How Two Colleges Revealed Canada’s New Moral Geometry
When Academic Freedom Is a Shield for Some — and a Sword Against Others
There are moments when the veneer of institutional virtue cracks so cleanly that even the dullest observer can glimpse the machinery beneath.
The reinstatement of Dr Natalie Knight at Langara College in Vancouver is one such moment.
The destruction of my own career at Humber College in Toronto is another.
One professor publicly celebrated the October 7 attacks as “an amazing, brilliant offensive.” Back to work, no discipline.
The other — me — said, “I stand with Israel,” and was fired for it. No severance.
An arbitrator ruled in favour of one, calling it a victory for academic freedom.
The other was denied even the courtesy of a disciplinary hearing, denied severance after fourteen years of top student evaluations, course creation, and a small library’s worth of publications; he was then deliberately defamed by management, stripped of pay, stripped of benefits, stripped of due process, humiliated with false criminal charges, stripped even of the ancient right to answer his accusers — an…
