A group of about 20 demonstrators showed up for the planned lecture by University of Ottawa English professor Janice Fiamengo, whose speech was titled: “Is the university about the pursuit of truth or the protection of approved ideologies?”
The talk was organized by Elijah Bedassie, a second-year philosophy and political science major and leader of a group called uOttawa Students for Free Speech.
The protesters, many dressed in black and wearing face coverings, tried to keep Fiamengo from entering the library. When she did get inside, someone pulled the fire alarm, causing the building to be evacuated and the lecture to be cancelled.
Fiamengo called the disruption “outrageous.”
“I can’t believe that it had been a different group giving that talk — if it had been a feminist group and a bunch of men had arrived and intimidated and bullied the women who were trying to get in — I can’t believe the police would have stood by and let it go on for even five minutes,” she said in an interview Tuesday.
