...In recent years Canadians have witnessed how dangerous and devastating the phenomenon of mobbing (and bullying) can be.
An appropriate starting point of an inquiry into the cases of mobbing in
Canada can be the case of academic mobbing summarized below for two
reasons:
1. If it can succeed even in a case like mine, given my academic background and experience, one can easily imagine how successful this evel phenomenon can be in other cases.
2. It started as a case of academic mobbing and despite that the
evidence presented and collected at the hearings proved that there was a
conspiracy at Concordia (see the summary below) and that Concordia's
allegations were completely groundless, the arbitrators and lawyers
involved acted totaly inexplicably (see summary) which gave rise to the
suspicion that organized crime in the very legal system in Quebec might
have been involved.
...In September 2010 I was suspended for exposing academic mobbing
practices at Concordia University and for defending my rights as briefly
described at:
http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/concordia-prof-suspended-over-quot-threatening-quot-behaviour-1.562373
In fact, in October 2010 most Canadian media spread Concordia
University's totally unfounded allegations used to suspend and
effectively demonize a completely innocent Canadian scientist, who contributed significantly to raising the international academic standing of Canada, and also sabotage the increasingly successful biennial International Conferences on the Nature and Ontology of Spacetime
locally organized by him in Montreal in 2004 (with representatives from
13 countries), 2006 (19 countries), and 2008 (33 countries).
That Concordia's allegations were totally unfounded was proved at the
arbitration hearings (see below), but, contrary to the evidence, the
case surrealistically degenerated into a progressively alarming case in
which three lawyers (with over 40 years of experience) made abrupt
U-turns (after initially doing their job professionally), two
arbitrators in their decisions not only ignored the evidence collected
at the hearings but contradicted it, and Concordia University and its
Union (CUFA) waited for an arbitrator to render his decision for 18 (instead of the allowed 3)
months until the arbitrator died (and now I am not allowed to see his
decision; I was given only a page with a two-sentence unsigned ruling
against me)...
...Even before the hearings Professor Kenneth Westhues, a renowned
researcher of academic mobbing, stressed that obvious fact in his letter
of September 29, 2010 to the Montreal Gazette's Managing Editor and
Concordia's President Woodsworth:
"On the face of it, the very aggressive action the Concordia
administration is taking against Professor Petkov deserves close
scrutiny by bodies outside the university. I was puzzled to read in
President Woodsworth's letter that one of the two stated reasons
Professor Petkov is suspended and threatened with dismissal is
"continued references to Valery Fabrikant." I have read the references
to Fabrikant in Petkov's open letter. The references strike me as
thoughtful, reasonable, unthreatening, intelligent. They are not unlike
references to Fabrikant made by many other professors, including Harry
Arthurs, former president of York University. It is beyond me how making
this kind of reference to Fabrikant can be a ground for suspension or
dismissal."
From: http://spacetimecentre.org/vpetkov/petition.html
3 comments:
I know about this only too well. I used to teach at a certain Canadian post-secondary institution and I endured years of bullying, harassment, and abuse from my departmental superiors. For most of that time, after I brought the matter to its attention, the staff association usually did nothing or turned a blind eye. Later, I found that a former president was a collaborator. There were indications that he knew what was going on and did nothing.
I eventually found illicit material had been placed in my personnel file. All of it had been put there without my knowledge, in violation of institutional regulations. Most of that information was either an outright fabrication or a distortion of the truth.
After making inquiries of a student legal office at the nearby university, I found out that it is *perfectly legal* to do that sort of thing here in Canada. One can say anything that one wishes about someone and it is the subject of those comments who must clear his or her name.
Innocence until proven guilty applies only to whoever makes the allegations. For the accused, it's guilty until proven otherwise.
It's nonsense like this that make me glad I'm out of that business now. Academe in Canada has become a cesspool.
Canadian academia seem to like their steak bloody.....I was contacted a few years ago by a very unfortunate and `I'm sure brilliant mainland Chinese scholar who felt he had been lured to a temporary job in Canada only for them to steal his work and not offer him a job.
There are always two sides to every story- I cannot judge the versions but what I can consider is how this man who had given up a life and family in China was treated by a university who seemed to regard him as a former staff number.
His various appeals, elegantly and I believe honestly made, fell on ears that were not just deaf but frightening in their brutality.....
I still think of him living in a single room in Canada trying to re-live a secure world in China he had lost....
Some Canadian readers may remember who Valery Fabrikant was.
After the shooting incident and his subsequent arrest, his former university conducted an investigation. If I recall correctly, there was some basis to his allegations of misconduct but, in typical Canadian academic fashion, it seemed to have been shrugged off and little done to fix the problem.
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