Rancourt says the university gave police false information
Trespassing charges against former University of Ottawa physics professor Denis Rancourt have been dropped.
Last December, the university suspended the controversial professor, locked him out of his laboratory and told his graduate students to find new supervisors. He was banned from campus and, in an extremely rare move against a tenured professor, the school’s administration recommended his dismissal.
Two weeks later, while hosting his three-year-old radical documentary film series at the school, Rancourt was arrested by police and charged with trespassing.
Rancourt was officially dismissed March 31 at a meeting of the executive committee of the university’s board of governors.
However, now that the charges against him have been dropped, the professor, who subscribes to a philosophy of critical pedagogy, says he has been vindicated.
“The University of Ottawa knowingly gave the Ottawa Police incorrect information that I had no right on campus. The police then lied to apply a false charge of trespassing,” he said in a release earlier this week.