My suspension of disbelief and the treacherous two-tier University of Toronto

Why ideologically captive universities like mine are blinkered to their own asymmetric behaviours and how it must all, inevitably, come to an end (for one of us).

I’ve written earlier in the year about freedom of expression and its untimely demise at our once-esteemed Canadian institutions of higher education. In that liturgy, I mourned academic freedom’s gruesome passing, bludgeoned into the dust by a murderous administrative regime that has now—for long—usurped control of our universities. The craven, credentialed, but wholly irrational mavens among our higher-ups—which is absolutely all of them—have peddled an unpalatable gruel of social justice advocacy that has been served up in one form another in every corner of the campus; and it has prompted an increasing number of bilious professors to make an existential dash for the vomitorium. I am one of those.

It has come as no surprise (really, none at all) that I have been assailed from all sides. Why? Because today’s stunning reality seems to be that I am one among the ranks of those anointed few that still remain among my otherwise terminally timid contemporaries, who still cleaves to empiricism and the primacy of truth. Now, I’m no match for Leslie Howard’s masterful portrayal of Supermarine Spitfire designer, R. J. Mitchell in the 1942 biopic, The First of the Few, a movie which Howard also directed; and my contributions are certainly not going to turn the tide of the ongoing war, as his innovative aircraft design undeniably did, as the Battle of Britain raged over England’s skies.

Leslie Howard plays R. J. Mitchell, the designer of the Supermarine Spitfire that arguable won the Battle of Britain, in The First of the Few (1942). Image courtesy of Amazon.

How can an openly gay man embody Judas, become such an apostate, and turn traitor to the cause? No wonder they hate me so much. There are, doubtless, images of me on dart boards on office walls, pin-cushioned with projectiles. But those missiles are harmless, they are easily deflected; and they are hurled by unthinking ideologues who cannot see beyond their own noses.

In recent days, my own battle has become ever more ridiculous; and, let’s be honest, spectacularly jejune. Readers of my Substack and of the wider print media will recall my strenuous objections to being labelled as a catalyst of transphobia by my department at the University of Toronto Mississauga, where I am still a tenured faculty in the so-called teaching stream, despite my many unfashionable opinions. We can get into arguments about the merit of that status, and whether I in fact have tenure or am simply a ‘continuing appointment’ but it makes little difference. Whichever is the case, they cannot eject me from my job quite so easily as, I imagine, they would like.

But I have, rather, chosen early retirement from university life as an effective one-shot panacea that will banish that modern ailment of the Western academic—pervasive social justice lunacy among the educated elite. Fortunately for me, and much to my satisfaction, this superannuated echelon of overpaid mid-wits is under siege, and their names are all written on the populist revolutionary wall in massive, serifed lettering. Already the cogs are grinding in the opposing direction, as became clear from the recent declarations by Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, who announced significant curtailment of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the provincial education system.

Heartened by news from my homeland that the highest judicial body in the nation had finally concluded that men and women are two different and immutable categories in biology, and reflecting on my own lived experiences being denigrated by those above me for even countenancing a debate on such topics, I took to writing about my sense of vindication over the Easter period. It felt strangely religious, like the coming of the Lord’s judgement, despite my ingrained atheistic tendencies, and I chose to riff on that sentiment. Biological sex was at last being resurrected in modern times, like the Christ who arose. And, boy, was Mary Magdalene, the witness to the daybreak of a new religion, astonished when the truth finally dawned on her.

But, for an unbeliever like me, such revelations are slight and superficial when compared to my own reality after I was called—I will resist saying frogmarched—into yet another meeting with my dean in recent days. Being of a sanguine disposition, I expected to receive the routine treatment that I have successfully weathered on no less than four previous occasions. Being British, I am a stickler for fair play, and it’s uncharitable to point fingers or assign blame to the current decanal incumbent, Bill Gough, who finds himself cosplaying for an interim term as UTM’s fourth face occupying that undesirable role in as many years.

Glancing disinterestedly across the table in his office, accompanied by my stalwart colleague, and author, Mark D’Souza, I recognise in Bill the unconcealed weariness that stems from the seemingly endless torrent of risible and frivolous complaints that, daily, land on his desk. Here is a man with the resigned frown of someone doing their duty. [Sidenote: Apologies, Bill, I made an assumption about your gender identity there based on the available evidence.]

In that meeting we discussed my priors, and in particular the official letter of warning I had received from his predecessor, Nicholas Rule. Dean Rule—a fellow gay man as it turns out, so doubtless we have some shared oppressions—had dispatched his reprimand just a few hours before his official departure from UTM to take up the mantle of Vice-Provost of the university, leaving in his wake a cadre of blinking staffers here on the Mississauga campus who had just completed an expensive overhaul of a recently acquired residential property long slated to be Rule’s official residence. For those legally-minded out there who happen to be reading this: I have the receipts.

To be clear, those tax-payer subsidised efforts were wholly in vain, and the pricey designer furniture was no longer needed, or so it would appear. I highly doubt that Dean Gough has taken up residence in 3338 Mississauga Road. I am still pondering what became of the living room Eames chair that was ordered as part of the fancy refurbishment, presumably tossed into a skip like Glen’s inauspiciously flamboyant office chair in Armando Iannucci’s The Thick of It, and later lampooned by Prime Ministerial enforcer Malcolm Tucker as resembling “a massive vibrating throne.” But that is another story for another time.

Gated entrance to the residence at 3338 Mississauga Road, which UTM administrators had earmarked to serve as Dean Nicholas Rule’s new home during his tenure at the campus. Image courtesy of Google Street View.

The consequence? This past week I received an early-morning wake-up email from the dean’s assistant unilaterally declaring I was to serve a three-day unpaid suspension from my job, ostensibly for ridiculing my peers; and my using unforgivable language impuning their opinions and political positions defending today’s transgender madness as being a tad ‘stupid.’ Of course, this is a textbook example of victim-blaming, one entirely at odds with the meeting that had taken place in front of witnesses. On that occasion, towards the end of the meeting, Dean Gough had stated,

“... There is always … an opportunity to see if we can have resolution. […] discipline usually takes place when you have failed at coming to a resolution or there’s been an egregious breech of something. There’s grey areas here and I recognize [what] you went through yourself, so let see if we can find a way forward. I’m not guaranteeing it, but I’d like to explore that first before going in another disciplinary pathway, if we can.

Or words to that effect; I cannot be certain. We had to scribble our notes down.

The pivotal phrase, of course, is “I’m not guaranteeing it.”

The decision-making flows from above. Such a revelation is obvious because the stubborn blight of social justice reaches far higher into the crown of the prestigious oak tree—that once noble sigil symbolising the University of Toronto’s endurance and resilience—and is more than likely poisoning its highest canopy. But the rotten fruit is far more persistent and difficult to dislodge, despite many observers perched on the lower boughs having long descried the unmistakeable sound of distant chainsaws in the forest.

For my own part, I am being edged to the furthest extremities of my own branch of study, pausing only briefly on a sabbatical before taking the jump-off, a leap of faith into the unknown world beyond university life. But even if you suffer from vertigo, as I do, it becomes an existential necessity to set aside fear, grit your teeth, and parachute from the burning aeroplane.

What I would like to categorise as ‘unexpected’ in all of this is the absurdly infantile tit-for-tat that the university’s administrators seem to have gleefully embarked upon, actions that have all the hallmarks of unforced errors in an ideological chess match. It is as plain as day that they cannot be victorious in the longer trench warfare that will cede the muddy social justice terrain for the simple reason that the truth is not on their side. In a week, or a month, or a year—maybe in a generation—this absurd denial of the reality of the world will spell these institutions’ downfall, unless they repent of the intoxicating Marxism that now suffuses every cornerstone of every campus building. But, in the shorter term, they will succeed in being rid of me.

For the moment, though, three days without pay is a small price to pay in exchange for welcoming some new influential followers into my Substack sphere; and let me take this opportunity to thank those who have joined. Nonetheless, I would contest that my penalty is still outlandishly disproportionate. Claudine Gay succeeded not only in making a fool of herself in front of the House Senate Committee, she also made Harvard University look as though it countenanced antisemitism in full view of a global audience. Many observers baulked at her response to the question, “Is calling for the genocide of Jews against Harvard’s code of conduct?” She answered, “It can be, depending on the context.” Yet she walked away with her full annual salary of nearly a million US dollars.

Former Harvard President, Claudine Gay, appearing at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on 5 December, 2023. Image courtesy of The 19^th.

In my own case, I was previously upbraided for imbuing the department with an air of ‘transphobia’ simply for posing for debate among students, among many other claims du jour, that “men can become women.” But my pay is to be docked, and those labelling me a bigot are themselves immune to any repercussions. You can lob slurs around the university with impunity, it seems, so long as you hold the correct views. This asymmetry underpins a two-tier justice system within the confines of our quadrangles, a place where abstruse unmoored ideology trumps rational thought and a reliance on evidence to bolster one’s claims.

What is egregious about this latest decision, aside from the duplicitous nature of the meeting I described, is that it lays bare the inequality of the university’s absurd policies and the kangaroo courts that accompany their implementation. Yes, so the policies dictate, we must allow for the accused to plead their case. But such an opportunity is purely performative, and we, as an organisation, will actively ignore what the defendant has to say. This is entirely transparent in my own circumstance. I argued my position as a gay man, a man who had been accused of transphobia by a straight woman in authority. The university decided their response to my reaction of contempt was to slap me across the face. Shut up! Welcome to our modern world of university grievance.

The ultimate collapse of this academic world, toppling under the sheer weight of its own inconsistency will be difficult to avoid. It is merely a matter of time. But, of course, time is against me; and my own time is swiftly running out. I have been appointed lawyers, naturally, to fight my corner, though the chances of a reversal are less than evens. Most in my position rely on their faculty association for legal counsel, but just this week I learned the individual appointed to me declares she/they pronouns in her/their email signature, so following that path strikes me as unwise. I do not want criticism on the grounds of my own inconsistency. I am acquiescent, and I will endeavour to eat out on fewer occasions this month.

The battle may be lost, but the war is far from over. And I see reinforcements gathering in their multitudes. For me, this is a matter of principle. Many observers have questioned my apparent foolhardiness, risking so much in this fight. I can only answer them by pointing to my paternal great-grandmother, a proud Scot who bore the maiden name of Wallace. We all know the incandescent defiance of the Braveheart, William Wallace, immortalised even before Mel Gibson’s film of that name. In the last century, my great-granduncle was killed fighting in the Great War near Ribécourt in Northern France. These are among the ancestors of the Revers clan. I look to them. I sense somehow those ghosts are friendly, that, looking over my shoulder, they would approve of my closing battle-cry: They may take our livelihoods, but they will never take our freedom.

Mel Gibson plays renegade Scottish clansman William Wallace in Braveheart (1995). Image courtesy of The Public Medievalist.