactions, at work or wherever, even those weak-tie face-to-face relationships, are worthless when suddenly your community of 13 years and your bosses, those who are supposed to have your back, not stab you in the back, turn on you suddenly. 

 I was naive, but I have learned my lesson. 

I think I’ll just get another dog.  

A relationship with a hamster that at least I watered and fed each day was worth more than 98% of those with my students. Students would visit me when they were selling for grades, but in desperate times, they ran for the exit; they believed I was a racist and criminal. 

I know that most of those “relationships" I have developed at university over the last thirteen years with students, staff, and faculty are fool’s gold, and I won't get fooled again.  

Bad faith grows very well in digital soil.  It is hard to hate someone face to face. 

Communication is much more than what you get when you hit the keyboard. 

Indeed, this week, I spoke with someone from the university (I can't say I don’t want them to get in trouble; they aren't allowed to talk to criminals like me who said they stand with Israel.”

It was just on the phone, but it was the first time in nine months that someone was listening and showing some kindness. Since November, the unions and the school have done nothing but use digital communications; they refuse to talk face to face, phones are so 90s, and Zoom is just so extra.  

There is humanity in a conversation where you hear a voice or stand next to someone and see those little wrinkles by their eyes when they laugh. You gauge their tone, and you sometimes hear softness and sincerity.  

Texting and email are pale, weak, flaccid imitators of true human interaction, and they are the world's best fertilizer if you are looking to grow bad faith.

Sometimes, one cannot afford good faith - for example, if you live in a bad neighbourhood at two in the morning, would you offer good faith to strangers approaching quickly? In the world today, Israel cannot have good faith; October 7 killed any spouts of good faith emerging from the soil.  

Good faith is a bit of a Western luxury. 

But bad faith, at times, should be liberating. It is the liberation of abandoning expectations for an organization or person; you have nothing more to lose.

When I was growing up, we had a lovely Westie named Misty; she was determined beyond determined. She would rush into the backyard, charging the oak tree as an impertinent squirrel chuckling at her clung to the trunk six feet off the ground. Misty would hurl herself at the tree, all four feet hitting the trunk, full of idealistic hope that one day she would catch a squirrel.  

Her enthusiasm and faith that she could one day catch a squirrel never dimmed. Squirrels would come down just above her jumping range and chatter at her, teasing and mocking her; they knew a West Highland Terrier about 10 inches off the ground was no threat.  

I think I have become like Misty in my efforts; the anti-semites and policy manual that should be prefaced with, “Here lies within a bunch of rules we copied from another school. If convenient, we will follow them, but most of the time, we will just wing it and do whatever we want to get what we want.”

In any university human rights territory I have ventured into, the land is lawless, and the sheriff is a scarecrow stuffed with straw.

My first lawyer was young but wise; I should have appreciated and listened to her more. She knew early that it was a lawless land, and shouting “Help, get the Sheriff” would drive you mad and cause people to give you too much distance on the sidewalk.  

That lawyer wondered if I should resign just for my sanity, having seen the viciousness of the institution up close. My pride would not let me stop fighting, but I was running out of fight today. My car is telling me to find a gas station. Maybe she was on to something. 

And I need to stop being Misty. The barrels will just chatter more, and it will drive me mad.