Spurned Spite

Wrath hath no fury like a woman whose entitled stance built on gender and colour denied, elicits. And the imbroglio of Professor Emily Carasco at the University of Windsor is certainly a case in point. This is not the kind of woman anyone should want to cross. She is not the type of woman who will stand humbly by and allow herself to be crossed. And she has become dreadfully cross, in the process.

It almost stands to reason that Professor Carasco was once a candidate for the NDP. She somehow fits the mold. This is entitlement run amok, but then that also reflects what has become of the NDP, once a party to be respected, now just another political party but more sanctimonious and grasping than most. And while that's another story altogether, there is still that connection...in the persona and the demands of Professor Carasco.

Who rants and raves against the unfair and societally-assumed entitlements "of white males", through a "culture of privilege which white men expect to have continue, and will defend with impunity". Bet you thought that was yesterday's feminist political ideology. Well clearly, for Professor Carasco, it remains today's. Affirmative action will never go out of style for her. And, fact is, it was even utilized on her behalf.

That happened when the University of Windsor, looking for a new dean of law had selected two final candidates of whom Ms. Carasco was one. As a woman of colour she was granted "extra points due to her gender and self-identification as a visible minority", in scores allotted her, as opposed to another short-list candidate, a white male. Neither he nor she was able to raise a sufficient score to qualify for the position, although his was slightly elevated in comparison to hers.

As a result the search for a winning candidate for the position of dean of law was meant to continue and the two failed candidates set aside. There was also some question about Professor Carasco's ethics with respect to taking ownership of work performed by someone else; plagiarism. Aside from which other members of the faculty were not thrilled at the prospect of her winning the post in question.

She was considered generally to be a disruptive, querulous personality, whose elevation to dean of law would have the effect of condemning the law school to "years of acrimony, division and dysfunction". She begged to differ, and became so enraged over the matter that she asked the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario to halt the ongoing search for a new dean, appoint her to the position and award compensation for "injury to dignity" of $60,000.

The university held that were the HRTO to have acceded to Professor Carasco's demands,it would represent "inappropriate interference with the university's autonomy", as an affront to academic freedom. The kicker here is that the search committee was comprised of six women "four persons of racialized origins"; one with a disability; a female Superior Court Judge; and an African-Canadian assessor.

Moreover the chairwoman of the committee was a scholar of 19th Century female emancipation, who just happened also to be the founder of the university's women's studies program. The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario determined under the circumstances to withhold its judgement, and the search for a new dean is ongoing.

It has not been subsequently reported whether Professor Carasco's bile has poisoned her mortally.