I posted about this here a while back, and in the Choice forum with the details:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=217x1556(Note that I corrected the email address for McDougall in the last post there.) I left London many years ago so as not to have to go to Western (but did take one course from UWO toward my degree elsewhere).
It's worth noting that Doris Anderson is getting a much-deserved honorary degree at the same time.
And, good grief, Maudie Barlow.
Anderson is a leading feminist figure in Canada. Editor of Chatelaine from 1957 to 1977, she commissioned articles on hard-hitting topics such as divorce, abortion and battered children.
She served as chair of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, and has had a career as an author, activist and advocate. She is a companion of the Order of Canada and has recently been named for lifetime achievement by the Canadian Journalism Foundation.
Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to object to the award to Morgentaler and not the one to Anderson -- or even to Marc Lalonde, for that matter. He was tight with Pierre Trudeau, and wasn't Pierre responsible for the whole moral decline thing?
Here's McDougall's letter:
http://communications.uwo.ca/western_news/opinion.html?listing_id=18652... In my opinion our University community, particularly the Senate, should deliberate on three important questions.
First, why was Morgentaler, who has no previous association with Western, been chosen to receive our highest honor? Secondly, why were the protocols for making such appointments breached in this case? Thirdly, have we made the right choices to minimize disruption to our graduates and all other participants on this Convocation Day?
The central issue is why has Morgentaler been chosen for this honor? The spin is that he is being recognized as a humanist, and a secular humanist he may well be. In this country, however, he is best known as an abortionist who in earlier times advocated abortion to improve the wellbeing of expectant mothers.
For the past several years, he has advocated abortion as a means of reducing poverty and criminality and removing unwanted children from our midst. This form of eugenics should offend most people in our academic community. As our President has made clear the award goes to the person not the cause. If this is the case it is difficult to understand that this person’s full resume was understood by the Committee when they made their decision.
Some people maintain that this is an example of courage and/or academic freedom. The fallout we have already experienced causes me to say it may be courageous but it may also be ill-advised in the extreme. These same people who may celebrate this decision as academic freedom fail to appreciate the permanent scar it will inflict on our well-earned reputation for good judgment.
And Marc Lalonde is connected with Western ... how?
Here are the clues; those familiar with these matters will recognize them.
People who use phrases like "advocated abortion" in reference to someone who advocates
legal access to safe abortion, like "expectant mothers" to refer to
women seeking abortions, and like "abortionist" to refer to
a physician who provides legal and safe abortions, are not nice people. They are pretty certainly card-carrying members of the anti-choice brigade. Decent people do not misrepresent what others do and say, or objectify and stereotype women, or objectify and demonize the physicians who care for them, in these ways.
In closing I wish to assure you that your Board of Governors will monitor the security situation around Convocation Day very closely and will, if necessary, overrule the Administration if we feel the security risk to our people or property is significant.
And honest people don't use scare tactics to get their own way.
More opinions here:
http://communications.uwo.ca/western_news/opinions.htmlAh, I like this one:
http://communications.uwo.ca/western_news/opinion.html?listing_id=18660Donald McDougall has used his position as Chair of the University of Western Ontario Board of Governors to threaten measures to nullify the granting of an honorary degree to Dr. Henry Morgentaler.
As President of the University of Western Ontario Faculty Association, I deplore the many disturbing statements and attitudes in McDougall’s so-called open letter. None are more shocking than those that display a fundamental lack of understanding of those things that lie at the very heart of all good universities, the very things he has a duty to uphold and protect: responsible academic freedom, and respect for due and fair academic process.
To use his position as Chair of the University of Western Ontario Board of Governors to thwart academic decisions is utterly wrong and a dreadful misuse of that position. He should retract or resign.
And the letter from UWO President Davenport:
http://communications.uwo.ca/western_news/opinion.html?listing_id=18650... Under The University of Western Ontario Act, honorary degrees are awarded by the Senate, without reference to the Board. Since 1971, the Senate has delegated that authority to one of its Committees, the Honorary Degrees Committee, whose decisions are announced without debate in Senate.
Other universities have other procedures, but these are ours. Morgentaler is being honoured for his committed campaign in support of a Woman’s Right to Choose. That right was confirmed by a Supreme Court of Canada decision in 1988, in a case involving Morgentaler which came 15 years after the Roe v. Wade decision of the US Supreme Court.
The university senate is the body with authority over academic decisions. The board of governors has absolutely no role to play in those decisions, and no business meddling in them, especially in public. Maybe McDougall would like the UWO med school to stop providing its students with abortion-related instruction ... or the law school to stop providing students with instruction in how to defend bad people accused of crimes ... because he or donors might disapprove ... and where would it end?
That said, I'm not sending Western any money. It has quite a lot already. Maybe I'll make a donation to a suitable organization in McDougall's name ;) (as people did to international Planned Parenthood in George W. Bush's name when he imposed the global gag order as his first act in office).
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