Response to ‘An Unfair Critique’
In our editorial last week (Vol. 34, Issue 23: “We Need Zero-Tolerance for Sexist Chants”), we chose to include that ECA VP External Jonathan Ladouceur made a mailing list error when sending a motion to dissociate from certain chants to ECA council.
As ECA President Antonin Picou points out in his letter, our editorial lacks context—specifically that this was a new mailing list, and that Ladouceur was performing a task outside of his job description due to the lack of a VP Internal.
Ladouceur himself stated that he made this mistake at an ECA council meeting. But including this point in the editorial can bring undue focus to one part of a complicated issue.
We must always be cognizant of the different ways our words can be read.
If one did not read to the end of the editorial, where we state that Ladouceur was vocally against these chants, one could assume we’re blaming him for sabotaging a motion. Or, one could assume we’re highlighting a mistake to reveal incompetence.
Neither of these were our intention. The online version of our editorial has been edited to remove Ladouceur’s name from the line about the mailing list error, to remove any undue focus on him.
I apologize for causing Ladouceur any grief due to this line of our editorial. It’s a reminder for us that even if the fact is uncontested, it could misrepresent the big picture.
—Colin Harris, Editor-in-Chief
