On May 29, over a thousand people rallied in Ottawa in support of the Quebec student strike. People marched through the streets of centre town and downtown with people on street corners and in apartments showing their support. The march then crossed the bridge to Gatineau where the UQO students and their supporters have been organizing regular nightly demonstrations in support of the strike and against Law 78.
This video is a speech given by a student from the University of Quebec in Outaouais (UQO).
by Corrie Sakaluk
Recently there have been serious allegations raised about political editing of research and academic misconduct by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO).
A report titled “Student Services at Queen’s University: An Evaluation of the Supported Learning Groups Pilot Program” has had its contents publicly questioned by two of the three researchers listed as the report’s authors: Jennifer Massey and Sean Field. The third researcher, Jeff Burrow, chose not to get involved for personal reasons.
HEQCO was created in 2005 through the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario Act. HEQCO has a mandate to “evaluate the postsecondary sector and provide policy recommendations to the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities to enhance the access, quality and accountability of Ontario’s colleges and universities” and claims to be an “arm’s-length agency that brings evidence-based research to the continued improvement of the postsecondary education system in Ontario”.
The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations has contested HEQCO’s description of itself and its activities, saying in a statement issued on April 27 that “it is important to recognize that the Council is directly accountable to the Government of Ontario and has an explicit mandate to provide policy advice to the Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities….it is a crown agency. The term ‘arm’s-length’ appears nowhere in HEQCO’s authorizing Act, and the Government of Ontario can alter the composition and mandate of the Council at any time”.
Council members at HEQCO are appointed for two or three year terms by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, and they provide an annual report to the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, who then presents the report to the entire Legislative Assembly.
HEQCO initiates and conducts research studies, evaluations and reports, often in partnership with post-secondary institutions. Since becoming fully operational in 2007, their website says that they have “published, completed, or have in progress, over 120 publications stemming from research it has conducted or commissioned.”
In 2009, HEQCO contracted Queen’s University as a research partner to produce a report on the value of Supported Learning Groups (SLGs), as reflected in the experience of an SLG pilot project at Queen’s. Massey was employed by Queen’s University at student affairs and conducted research in that capacity, and Field was sub-contracted by Queen’s as a research assistant for the project.
The study used a mixed method approach: “Quantitative data was compiled from student surveys, student records and SLG attendance files collected during the 2009-2010 academic year. Qualitative data was collected through focus groups conducted at the end of the 2009- 2010 academic year.” Five research questions or themes guided the inquiry: factors influencing SLG participation, SLG participation as related to academic performance, drop-out rates, engagement, and study skills.
SLGs are one example of Supplemental Instruction (SI) models that, according to the introduction of the report, have “grown considerably on…campuses in an a effort to enhance student engagement and retention in large undergraduate courses, as well as improve grades.”
“As budgets are squeezed and first-year class sizes increase,” the introduction reads, “SI has become an important component of the delivery of undergraduate education.”
According to Field, the report “went through several months of revisions, like most academic publications. HEQCO asked for changes and many of them were reasonable, so we made them. Then theyasked for a bunch of changes that we said that we wouldn’t make, and we provided rationale for not making those revisions.”
Most at issue for Field was that “they wanted to cut the most critical paragraph of text in our literature review that contextualizes our research in relation to ongoing neoliberal education reforms, and they didn’t give a strong rationale for the cut.”
“They also wanted us to aggregate certain statistics.” Field said. “We refused on the basis that it would provide a less precise view of the results and we didn’t believe that was ethical”.
HEQCO’s executive director of communications Susan Bloch-Nevitte said, “In this and all research contracts, HEQCO provides feedback on draft reports, which the author is free to accept or reject. This is why regular communication with the author is so critical. We take no position pro or con on specific interventions. We are focused on evidence and we take our responsibility for research quality very seriously.”
“By June of 2011, we had submitted our final draft” Field clarifies. “But they kept contacting us and asking us to make the same changes over and over. We said no and that we were done. Then we saw, to our surprise, that the report had been published, and all of the changes we had said no to had been made.”
On April 10, 2012, Jennifer Massey sent an email to HEQCO president & CEO Harvey Weingarten outlining her and Field’s concerns and requests. “We were not made aware of the intended publication date,” reads Massey’s email, and “substantial changes were made to the report without our knowledge or consent.”
“We are concerned because we believe these changes constitute a breach of academic and intellectual integrity by HEQCO” her email continues. “The changes alter the text of the report such that the report no longer accurately reflects the opinions of the authors. Nowhere does the report indicate that the text was substantially altered without knowledge or consent of the authors after final submission, or by whom”.
The changes outlined and contested in Massey’s first email include:
Massey’s email also requested that the report be removed from the HEQCO website, that the original final report be published, and that HEQCO disclose who made the changes and apologize.
HEQCO has placed responsibility for the edits squarely upon Queen’s University, refused to apologize and offered only to remove Massey’s and Field’s name from their version of the report. Weingarten’s email reads, “HEQCO neither wrote nor inserted or deleted any portions of the final report. The HEQCO contract had been signed with Queen`s University, and because the original principal investigator had not satisfactorily fulfilled her contractual obligations, Queen’s University chose to proceed with final revisions, which we subsequently published.”
In an interview with Bloch-Nevitte on April 25, she said “Queen’s University undertook to complete the final revisions to produce a publication-ready final report.” She said, “there may have been changes made that are inappropriate in their view.”
Field said, “The burden of responsibility lies with HEQCO as the publisher, although they’ve tried to lay the blame at the feet of Queen’s University. We don’t know who made the changes. We expected to receive an email or phone call from Queen’s to help clear things up but they’ve been absolutely silent, which is really bizarre. We copied them on all of our communications with HEQCO.”
Massey says that HEQCO has “responded to our grievance by pointing to timelines, contracts, and other parties” and that “these responses are neither sufficient nor satisfactory.” She says that HEQCO “provides a very selective narrative of events as they occurred, diverting attention away from the important issue that HEQCO, by their own admission, published a report knowing it contained material not authorized by the authors.”
“If there was a contractual problem prior to us expressing concern about the report, they certainly didn’t bring it up” says Field. “I’m confused as to why they didn’t contact us about it, as they were in contact with us about other things.”
Massey is more vocal, “the suggestion that the authors were unresponsive or unreachable is ridiculous. We had satisfactorily fulfilled our contractual obligations to HEQCO, and this is evident by the fact that the text of our final report submitted on June 6, 2011 corresponds with the published report. This confirms that the final report we submitted was acceptable for publication.”
Bloch-Nevitte says the situation “appears to be a misunderstanding and it is unfortunate that the researchers involved with this project didn’t contact HEQCO or Queen’s to clarify the facts before making public allegations.”
But Massey is resolute that “The disclaimer printed on page two of the report, poses that the opinions presented in the report are solely those of the authors, and HEQCO accepts this to be a false representation. They admit publishing a report with full knowledge that it contained changes made by people other than the authors. This constitutes a breach of academic and intellectual integrity by HEQCO”.
All HEQCO contracts require researchers to allow the following disclaimer to appear on the completed project: Funding for this research was provided by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario.
Field said, “The way the disclaimer reads at the beginning of the report is misleading and false. HEQCO is presenting the report as if has the same weight as peer-reviewed research, which is not true. If HEQCO published the report and said that it was compiled by HEQCO with contributions by the following authors, then this wouldn’t be an issue. But that’s not what they did.”
OCUFA has taken issue with the disclaimer as well, publicly stating that, in this case, “the conclusions were manifestly not those of the authors, at least not those listed on the publication. As such, it was a false statement and should have been removed prior to publication.”
OCUFA also believes that, in general, “the disclaimer suggests that HEQCO has little control over the final product….[and] is misleading as to the nature of HEQCO research”, since “it creates the impression that the research commissioned by HEQCO is disinterested academic research, rather than research conducted by a contractor hired by a government agency”, and since HEQCO contracts “assign ownership, copyright, and moral rights for all research deliverables to HEQCO”.
“We recommend that the disclaimer be substantially revised or removed entirely from future HEQCO research publications”, concludes OCUFA on this matter.
OCUFA also suggests that “the HEQCO contract is properly seen as a consulting contract”, given that they operates as a research and policy contractor for the provincial government, soliciting research from experts and practitioners in the higher education field. The research contract is thus very different from those used by granting councils, independent think tanks, or academic publishers…The complete waiver of moral rights to the completed work required in the HEQCO contract is unusual in academic research, but common in consulting contracts”. As a result of this situation they have warned their members to be aware that “working with HEQCO requires the researcher to surrender all ownership of, and moral rights to, the final product”.
“If HEQCO recognizes the so-called misunderstanding” Massey says that, in this case, “then they have a responsibility to correct it. The resolution to this situation is straight forward.”
“Miscommunications happen all of the time” agrees Field. “But rarely does an organization act in the way that HEQCO did, acknowledging a miscommunication but deciding to publish what they want under the author’s names anyways.”
Field also voices a broader concern that sets off alarm bells regarding the legitimacy of research supporting a massive onslaught of cuts across the provincial public sectors.
“From what I understand” he said, “the Drummond Report drew heavily on HEQCO research, and Drummond’s recommendations are being used to reformulate public policy all across Ontario. The big question is: If this has happened to us, how many other researchers has it happened to? Academic integrity has not been upheld and yet these reports are being used to formulate policy. It’s a very serious issue.”
These concerns have been publicly echoed by the Society of Graduate and Professional Students at Queen’s University (SGPS), the Canadian Federation of Students, and OCUFA.
A press release issued by the SGPS unequivocally stated: “Political interference in academic research is deeply disturbing, endangering the credibility of the researchers involved, the institution that supports them, and HEQCO itself, while throwing the door wide open to ill-considered policy changes motivated by ideology rather than an objective evaluation of the facts.”
The SGPS has supported Field and Massey’s requests to HEQCO, as well as joined the Canadian Federation of Students in a call for the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities to “Establish a panel of academics to review HEQCO’s research practices, with an eye towards holding [HEQCO] to the same exacting academic standards, especially including peer review, prevailing within the system that HEQCO purports to serve”.
OCUFA has also stated that ” the revelation that HEQCO published research that contained unapproved changes damages the research credibility of the Council” and has recommended that the Government of Ontario conduct an independent review of HEQCO’s research procedures. Until a research review is completed, OCUFA has advised its members “to exercise caution when working with HEQCO”.
The OCUFA statement goes on to say that ” While we do not believe that HEQCO or Queen’s University violated the terms of the HEQCO research contract…Arguing that no wrongdoing occurred because there was no contractual breach misses the point. It is wrong to change someone’s work without his or her permission, and even more wrong to publish that changed work under his or her name. We are now left with a series of unsettling questions: has this occurred to other HEQCO research reports? What is the motivation behind the changes? How sure are we about the reliability of research published by HEQCO?”
Philippines, 2011 – This past summer 3 basics correspondents went to the Philippines to report on the social conditions and the people who are organizing to change their society in the interest of the oppressed. This is a short documentary of the situation of the urban poor in the Philippines as told through a song written by Boy Tan, a long time cultural worker in the urban poor movement.
May 22, 2012 – BASICS Community News Service reports on the 100th day of the Quebec Student Strike. We spoke with Amelie, a student at the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM).
[correction to the translation. The first proposed tuition hike was $1,625 and not $1,025]
Click Photo for BASICSnews.ca photo collection at Flickr.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 24, 2012
Bill Dores, International League of Peoples Struggle (ILPS) Vice Chairperson for External Affairs and ILPS-US Country Co-Coordinator ([email protected])
Valerie Francisco, GABRIELA USA Chairperson and representative to ILPS-US Country Coordinating Committee ([email protected])
CHICAGO, IL– Over 300 anti-imperialist and progressive community activists from across the US gathered last Saturday, May 19th, at the Centro Autonomo in
Chicago’s working class and immigrant neighborhood of Albany Park to establish the US country chapter of the International League of Peoples Struggle (ILPS-US). The successful gathering was held one day before the 15,000-strong outdoor demonstration in downtown Chicago
against the scheduled North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit taking place.
The ILPS is an anti-imperialist and democratic formation with over 350 member organizations in 45 countries. Founded in 2001, the ILPS is one of the largest international formations coordinating international campaigns along 17 principal concerns– including US warand occupation, neoliberal globalization, labor and migration, human rights and civil liberties, workers, women’s, immigrant, youth and LGBTQ rights.
The Chicago assembly was opened with a message from ILPS chair and chief spokesperson Jose Maria Sison, who attended by Skype. A political refugee from the Philippines, Sison has lived in exile in the Netherlands for 25 years. He has led the League since its second international assembly in 2004.
A leading historical figure in Philippine revolutionary politics, Sison is also a world-renowned critic and commentator on US foreign policy as well as national liberation struggles challenging US imperialist interests. In addition to his role as ILPS Chairperson, Sison serves as the chief political consultant for National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), which is currently engaged in peace talks with the Aquino government on behalf of the 43-year old armed Philippine revolutionary underground movement. In 2002, Sison was listed in the US State Department’s Foreign Terrorist list, the same list that once tagged South African anti-apartheid freedom fighter and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Nelson Mandela.
Two Chicagos
Welcoming the assembly was Fred Hampton, Jr. of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee/Black Panther Party Cubs and son of the late Black Panther leader. Hampton hailed the gathering for meeting on May 19, the birthday of people’s leaders Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh.
He then drew a line between two very different Chicagos– the Chicago of Barack Obama, Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, and the 1% represented by NATO and the G8 and the Chicago of working-class, immigrant and struggling people of color.
That was the Chicago of Fred Hampton, Deputy Chairperson of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party, who was assassinated in his home during a raid jointly conducted by the Chicago Police Department and the FBI on Dec. 4, 1969.
It was also the Chicago of Albert Parson, George Engel, August Spies and Samuel Fielden, who were framed up and hanged there in 1887 for leading
the struggle for the 8-hour workday. May 1 was designated International Workers Day in response to the massive 8-hour-day march of mostly immigrant workers in that city in 1886.
Hampton, Jr. was followed by Consul General Jose Rodriguez y Espinoza of the Bolivarian Government of Venezuela, who also welcomed the assembly
and spoke of the need for international solidarity against imperialism.
Representative Emmi de Jesus of Gabriela Womens Partylist in the Philippines (the only all womens parliamentary political party in the world) also offered fighting words of international solidarity for the assembly.
Local Chicago labor leader Joe Iosbaker, Steff Yorek of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, and Hatem Abuddayeh of the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) also addressed the assembly.
They were joined by Carlos Montes, an L.A.-based veteran Chicano nationalist activist and founding member of the Brown Berets. Iosbaker, Yorek, and
Abuddayeh were amongst the 23 solidarity activists in the Midwest whose homes were raided by the FBI and were issued Grand Jury subpoenas on
September 2010. An L.A. SWAT team broke down Montes’ front door at 5 am in May 2011 and he was framed up on phony felony charges. Montes’ trial
date is scheduled for June 20.
Talking about their case and received with a standing ovation, Iosbaker expressed that they would “rather go to jail”, than be intimidated by state repression into ceasing their anti-war and international solidarity work. All 23 have been active in international solidarity work for liberation struggles in Palestine, Colombia, El Salvador, and the Philippines for decades.
Founding ILPS-US
Convened under the theme “Unite with the Global 99% Against Monopoly Capital, the Source of Crisis, Racism, and War; Build a Brighter Future That
is Ours!”, 28 US-based organizations signed up as founding members to ILPS-US during the assembly. They include community organizations from
across the US such as the Palestinian Youth Movement, Committee to Stop FBI Repression, BAYAN USA, Peoples Organization for Progress, Michigan
Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice, Solidarity with Iran, International Action Center and Coordinacion Nacional Agraria y Popular de Colombia (CONAP-USA). Dozens of other organizations participated as observers to the assembly, including members of Grassroots Global Justice.
ILPS-US joins other country chapters of the ILPS in Indonesia, Australia, Canada, and the Philippines, a Hong Kong and Macau chapter and a coordinating committee in Latin America. ILPS General Secretary and ILPS-Canada Chair, Malcolm Guy, and Steve Da Silva from the ILPS International Coordinating Committee and ILPS-Canada were joined by an ILPS-Canada delegation that also attended the founding assembly. Julia Camagong, ILPS Special Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, offered a solidarity message on behalf of the ILPS Latin American Committee.
A country coordinating committee to lead the work of the US chapter was elected.
The founding of the US Chapter of the ILPS is a victory for the growing anti-imperialist movement in the US and around the world, said
Hilo, elected Country Co-Coordinator of ILPS-US. The severe economic crisis and imperialist wars of aggression are fueling the fires of
peoples resistance around the world. Uniting with the global 99% to fight against US-imperialism and to broaden the road of peoples
resistance towards a brighter future is our duty as the ILPS Country Chapter inside the belly of the beast.
A general program of action for the US chapter was adopted for 2012-2015. Resolutions passed included a resolution to join the Coalition against NATO & G8 War and Poverty Agenda (CANG8) as the first mass mobilization of the ILPS-US Chapter, and a resolution to take up the campaign to Stop FBI Repression.
The historic assembly was followed that evening by an international solidarity cultural showcase entitled Road to Resistance, which featured performances from progressive artists and cultural workers such as Rebel Diaz, IZQ, Bandung 55, Bagwis, and Power Struggle.
National Liberation Struggles vs. NATO
The following Sunday, ILPS-US members marched alongside Palestinian liberation activists with the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) and Puerto Rican liberation activists with the National Boricua Human Rights Network to form one of the largest marching contingents within the overall protest march organized by the Coalition Against NATO & G8 War and Poverty Agenda (CANG8). It was also the only contingent projecting a united front of key national liberation struggles
against US imperialism.
The ILPS was invited to co-emcee the opening rally at Grant Park. Hilo joined Iosbaker in welcoming the thousands of protestors and getting ready for the march against NATO. Speakers Montes, Abuddayeh and ILPS-US coordinating committee member and BAYAN USA Chairperson, Bernadette Ellorin, shared the stage with Reverend Jesse Jackson and dozens more.
As the organizers of the overall anti-NATO summit protest rally and march, CANG8 was met months prior with intimidation and permit-denial tactics by the city administration of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel. Weeks before the protest, the Obama administration deployed hundreds of federal security forces and plain-clothes secret service agents to patrol the downtown Chicago area and surveil groups intending to participate in the protest actions against the NATO Summit.
Despite thousands of police and federal security forces lined up along the Michigan Avenue march route in full riot gear to intimidate demonstrators, the protest actions were overwhelmingly successful. Unable to scare away participants, Chicago
police attacked people after the main march had ended, brutalizing many
and arresting 45 people.
CANG8 and the peoples of Chicago have been fighting against NATO and G8 since last summer, said Hilo. Despite the intimidation and threats, thousands of people from Chicago and across the country asserted their democratic rights to march in solidarity with the peoples of the world that are suffering because of NATO/G8 intervention in their homelands.
For more information about the ILPS, visit www.ilps.info.
For more information about the ILPS-US Chapter, [email protected] ###
An evening with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Wednesday, May 9th at 6.30 pm.
OISE 5250 (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto)
In the imperialist countries of the United States of America and Canada, the Native peoples’ struggle for self-determination and liberation is essential to any revolutionary strategy against capitalism. Built on the plunder and theft of aboriginal land, and the brutal oppression of the First Nations peoples, settler-colonial governments today continue their long tradition of genocidal policies for the benefit of parasitical national and multinational corporations. Native reservations are the colonies of these states, where indigenous people are forced to live in intolerable conditions under heavy state repression while their land and resources are violently appropriated for imperialist profits.
Yet 500 years of colonization also produced 500 years of indigenous resistance to colonial oppression and genocide. Spectacular and inspiring examples of indigenous armed resistance and militancy in the contemporary era include the 1973 re-seizure of land in the town of Wounded Knee, by the Oglala Lakota, as well as in the town of Oka in 1990, where the Mohawk people in Kahnesetake valiantly confronted the violence of the Canadian state in defending the integrity of their territories, to mention only a couple. Land tenure is at the heart of Native resistance and sovereignty.
Proletarian Revolutionary Action Committee, and its student division, Revolutionary Students Movement, is very honoured to present revolutionary militant and comrade, Dr. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. A longtime activist in the American Indian Movement and the International Indigenous Movement, Dunbar-Ortiz will speak on the rise of the Red Power Movement, which rapidly developed in the wake of Third World national liberation struggles after World War II, and the significant influence of Marxism-Leninism, as well as Maoism, on the national question. From her theoretical and political work, we hope to glean important lessons from Dunbar-Ortiz’ personal experiences of revolutionary struggles while discussing the strategic importance of building a united front in advancing the proletarian class-struggle, for overthrowing the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and for the abolition of capitalism.
Suggested Donation: Pay What You Can
Organized by: Proletarian Revolutionary Action Committee (Toronto), Revolutionary Students Movement (Toronto)
Endorsed by: International League of People’s Struggle (Canada), BASICS
