Dawson College Administration had cancelled his courses and reassigned him 2 1/2 months ago
One of Canada's only professors of men's rights, who was judged by 85%
of his 1999 predominantly female class as outstanding, left his professorship
yesterday, citing a feminist "putsch" involving people who have accused
him of belittling and marginalizing women.
Jeffrey Asher, 57, a professor of "men's studies" and "feminist propaganda"
at Montreal's Dawson College, the province's largest English-language CEGEP
(pre-university or college facility), left his job after the school's administration
abruptly cancelled his men's issues courses 2 1/2 months earlier.
The administration said that a "significant number of students" in his
classes felt "belittled and marginalized if they voice their opinions or
try to substantiate an interpretation of data that may be different."
The decision was made by a four-person curriculum committee. One of
the committee members, Professor Greta Nemiroff, was caught on the school's
security videotape on Sept. 3, 1997, pasting pamphlets on Mr. Asher's office
bulletin board, covering articles on preferential hiring practices and
sexual politics.
The committee informed Mr. Asher in a letter dated May 31 that he would
no longer be teaching in his area of expertise. Instead, he was reassigned
to courses in "critical thinking," science and technology and business
ethics.
Mr. Asher, a former professor of feminist disciplines, said the move
shows the feminist ideology that dominates our age silences those who provide
an alternative view.
"Feminism is the prevailing philosophy of our age. It is as pervasive
as capitalism," he said. In 1994, when he began teaching his men's studies
courses, there were 53 course descriptions in Dawson's English and humanities
departments that emphasized a feminist orientation, such as "women and
war," he said. "As for courses taught from a male perspective, mine were
the only ones."
Neville Duradata, the academic dean, had no comment on the case and
phone calls and faxes to several other senior members of the Dawson administration
were not returned.
Peter Deslauriers, the president of the Dawson Teachers' Union, recently
sent a letter to the committee, saying it lacked the authority to compel
Mr. Dawson to cancel his courses and teach new ones.
Mr. Asher believes he has been the victim of a "feminist managerial
putsch." He said he has seen no documents that support the complaints and
has not been given the opportunity to respond to his alleged accusers.
He provided the National Post with copies of his Fall 1999 class evaluations
in which more than 85% of his students judged him as "outstanding, exceeded
expectations, or meets expectations." He estimated the class was two-thirds
female.
Answering one of the curriculum committee's criticisms that Mr. Asher's
grading practices were unclear and unduly harsh, he said that 86% of students
in the evaluations reported that tests properly reflected the course content
and 100% rated him as treating students with "courtesy and respect."
Clive Seligman, a professor of psychology at the University of Western
Ontario and the president of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship
(SAFS), expressed concern over Dawson College's actions. "We are deeply
troubled by what appear to be violations of Professor Asher's rights to
due process and academic freedom," Mr. Seligman wrote in a June 26 letter
to Dr. Patrick Woodsworth, director-general of Dawson College.
Mr. Seligman said the 1997 incident involving Ms. Nemiroff calls into
question her objectivity in ruling on his case. He added that when Mr.
Asher complained about the act, Professor Pat Powers, also a member of
the committee that decided Mr. Asher's case, described his complaint as
trivial.
The college committee, citing complaints against Mr. Asher, wrote in
its May 31 letter that students felt "belittled and marginalized if they
voice their opinions" in class or in class assignments. Mr. Asher said
most of his assignments were statistically based, and he strongly discouraged
students' subjective opinions. For example, in a "sex bias" assignment,
students were asked to visit the college library's periodical index and
to look up the numbers of journal articles with the word "men," and compare
that with the number of articles with the word "women."
"What the students are astounded to discover is that the ratio of female
to male articles under women versus men is 10:1, and in many cases 20:1,"
said Mr. Asher.
Carli Raven, 19, a former student of Mr. Asher's, said women were the
majority of Mr. Asher's students, and she always felt comfortable in his
classes. "What he was trying to do was to teach us to read critically.
I never felt intimidated by him. His door was always open. I visited him
several times a week. I didn't feel oppressed in any way. He never laughed
at you. He never ridiculed anything you had to say. He took you very seriously."
Christina Sterling, 17, said "everyone was treated fairly" in Mr. Asher's
class.
"We were just marked on how well we reported the facts," she said.
Ms. Sterling said all essays were submitted anonymously. "We weren't
allowed to write our names on the essays, just our initials and our student
numbers. He couldn't actually know who was writing, so it was very fair
that way."
Bernard Mayantz, another former student of Mr. Asher's who is now studying
dentistry at McGill, said: "The main problem that other teachers have with
Professor Asher is that he gives the students what other profs sometimes
fail to do: to tell the truth about the world that's out there."
For more than two decades, Mr. Asher used to teach feminist courses
at Dawson. "I used to teach feminist courses because I believed it was
a human rights movement for equality," he said. But after reading an essay
in the early 1990s by Catharine MacKinnon, the American feminist legal
scholar, who argued "that all consensual sex was rape," he changed his
outlook, he said.
"I felt this was a debasement of human experience ... I thought then
and there that something was terribly wrong."
Soon thereafter, Mr. Asher became interested in suicide statistics.
"Men, I learned, comprise 80% of all suicides, and 80% of all AIDS deaths.
I realized we had a crisis on our hands. I had to talk about it."
Posted with permission
