Canada's Nuttiest Professors

Idealistic and optimistic often look to Canada when the going gets tough - recall all those false promises of moving to Canada should Bush be-elected and the popularity of sites such as Marry an American - might think twice. It's likely the case that everything is bigger in Texas and we, to the north, suffer under its ghostly shadow. Were it not enough that we had a shallow replica of "The Weekly Standard" in Canada called "The Western Standard," who, like "The Weekly Standard," views itself as the vanguard publication of "neo-conservatism" and western alienation, but they've also seen fit to erect a pale, ghostly shadow of none other than David Horowitz's The Professors in their recent "Back to School Guide" on "Canada's Nuttiest Professors" [pdf]. But, unlike Horowitz, they were only about to find twelve professors. (Readers will note that the Canadian Association of University Teachers claims to represent fifty-thousand academics.) But, unlike Horowitz (I assume; I haven't read his book), they also conveniently provided caricatures of those nutty professors.

Some passages:

Universities today are hothouses of intellectual repression, encumbered by censorious codes stifling free speech and weakened by employment-equity programs that force faculties to favor diversity over accomplishment. [...] Today, there are probably just as many, or more, left-wing professors than a generation ago. If our situation is similar to American universities (where there's been extensive research on the issue), most faculties are tilting so far left they're lucky they haven't slid into the Pacific. [...] It would be illiberal to suggest that unorthodox, even subversive, thought doesn't have a place at institutes of higher learning. Still, we thought some students might want to know where radicalism lurks in its most extreme form; the better to make informed decisions about their education. [...] It is the first of what we're sure will become an indispensable annual guide to universities.

And, so, the "nuttiest professors in Canada," 2006 edition:

• Sunera Thobani, Centre for Women's and Gender Studies, UBC - "Thobani was among the first outside of Gaza to revel in the murder of thousands of Americans at the hands of al Qaeda's killers on Sept. 11, 2001. [...] Though Thobani hails from Tazania - where sharia law is still practised - she's said that we're the real misogynists." She's also criticized for obtaining academic employment prior to receiving her doctorate.
• Michael Chossudovsky, Economics, Ottawa - "An overseer of the anti-US, anti-globalization website GlobalResearch.ca."
• Shannon Bell, Political Science, York - "Political science has never been this risque. But Bell doesn't exactly cover filibusters and Senate reform; try post-contemporary theory, fast feminism, sexual politics, cyberpolitics, identity politics and violent philosophy. The self-described 'performance artist' holds workshops teaching the art of 'femal ejaculation' [...] In 2000, she was found by police in an illegal lesbian bathhouse."
• John McMurty, Philosophy, Guelph - "McMurty is one of only a few Canadian academics with full membership in an organization called Scholars for 9/11 Truth [...] strong distaste for capitalism is exhibited in prolific writings arguing, among other things, that free trade and the World Trade Organization are laying the groundwork for 'global capital rule."
• Shadia Drury, CRC in Social Justice, Regina - "Drury insists that a cabal of extreme conservatives, linked by an allegiance to the teachings of the late University of Chicago political scientist Leo Strauss, controls the White House, Parliament, too, presumably, since she counts Prime Minister Stephen Harper among the neo-con clique. [...] In a 2001 lecture, she called Jesus "bad-tempered.""
• Michael Keefer, English, Guelph - "Like his colleague McMurty, Keefer's a member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and a contributing editor to Chussodovsky's Global Research website. [...] Also a defender of political correctness and equity programs on university campuses."
• Taiaiake Alfred, Human and Social Development, Victoria - "is opposed to co-operating with the 'settler' government (the feds) in pushing Indian grievances. [...] believes most Canadians are prejudiced against aboriginals."
• Leo Panitch, Political Science, York - "An unabashed Marxist."
• Kathleen Mahoney, Law, Calgary - "As an activist lawyer, academic and feminist, Mahoney has many strong opinions"
• Thomas Homer-Dixon, Political Science, Toronto - "Homer-Dixon made a name for himself in the aftermath of 9/11, arguing that, rather than Islamic zealotry, the real motive behind the attacks was social and economic disparity between the West and the rest of the world. [...] A global-warming alarmist [...] the only solution being to slow our economic growth and end globalization."
• Sophie Quigley, Computer Science, Ryerson - "Quigley may be a computer instructor, but she apparently considers herself qualified to teach morality to the director of McGill's Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law. Quigley was the Ryerson professor who tried blocking her university from awarding an honorary degree to Margaret Somerville, because Somerville, an internationally renowned ethicist, had written that same-sex parents were not as beneficia for children as mom and dad. Quigley even brought a banner to the convocation ceremony to protest. What's same-sex marriage got to do with binary code? Beats us."
• Joel Bakan, Law, UBC - "Students flock to UBC's law school rock star, the counterculture author of The Corporation."

That's the best they could do?