September 2025
A review of \emph{Professors Speak Out: The Truth About Campus
Investigations}, edited by Nicholas H. Wolfinger, Academica Press, 2025.
This book is certainly worth reading, especially for graduate students
who would like to become college or university professors and for
beginning professors. Without a doubt, these case studies, written by
those involved in serious academic disputes, will open readers’ eyes to
some of the most unsavory things happening on campuses.
The book has three parts. The first includes six cases on allegations of
sexual misconduct against professors. The second deals with charges of
racism and racial insensitivity. There are eight cases in this part, and
three are authored by Canadians. The final part includes four cases of
alleged religious insensitivity, anti-Semitism, and anti-Christian
biases.
Increasingly, professors are being investigated for a variety of
reasons, and these cases represent only a small sample of those known to
faculty members at Canadian and U.S. institutions of higher education.
Often the problem lies with ideological differences between a professor
and students, other faculty members, and administrators. Most of the
students’ complaints seem to result when they have been “offended.”
Professors often interact with hundreds or thousands of students a year.
In fact, there is no other profession in which the person in charge
deals with as many clients at the same time. Thus, it is easy to see why
a professor may slip-up or say something judged to be inappropriate.
Some students are, in fact, eagerly waiting for professors to say
something they can record and use against them.
Because of the internet, slip-ups and inappropriate expressions are
likely to be communicated to other people, especially administrators who
are charged with dealing with students’ complaints and hurt feelings.
Tom Flanagan’s experience at the University of Lethbridge, published as
\emph{Persona Non Grata: The Death of Free Speech in the Internet Age}
(McClelland \& Stewart, 2014), is an excellent example of what a mob of
students can do to a professor.
As noted, three Canadian authors are included in this collection. Unlike
some of the American cases, the Canadians had the same underlying story:
faculty members who had a classically liberal understanding of race and
racism clashed with students, colleagues, and administrators who hold
what are called politically correct, woke or identitarian ideas about
antiracism.
Patanjali Kambhampati is a Canadian professor of chemistry at McGill
University, and before his brush with notoriety he had put a few posts
on social media critical of feminists and a few other contentious
topics. Soon after, a female student launched an attack even though
Professor Kambhampati said that he never discussed his personal beliefs
in class. Soon after, McGill administrators questioned him, and what he
thought was a minor irritant quickly became a year-long defense
consuming much of his time and energy.
Mark Mercer is a professor at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax and was
the President of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship
(SAFS), a Canadian organization that protects the rights and freedoms of
college and university professors. In his chapter, Professor Mercer
discusses cases that he worked on and his own troubling situation at
Saint Mary’s.
Frances Widdowson’s chapter, “Satire Can Be Dangerous,” has an
interesting twist on harassment. Widdowson was a tenured professor at
Mount Royal University in Calgary, and she exchanged comments on social
media with members of The Mount Royal Anti-Racism Coalition. She also
co-authored (with Albert Howard) a scholarly book, \emph{Disrobing the
Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural
Preservation} (McGill-Queen\textquotesingle s University Press, 2008),
that put her in the sights of Indigenous activists. At first, Widdowson
was suspended, then she was fired, and today she is in a protracted
legal battle to get her job back.
It is increasingly difficult for professors to defend themselves against
charges of sexism, racism, and holding politically incorrect opinions,
especially if their views have been published or recorded. The editor of
this volume, Nicholas Wolfinger, has included cases of well-seasoned
academics who ran into problems. In many cases, the rights of faculty
members to be assumed to be innocent until they were proven guilty had
been ignored.
The short postscript, “How to Safeguard Your Academic Career,”
outlines what academics should do to protect themselves from a mob that
may take after them. These cases give plenty of evidence of what can
happen even to the best academics. The cases that Professor Wolfinger
has chosen warn academics and those who want to become academics that
they must be vigilant, or they could end up in a career-ending struggle
like some of the authors in this book.
\emph{Rodney A. Clifton (\href{mailto:Rodney.Clifton@umanitoba.ca}{\nolinkurl{Rodney.Clifton@umanitoba.ca}}) is a professor
emeritus at the University of Manitoba and a senior fellow at the
Frontier Centre for Public Policy. Along with Mark DeWolf, he is the
editor of} From Truth Comes Reconciliation: An Assessment of the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission Report\emph{, which can be ordered from
Amazon.ca or The Frontier Centre for Public Policy.}
Help us maintain freedom in teaching, research and scholarship by joining SAFS or making a donation.
