A Long Road to Freedom

Written by Al Slivinski on April 17, 2026. Posted in Education.

This is a long post that meanders across a number of things, so you might want to leave some bread crumbs as you read. I have broken it up into three sections.

A CBC Documentary

I read an op-ed, denoted as being ‘Contributed to the Globe and Mail’ a couple of days back, with the title ‘Self-censorship has become the safest form of expression’.

The title surprised me, but the content did so even more. It was written by a ‘Canadian documentary director’ named Ric Esther Beinstock, whose documentary titled Speechless was about to be shown on the BBC and CBC.

I have not seen this documentary, but in the Globe op-ed, Bienstock describes what she said she found as she moved across the US for 10 years making this film. I will give you a taste with a couple of quotes from her Globe op-ed:

Words I thought I understood had been quietly redefined. White supremacy no longer referred to neo-Nazis. It referred to things like being on time, setting agendas, and believing in objectivity. Safe space no longer meant protection from physical harm. It meant protection from ideas that challenged your world view. A documentary organization I was involved with arranged an anti-oppression training session. We were shown a pyramid that started with non-inclusive language and microaggressions (eg., asking someone “Where are you from?”) at the base and ended with genocide at the top.

She later writes:

Erec Smith is a Black professor of rhetoric who disagreed, in writing, with a colleague’s argument that teaching standard English to students of colour was an act of white supremacy. He was called a white supremacist by white colleagues.

Her article ends with this sentence:

Because once we decide that some ideas are too dangerous to hear, we have already conceded the argument to the people who would silence us.

Now, let me be clear, I am writing this piece not because I want to warn you about all of this (although I do) but because I was so shocked to read this piece in the Globe. Even more shocking to me was the fact that the CBC was planning to show Beinstock’s documentary.

This was Stage I in my journey. I thought that just maybe if the CBC was willing to air such a film, and the Globe was willing to give it free publicity by allowing this op-ed to appear in its pages, perhaps the worm was starting to turn. Maybe some of our media at least were beginning to see that ideas like the oppressiveness of punctuality and the need for safe spaces were madness. Maybe there was hope for a return to sanity in the 21^st century.

Nestruck Turns the Worm Around

Then, a couple of days later, another article appeared in the Globe by one of their regular writers, J Kelly Nestruck, said to be the G&M’s ‘Television Critic’. His article is titled Speechless, CBC’s tedious campus speech doc, rehashes moot debates.

This took me to Stage II of my journey.

As you may guess from the title, Mr. Nestruck does not think much of Beinstock’s documentary. A quote from his review:

It is a doc that essentially restates the concerns of the Harper’s letter of 2020 (signed by, among others, Canadians Margaret Atwood, Michael Ignatieff and Jeet Heer), which argued that illiberal elements of the left were aiding in the rise of the anti-democratic far right.

That’s a pretty moot point now in the middle of Donald “a whole civilization will die tonight” Trump’s second term.

It seems that Nestruck thinks the doc is all old news which has been superseded in importance by what DJT is doing today. He seems to have entirely missed the point of the 2020 Harper’s letter he mentions. He also takes a cheap shot at Biekenstock when he writes:

This is the most muddled, insufficient section of Speechless – though it was also when I realized the film is less about the ideological capture of colleges than the addiction of Bienstock’s generation to watching drama unfold.

Ok, maybe a cheap shot at her entire generation.

Nestruck ends his piece with one admittedly good question: why did the CBC give so much airtime to a documentary that is wholly about US campuses? I suspect that no one had the cojones to make such a doc about what is happening in Canada, but Nestruck thinks that would not be of interest anyway. He notes that Biekenstock did mention two examples of the limiting of speech on Canadian campuses in her op-ed in the Globe, but then he writes:

If you’re still worked up about an exercise class cancelled more than a decade ago while the world is burning, it’s time to break from your phone and return to reality.

So, back to ‘the world is burning, courtesy of DJT’, and so there is nothing important to see on Canadian campuses. It’s a clever take. If you are concerned about freedom on Canadian university campuses, you must be a drama queen.

Nestruck’s piece reminded me that the Globe remains a home to plenty of folks who think that the only thing wrong with the 21^st century is the rise in the popularity of ‘alt-right’ figures like Trump, and they of course had nothing to do with facilitating that.

The UWO Lawsuit

By pure coincidence I came across a story that is very relevant to all of the above, regarding something that had recently occurred on a very familiar Canadian university campus – that of my former employer. It was apparently covered to some extent last year in The National Post, to which I do not subscribe, but I came upon it quite by accident, in the process also discovering a blog by another former UWO prof.

On to Stage III of my journey.

The UWO story concerns one Margaret Munn, a Scottish-born woman in her 60s who had earned a BA at UWO in the 90s, and returned there in 2022 to get a teaching degree. Here is a quick summary of what happened to her, from an article about it on The Free Speech Union of Canada website:

In her first week of classes, she asked a question in a course called, “Indigenous Education: Towards a Decolonizing Pedagogy.” Specifically, she wanted to know what was meant by ‘decolonization’ and how it translated practically to the business of teaching children math, chemistry and the like. This question, and other mild challenges to the ideological instruction being imparted in the classroom, were not well-received, and triggered what became a Kafkaesque nightmare for Margaret for the next two years.

In fact, nightmare not withstanding, Ms Munn got her teaching degree, and filed a lawsuit against my former employer last year. Her statement of claim can be found here in pdf form, courtesy of The FSUC. It is dated January of 2025.

Now, this is Ms. Munn’s side of the story only, to be sure. I went looking in the Ontario court system for any reference to this case, and/or a response by the defendant, UWO, but could find none. That may be due to my ineptitude at searching that site. I intend to keep looking.

Here is some of what Ms Munn claims:

a. The instructor of the course mentioned in the FSUC quote above was one Robyn Michaud. According to Munn’s filing,

On October 31, 2022, the conversation in Michaud’s classroom turned to “cultural appropriation” in the context of discussing Hallowe’en costumes. Munn opined that you cannot stop people from wearing costumes and noted that people “appropriate” Scottish cultural symbols such as kilts all the time. This prompted a further complaint by Michaud to Hibbert.

Hibbert was an Associate Dean in the Faculty of Education, about whom you will read much below. I am quite sure that in my 42 years at UWO not once did I think it appropriate to complain to a dean – or anyone else – about something a student said in my class. (Ok, I probably complained to my girlfriend a few times.)

b. Michaud went further. Munn’s filing says:

Michaud then escalated the matter and called an emergency meeting with the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (“EDI”) Committee. The EDI Committee agreed to convene the meeting because the teacher-training program had become an unsafe space, citing concerns about Munn’s “hate speech.” The EDI Committee recommended the immediate expulsion of Munn and communicated this to Hibbert.

c. On Friday Nov 4, 2022, Munn was told she must attend a meeting on the following Monday morning. Here is what Munn says happened:

A two-hour long meeting was held on the Monday, with Munn, Hibbert, Tattersall, and a friend of Munn’s for support. Hibbert advised Munn that the EDI Committee had no independent authority to order disciplinary measures against individual students, but that she took their recommendations seriously. During the meeting, Munn was accused of being racist, colonialist, transphobic and an advocate of child abuse (apparently for saying that she had received corporal punishment as a child and was none the worse for it). Munn was told not to attend Michaud’s classes, although she was still expected to complete the assignments.

d. Students in the Teaching program in the faculty of education (a two-year program) are assigned ‘placements’ as student teachers in the surrounding school boards as part of the program. According to Munn:

The following day, Munn received an email from Joanne Lombardi, placement coordinator for the Faculty of Education, advising her that her forthcoming placement was suspended. No reason was given for this.

e. But the hits kept coming:

On November 16, 2022, Munn had yet another two-hour meeting with Hibbert, Tattersall and her support person. Hibbert advised that more allegations had come in and that she had interviewed students and faculty about Munn. No names were provided, nor were there written complaints to view—it was all hearsay.

And then:

On January 11, 2023, Munn was required to meet again with Hibbert, along with Tattersall and Munn’s support person. This meeting also lasted two hours. Hibbert advised that her investigation was complete and a decision had been made to formally move Munn to “conditional status.” Hibbert told Munn that the Student Code of Conduct Office had also completed an investigation, and it did not lead to further action (there never was such an investigation, Munn later learned). Hibbert further advised that any appeal had to be filed within 3 weeks (it was actually 6). Hibbert informed Munn that a makeup placement session could be done in May or June (although this never happened)

f. Here is my favourite – as in most maddening – bit from Munn’s claim:

During this meeting, Hibbert reviewed the results of her investigation, describing how various informants had denounced Munn for her views. Munn was instructed that she was not allowed to challenge Indigenous faculty members and must just accept their teachings because they have lived experience that she does not have.

I could go on, there is much more. Munn was never expelled, in fact, in my opinion because the assholes thought the ongoing threat of expulsion aimed at a woman in her 60s who just wanted to get a teaching degree was more likely to keep her submissive.

Amazingly, Munn did graduate, but even more remarkable is that Munn decided in February of 2023 to file an appeal of her ‘conditional status’ in the program with UWO’s Senate Review Board Academic. I spent a few painful hours in one of those back in the day, it is the final body of appeal for all students regarding any aspect of their academic status.

Munn won. The SRBA panel unanimously upheld her appeal, ordered the assholes to lift her conditional status, and then issued a 74-page decision in which the Board Chair noted all of the following:

Hibbert behaved as though there was a finding of plagiarism, which was procedurally unfair and therefore unreasonable;
Hibbert relied excessively on hearsay and double hearsay;
Hibbert withheld details of accusations until meetings;
Hibbert injected subjective standards into the decision-making process;
The school failed to inform Munn of the rules she was accused of violating; and
Conditions placed on Munn were designed to compel her to “think and speak in a prescribed way” leading Munn to be “afraid to participate in class discussions”.

The Senate panel also held that “the classroom environment needs to feel safe for all students, including students like Munn who seek clarification and critically examine the content of a course. Students should have the opportunity to express and discuss a range of opinions regardless of their being in a professional program.”

The cynic in me suspects that the SRBA panel looked at the record, which included recordings of the many meetings Munn was made to attend, and saw a lawsuit looming. As it happens, they got one anyway.

This ought to feel like some kind of victory, but look at what Ms Munn had to go through, and most of all. look at what the assholes in the Faculty of Education thought was appropriate behaviour on their own part.

After reading about all this, I had a look, and Katherine Hibbert is no longer an Associate Dean in the Faculty of Education, but she remains a faculty member, and – get this – a Distinguished University Professor. She had a paper published last October titled ‘Judging the institution: Simulated jurisprudence and the governance of professional futures’

I look forward to reading that one. Katherine’s pronouns are she/her, in case you were wondering.

I could not find any reference to Robyn Michaud anywhere on the Faculty of Education website. But I know how this stuff works, so I went to my old faculty of social science, wherein resides the Indigenous Studies program. No mention of her on that website, either. Last chance, I used the U’s person search feature and got a hit. She is listed as Ms Robyn Michaud, and supposedly is affiliated with the Faculty of Education, with the following job title: Lecturer, Visiting Appointment (Indigenous Teaching Scholar Secondment).

An office is listed also, but I don’t plan to go looking for her. Although she is still listed in the Directory of the Education Faculty, she does not appear on the Faculty Profiles page. Pity, I would really like to have checked out what she gets up to when she is not intimidating students.

Conclusion

The Munn vs UWO debacle illustrates clearly that Canadian Universities and other ‘elite’ organizations have a long way to go before I will feel like the worm has really turned away from what Bienstock writes about in her Globe op-ed and apparently filmed in her documentary. And, J Kelly Nestruck is the one who needs to return to reality. I suspect it is not a reality he is prepared to acknowledge. Most disturbingly, it is precisely the supposed educators of our educators, like Hibbert and Michaud, who are most to blame for all this. The list of findings by the SRBA in Munn’s case should make everyone at UWO ashamed. However, I am sure no one in that entire organization but the lawyers and the parties involved know about them.

Postscript

I alluded above to my discovery of a blog by another UWO prof – it’s called Mulcahy’s Miscellany and you can check it out here. I only know he’s a retired UWO prof because he mentioned it in passing in one post. He has a post on his site about the Munn affair at UWO, so like me he keeps up with the goings on there. Our blogs are quite different. One thing you will find on his site is a bunch of posts about the history of London, Ontario, which celebrates the 200^th Anniversary of its ‘founding’ this year. Some of those posts are pretty interesting.