Enshrined Entitlements

The University of Ottawa is embroiled in a situation it would far prefer not have occurred.  But these things happen from time to time.  Usually not as a result of faculty taking umbrage in a very public way at the actions of the university administration.  Not, that is, involving something personal, albeit public enough, about one of its tenured and highly regarded (by colleagues presumably, and himself definitely) professors.

Oh, there have been previous occasions when the university has seen itself criticized, but usually by outer sources, as for example when it feels obligated to host the yearly farce calling itself Israeli Apartheid Week, or as a result of its having cancelled a speaking engagement by American controversial speaker, conservative Ann Coulter.  Sometimes these things are unavoidable, these controversies, and the university does its utmost to clear the air and get on with its other compelling reasons for existence.

Law Professor Amir Attaran, best known for rattling the Conservative-led Government of Canada over its Afghan-Taliban prisoner file, now contends that he has been deliberately selected for victimization as a result of his perceived obduracy in insisting that government respond to his demands for information, and himself previously invoking the assistance of the Privacy Commissioner to serve his purpose of blaming and shaming.

His name is certainly not hallowed by the Department of National Defence, the PMO or the Conservative caucus, let alone the Department of Foreign Affairs, all of which he has done his utmost to cast suspicion upon as being uncaring and complicit in the detention and torture of Afghans apprehended by the Canadian military, and handing them over to Afghan authorities for incarceration and interrogation.

He has insisted in the past when he was heavily embroiled in extracting government papers, that government be accountable for its record on handling Taliban detainees, and has attempted to shame government and its agencies for its purported indifference to human rights abuses.  It seemed irrelevant that government was forced, through his insistence to release documents, however much retracted, held to be important to state security.

But now, some one intent on the kind of mischief usually termed payback, appears to have turned the tables on Professor Attaran, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Law, Population Health and Global Development Policy at the University of Ottawa.  And Dr. Attaran is definitely not amused.  He will not be trifled with in such a manner, for his privacy is of great consequence.

The University had initially, through its vice-president of governance, Diane Davidson, turned down the Information and Privacy Commissioner's request conveyed on behalf of an unnamed source, to see the documents in question.  but that source had appealed the university's decision, and in pursuance of her professional mission, the commissioner, Ann Cavoukian, decided to view the documents personally to determine whether that refusal had acceptable legal merit.

On the basis of that additional request, Ms. Davidson felt she had no option but to comply; to provide the documents for Ms. Cavoukian's scrutiny.  Which then led Dr. Attaran to scream bloody murder that his expense reports relating to his pursuit of documents from the government that government wished to withhold, represented an offence against his academic freedom.

And now, University of Ottawa President, Allan Rock's response - an amiable man whom it pains to see his academic institution embroiled in yet another affair, this one launched internally by one of its own against the university's administration - is clear enough.  In all fairness to the procedural requirements involved in this tug of war, the immediate purpose was to respect the commissioner's wish to evaluate the university's position in denying the documents to the original requester.

"Professor Attaran's position has not been prejudiced by any action taken by the university.  To the contrary, the university has acted throughout to uphold, defend and maintain his interests."  The professor, it appears, has an exceedingly thin skin, perhaps matching his personal ego, feeling himself entitled to be considered exempt from the same legal processes that he puts government's feet to the fire over.

Tch, tch.