Thoughts on Veritas Closure
Laurier’s Veritas Café was closed last December due to the termination of the contract between the Café manager and the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA). The café was reopened in early January with a new manager, but the controversy remains. With limited and mostly one-sided information on what happened, many jumped to a conclusion fast and turned the discussion into an extremely unproductive one.
Sandor Dosman, the previous manager, went to the press and complained that he was out of the job because of a slave joke in his hiring ad, allegedly without prior warning . A CBC news article offered his side of the story. The tangible loss was minimal — students having to order food elsewhere for a week or two, and employees being laid off before being rehired when reopening.
Many rallied behind Dosman nevertheless and took the opportunity to criticize “social justice warriors” and “snowflakes”. A Laurier associate professor, Bryon Williston, said in an open letter that university student bodies “seem to have been taken over by the terminally thin-skinned and self-righteous”. Two separate petitions have been initiated; many encourage Dosman to sue for wrongful dismissal. Please note Dosman was probably not in an employment relationship with the GSA, so the termination of their contract when properly triggered under an existing clause is not “wrongful dismissal” and technically, the requirements for warnings and disciplinary actions would not apply either.
But was it really an incidence of someone being oversensitive? The GSA has not directly confirmed or denied the joke being the reason for terminating the contract. Some mistakenly interpret such vagueness in GSA’s public statements as a lack of transparency or legitimate cause. There is a possibility that Dosman has previously had issues with the GSA that, either the operating contract did not explicitly prohibit, or were unsuitable for public disclosure; and in this case, a slave joke was simply the last straw.
Not to say we can fully rule out the possibility of any shred of injustice against Dosman, but the influence of more severe prior issues seems a much likely scenario. In a conversation with a school newspaper reporter, the GSA president had mentioning of “issues prior to the slave joke” and “protecting the confidentiality of all the people that were involved”. A statement released by the university also strongly hinted that the story in public does not paint a full picture, emphasizing “the challenges of dealing with confidential personnel and contract matters”.
There are good reasons why GSA might want to refrain from revealing much detail. First, if the lawsuit goes to the trial stage, evidence of prior incidents would come off stronger as Dosman was unable to prepare exactly what to defend. Second, publicizing evidence or make detailed statements would also limit what you can say and how you can say it later. Lastly, if there is any chance of a settlement, it is unwise to jeopardize it by damaging the other side’s reputation, or giving up the bargaining chip by making confidential information public.
The entire event is, therefore, unlikely to be the GSA’s overreaction to a joke, but indeed the wider public’s overreaction to imagined “social justice warriors”. Few bothered to understand the decision-making process within the GSA, but all pointed fingers towards its President, Samantha Deeming. Negative comments flooded towards the one recognizable individual, who might be simply implementing a collective decision. By January 11, the police was still monitoring Deeming’s email for threats.
Such overreaction barely contributes to any meaningful discussion. Those criticizing “social justice warriors” typically invoke “freedom of speech” and “open conversation”. But you will not hear different opinions if you yell at or threaten minority dissenters; and calling them names like “morons” and “band of idiots” — as in a comment under a related article — does not in and of itself advance any argument. If you do not like to be silenced with tags such as “racist” and “sexist”, you should probably understand that your efforts to invent new tags for your opponents are just as damaging to freedom of speech.
Moreover, the current narrative of the anti-social justice movement is overtly self-victimizing. The prevailing sense of being persecuted by “social justice warriors” urges many to rush to the support of whoever less concerned about offensive language or minority rights. What happened regarding Veritas café illustrates just how fast such responses can be and how few bother to rationally evaluate available information. Understandably, right-wing outlets like the Rebel (who started one of the petitions to support Dosman) would emphasize that a dozen people lost livelihoods (not true) to reap benefit from this narrative. But I believe most people would not go that far as to support the Rebel or Breitbart.
It is incorrect to assume that everyone making that contract termination decision or supporting it is a “social justice warrior” or “snowflake”. Regardless of how you take the joke yourself, you can see how the bigger picture would likely be more complex than that. Instead of seeing every event as “snowflakes” being oversensitive, please check if you are being oversensitive yourself. If you do decide to exercise your “freedom of speech”, check the facts and don’t ridicule yourself by overreacting.
