Should I Apologize For $2,000,000?

It depends on the translation of the word "apology."

If you believe in the importance of free speech, subscribe to support uncensored, fearless writing—the more people who pay, the more time I can devote to this. Free speech matters. I am a university professor suspended because of a free speech issue, so I am not speaking from the bleachers. The button below takes you to that story if you like.

Please subscribe and get at least three pieces /essays per week with open comments. It’s $5 per month and less than $USD 4. I know everyone says hey, it’s just a cup of coffee (with me, not per day but just one per month), but if you’re like me, you go, “Hey, I only want so many cups of coffee!” I get it. I don’t subscribe to many here because I can’t afford it.

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I am Being Pushed toward the Sharp, Revolutionary Blades of Cancel Culture. This includes the non-hit song "Stand My Ground" (above, below picture). 

For over seven months, I have been suspended from my professorial pleasures, so no side chats in the hallways with Elizabeth, the cleaning lady, no teaching, no brainstorming over grand creative projects with students, no writing and tweaking custom textbooks for my courses, no hearing of students' entrepreneurial dreams (one former TA started a brand that is now known worldwide, but I don’t think my advice helped him much), no real talks with the office door closed, no hearing about my student’s hurts, their pain about their parent’s divorce, or their stories of how they were affected by the racism of low expectations growing up in Rexdale.  

I miss it all, but I am banned from campus and from communicating with all students, faculty, and staff, past, present, and future.¹ If I speak with anyone who has any connection to my university, the third-ranking public safety officer at a related college, where I don’t even teach, said she’d report me to the police for criminal harassment. So, I guess my lunch with the fellow who picks up the shredded paper every Wednesday is cancelled. 

Yes, apparently, in this new world run by third-ranking parking and security officers with messianic ambitions, it is a criminal offence to Whatsapp the staff member who pulls students aside and whispers to them about fictional events, criminal accusations, all the while saying that she has “inside sources” - I may not, at risk of imprisonment,  tell her to stop telling lies about me.  Being told to stop defaming me might hurt her feelings, and hurt feelings matter these days.  

Maybe they want to add another “hurt feelings” panic button to the school app.  (Note: Yes, on the Humber College app, there is a panic button, not for physical danger, but to generate a fake incoming call so you can excuse yourself from awkward conversations. I would have thought saying I need to go pee would do.)

The right to defame without consequences must have sneaked into the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; who knew? But most of my law training comes from watching cop documentaries on the Discovery Network, so I’m no better than a first-year law student  - unless they go to TMU.  I would be better than them.

I still have yet to have a chance to defend myself; the crawl of cancel culture has been purely digital; I have never met my accuser or the claimant; they have never spoken a word to me, and even their digital complaints have bypassed me, my intentions have been thrown into the tornado that is social media, ragged remnants of my speech, now torn to bits have been left miles away from the centre of my intentions, like rubbish on the ground after an outdoor concert, with some half-truths caught on digital fence posts.  

Yes, the racist professor, the violent racist professor, the tens of thousands of digital wanted posters that have gone out with the picture of me wearing my one suit - yes,  fire him, fire him, fire him, terminate him, he assaulted students, he has been causing problems for years, he went to a student’s house. He threatened the family; he probably shot JFK and probably poked the hole in the Chinese lab to let COVID-19 run amok. 

Did you hear that? Indeed, by some miracle of telepathic transmission, within hours of my suspension, before I even knew the charges, faculty were telling lies to students, and politically unfriendly staff were pulling aside students to try to convert them to some perverse religion in which I am a prominent demon.  

My suspension and treatment are simply a case of senior Guelph and Humber College management using the labour and financial resources of the institution to pursue their political power trip; it has utterly nothing to do with education. It’s power, they have done it before, they just want to assert their authority and since they have no skin in the game they will go on forever.

Yes, with all the rumours, the flotsam of my broken ship has been left on the rocks of malice, self-righteous indulgence, and people’s perverse delight in pretending to stand on the bulwarks above the deck, defiant, as if bravely facing the winds of prejudice. I think there was a scene in Titanic where DiCaprio struck a similar pose.  The truth is, though, that there is no ship of war but merely a bourgeois pleasure craft, and the day is warm and pleasant, and the breezes are light. 

Despite all this and despite this extended and someone tortured ship analogy, I am still fighting to be able to offer a defence and not just have some randomly assigned person write a report that determines whether I am sacked based on interviews with fifteen people already on the record for wanting me sacked. And if she writes a negative report, I have the right to appeal, but unfortunately, to the same person who filed the claim against me; again, this is all because I said I stood with Israel and that Hamas were Nazis. 

But nothing much is happening, and to this point, everything is digital; I have been involved in about two minutes of discussions. But the lawyers are making out well. 

As a human rights complaint respondent, I might want to discuss this with someone connected to the process. By that, I mean words vocalised, not just written, but not yet—it’s been seven months. 

I could send management a string of emojis, but that would probably be considered criminal harassment, and the police seem to have a double standard: hot coffee for screaming and threatening terrorist-endorsing Arab protestors and arrest for Jewish supporters.   

But enough of the social media.  Social media is not very social, not in any decent way. It is social in the sense that there are often people on the other end of those messages (though there are many, many bots); it is often para-social (creating delusional relationships with strangers), but messages, packetized and targeted through the wonder of the internet, are often nothing more than the much-discussed practice of virtue signalling. 

Social media use is like a dog race, where the fake rabbit is on a stick that is permanently in front of the dogs (I have never been to a dog race, but this is what I’ve heard happens); it is mindlessly circling around idols that people never get close enough to see.  

When we see someone in flesh and blood, we are not so harsh; it is not just a social convention; it is much more than fear of creating offence; it is because we see their eyes, we see their hands, we hear their tone, and we set their words in a painting in which all the rich features mentioned above provide context and background colour; it is how we draw meaning; it is where we allow ourself not to simply take a stream of words and digitally crush them, stick them full of gossipy firecrackers and toss them into the sky.

At the same time, we gaze dumbly, looking at all the brightness and colour we have made -  we can even feel the heat -  is this ignition not the essence of new truths? 

I have never before had unadulterated lies created about me. In my case, the classroom assault falsehood did not evolve through gossip but was deliberately formed and injected into a closed social ecosphere. I know one person or perhaps a pair who created them, but the university has yet to be interested in speaking with them.  One might think administrators like the sulphurous vapours of lies. Of course, the administration will say they don’t believe such fiction, but they like the effect. 

In a small university, you can work backwards, looking at the diminishing velocity of the rumours.  

For example, when nobody has heard the lie accusing me of assaulting a student before a person who claims to have heard it five days previous, it’s more than reasonable to assume that that “I heard it five days earlier” person did not spread the lie; they created it.  

It is especially sad when foolish, excitable students do this, but infinitely worse when your colleagues whose Jew-hatred, previously hidden like the cicadas, have burst out to join the insect chorus. 

Lies are curious; they work on different levels. Normal people would say, that’s a lie; there is no evidence. Can’t you use reason?  But it’s important to note that people are hurt not only by the effect of the lie but by the creation of it; they say I can’t believe you invented such horrible lies about me. 

Often, one feels a subtle gaslighting, the aroma of rotten eggs; how could they say I did something criminal I did not do? Am I the mad one here?  

But then you realize that it has nothing to do with reason, logic, or witnesses that strangely no one seems to have met; the propagators of the lie are there to enjoy the attention they get as they whisper it in the hallways, in the administrative lunch rooms, or behind the podium after the class has finished; it is a delicious morsel made up of attention and validation, often propelled by past resentments and jealousies.  

The proverb calls the person who creates conflict “perverse.” This has no sexual connotation; that interpretation is thoroughly modern; the word comes from the Hebrew word 'ikkesh,’ whose primary definition means twisted, distorted, and crooked. 

Cancel culture has never had a better friend than social media. It is more than just a hyper-focus on past and present speech; some act like it is a noble tool designed to help us better monitor speech. It is not. 

Social media is not a poker to contain fire; it is gasoline and explosives designed to spread fire; it is unashamedly brazen about its entire purpose: to capture and sell attention. 

The two photos below are from organizations whose reason d’etre is to get people who support Israel’s right to exist sacked, fired and canned. 

Yes, I am a Zionist.  Sorry, but I bought the car as is, and it has no reverse gear.

One calls me a racist, I am not, but it reeks of desperation to say I am not; what am I supposed to do, list all my black friends?  The other that has been re-tweeted over 640 times (I think my record for retweets is four) focuses on the separation between Palestinian non-combatants and combatants. I believe I said Palestinian gov., meaning Hamas, and it has been deliberately altered; even this copy has been altered, and the post I responded to has been removed, making it look like I was responding to some facile piece on mental health in Gaza.   

Thirty-two thousand viewers were encouraged to contact my university and advocate for my termination, even if only 0.1% of the investigation produced 3,200 “Fire the bastard!” emails. I was never so popular. And every one of these emails is used against me, as if social media amplification and truth and justice were the same thing.  

The deep irony of this is that those who brought this complaint against me are not even students, at least not the majority of them; I responded righteously to a man calling for the extermination of seven million Jews and two million Arabs and was correct when I noted the historical connection between  Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.  The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood was a Hitler fanatic, and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was a Nazi groupie. But I’m sure the grainy video of this is just AI magic.  

Hajj Amin al-Husayni, an Arab nationalist and prominent Muslim religious leader, is shown in the video meeting Hitler for the first time. They look so chummy.  

But the latest postmodern fad is that reason and truth are rubbish justifications for speech. If what you say is true, but someone feels bad about it, their feelings are more important than the truth. This isn’t hippy talk circa 1964; this is pre-enlightenment, more 1364. 

Isn’t modernity great? 

But my university has no problem with faculty who proudly stand with Hamas.  Indeed, you are deemed Islamophobic if you say you don’t stand with Hamas or if you dare criticise everyone’s favourite terrorist group, Hamas or hurt their feelings in general. Today, Hamas is even cooler than the Symbionese Liberation Army was at its peak (though less Stockholm Syndrome).  

If you talk about your hurt feelings, the truth can be damned; you can say whatever you want to someone; feelings are like an all-you-can-eat coupon for defamation. 

Considering this seven-month banishment, it’s interesting that the day I was suspended, and three weeks before I knew what I was being suspended for, staff told students, “What I said was disgusting and that I would be terminated.”  

I have it in writing, so much for due process.  

But there is a solution; a lawyer and no end of self-proclaimed advisors have presented it to me.  

They suggest I apologize, say sorry. 

The root meaning of the word "apology" comes from the Greek word "apologia," which originally meant a defence or justification of one's actions or beliefs. It comes from the Greek words "apo" (meaning "away from") and "logos" (meaning "speech" or "reason").

In ancient Greece, an "apologia" was a speech made in defence against accusations or charges. So, the word’s meaning has mutated. 

So, this piece and the ones that precede it are my apologies. Okay, perhaps I’m just being a tad pedantic in sticking to the word's original meaning. I’m old-fashioned, not a modernist, not into this new-fangled modern meaning of apology, the expressing regret or remorse for a mistake or wrongdoing, which is the primary meaning of "apology" in contemporary English. Sorry (in the modern sense). 

I am told that if I grovel enough and say I’m sorry for what I said, I might be able to reclaim my job. 

Where does the two million dollar figure come from? 

I did the math, and if I planned on working 11 more years to the same age my professor father did, and if I factor in lost salary, lost pension payouts (assuming I lived till 85), lost drug benefits, and lost royalties, I would be out over two million dollars if I don’t go back.  

The number is accurate, even if I wasn’t smart enough to factor in inflation properly. Still, regardless, if a grovelling apology was the key to returning my employment and I declined, it would be a rather expensive non-apology. 

Most advisors or people who believe themselves qualified advisors propose that I demean myself, perhaps insincerely saying that I shouldn’t have told a stranger in Pakistan who was calling for the destruction of Israel that I stood with Israel because my response to him  (my understanding of the LinkedIn algorithm was obviously in error, I thought it was a private message) might have hurt the feelings of someone who publicly calls Jews subhuman and who says that Jews (conflating  Jews and Israelis) shot Jewish hostages on October 7, 2023, to save money on potential ransoms - this is not an appealing option to me.  

One of those, “I’m sorry if your feelings were hurt by my message, that was not intent. I intended to support a people I love who had just had what would be the equivalent of over 50,000² of their youth murdered by Hamas and their supporters,” - this might work for me. That’s a modern apology I could do. 

But those “I’m sorry you feel that way” apologies are simply repackaged gaslighting. They imply nothing more than saying you’re crazy and irrational to feel like you do, but let me indulge you. In my case, I would be saying that if you do feel that way, I take no pleasure from it; my point was to stand up for my friends and people and to express my condemnation of a designated terrorist group. 

Sorry about that. Again, that’s a modern sorry, not the old-school apologia. 

There is no guarantee that I’ll lose my job. Still, when an unnamed administrator (there are only two with such privileges) said to staff and faculty that what I said was disgusting and that I would be terminated, and this is all told on the same day I was suspended for unknown reasons, the case for being optimistic about my job retention is weak.  

Would I apologize for two million dollars?  

I guess it depends on the nature of the apology.  If saying I stand with Israel is legitimate grounds for a human rights complaint that turns my life into a maelstrom of defamation, broken promises, abuse, non-responsiveness and threats, then I guess I am guilty. 

Two million dollars or not, I won’t be walking that one back.  

If calling a group of butchers who murdered 1200 barefoot kids dancing at the Nova Festival “Nazis,” my only capitulation would be that it was poor writing; calling anyone a Nazi is usually just a symptom of lazy writing.  Goodwin’s law says that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches.  So maybe I jumped into the Nazi analogy a mite early, but maybe not. 

If we can overlook the semantic particulars and just use the term “Nazis” as the worse and most malevolent form of humanity, I would also not be walking that one back either- even with two million clams on the table.   

If some young Muslim student (at my actual school, not someone who wrote in because they saw my name on a Japanese ‘I hate Zionists’ site) knew me and was genuinely hurt by my words, I would regret their hurt feelings and would be happy to sit down and explain my position with them.  

But that does not seem to be the case; it is more the case of allowing those who already hate Israel and Jews to use me as a scapegoat to satiate their blood lust and anger toward Jewish people and the state of Israel.  They had bought tickets and boarded the anti-semitic train before Oct. 7, 2023. 

It is important to note that I still have a few courses at another public university; they were given the same evidence about my post, looked at it for a split second, said, “It’s free speech,” laughed and let it go without doing anything.

That’s what happens when you have adults in administration.

To the last point, I can’t be part of trading in two million dollar appeasement coupons if the accuser is a long-established anti-semitie.  

I just went to see my friend Jack, who, I suspect, disagrees with much of what I am saying in this essay. He owns a tremendous jewellery store and is a man of profound principle.  I bought a white gold necklace with a small Celtic cross (a tribute to my Irish roots and Christian faith) and a Star of David, the latter a tribute to my Jewish friends who have shown such immense kindness to me throughout the last seven and a half months.  

The word in Greek for standing firm is Steko. That sounds good to me. So, the answer to the two-million-dollar question is somewhat nuanced, but clarity is essential when there’s that much money on the table.  At this point, steko. 

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STEKO

Please subscribe and get at least three pieces /essays per week with open comments. It’s $5 per month and less than $USD 4. I know everyone says hey, it’s just a cup of coffee (with me, not per day but just one per month), but if you’re like me, you go, “Hey, I only want so many cups of coffee!” I get it. I don’t subscribe to many here because I can’t afford it.

But I only ask that when you choose your coffee, please choose mine. Cheers.

_______________________________________________

1. Despite letters I have received from nasty lawyers and even nastier head security guards, this mandate is unlawful. An institution can tell you that you are not allowed to speak to anyone directly involved in the case so as not to influence it (but it’s a bit comical when they make all my accusers anonymous, guaranteeing me the inability to defend myself) - this assumes judicial process, and there is nothing judicial going on - but they do not have the right in Canada to tell you that you cannot speak to friends, family, or others who have some affiliation with a university. And Lerners law firm, acting on behalf of the U of Guelph, sent me threatening letters warning me about the danger of communication with anyone (I had asked a student, “How are things at GH and the wicked child ran up to the administration to tell them which is strange in itself).

Unless their lawyer had skipped many classes and the only bar they had gone to served whiskey shooters, she would know that such a command is unlawful. It is also intimidation, as is their threat to have me arrested, as is the threat of a 10K fine and a trespass order when I was going to the union office. This intimidation violates my right to defend myself and impedes natural justice.

So, the school lawyer is inventing laws and threatening me on behalf of their clients. A university does not own its employees, and we have free speech.

As usual, the union's local president agreed with management - the union was too dull to consult an actual lawyer.

I’m sorry, dear university aspiring dictators, laws are not made by the mere act of words departing your lips; only the Pharaohs claimed that privilege, and they thought they were divine. In light of their wild hubris, I might further clarify they are not divine.

2. If the same event happened in the United States, the same percentage of the Israeli population murdered applied to the US population.