Fabrikant 9
Fabrikant
>contract, citing his chronic abusive behavior, his repeated attempts
to
>evade teaching duties and his failure to supervise more
graduate
>students.
The funny thing here is that the same people just 6 months earlier
commended
me for excellent work and awarded me the highest in the department SPS
(salary
progression step). How could they then not notice my "chronic
abusive
behavior" and my "repeated attempts to evade teaching duties", etc.?
The
words "chronic" and "repeated" mean that I did all those things many
times.
You might not fire such a man immediately, but you would not give him
the
highest in the department salary increment either. Here is a quote from
their
decision of April 5, 1991:
The DPC (department personnel committee) recognizes the excellent work
and
high performance of Professor Fabrikant; ... the DPC .... recommend a
maximum
of 2.3 points which is the highest SPS awarded to any faculty member in
the
Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Therefore the DPC of the Department of Mechanical Engineering
strongly
recommends to the FPC (Faculty Personnel Committee) as well as to the
VR
(Vice-Rector) Academic that Professor Fabrikant be awarded the
highest
possible extra points, as specified in the Collective Agreement,
after
comparison with other engineering and university faculty performances.
The
DPC believes that Professor Fabrikant deserves a final SPS point value of
3.0
End of quote.
>"Many persons inside and outside the university have been subjected
to
>harassment threats, blackmail and allegations by Dr. Fabrikant,"
the
>committee wrote in its decision.
Who are the "many persons"? They mentioned the 1983 incident with a
smoking
teacher in the French class and the printer incident, nothing else. I
was
right in both cases, and those cases were well known on April 5, 1991,
when
they considered my work "excellent"!
>During this time, Fabrikant took steps to obtain a gun permit. He
showed
>up at the Surete du Quebec Montreal headquarters June 15, 1990, to
ask
>for a certificate to buy a pistol. Then, on September 7, he requested
a
>permit for a .38 Beretta to protect his home. The SQ refused because
he
>could not justify the need.
The following incident prompted me to request a gun permit. One day I
found
that my car in the basement garage of our house was broken into. Nothing
was
stolen, the glove compartment was open, my driver license was taken
out,
clinched in someone's fist, and all wrinkled thrown on the driver's seat.
It
was obviously a threat, and I had no doubt where it came from. I checked
with
the building manager, nobody else complained on any car break-in.
Clearly,
they targeted me. This is why I requested a permit to buy a gun
for
protection. In my explanations to SQ I could not name Sankars or
Swamy,
because I had no evidence it was one of them who ordered the break-in. I
also
did not want to show to these people that I noticed their activity,
because
that would only encourage them with their tactics of intimidation.
>In the fall of 1991, Fabrikant took a course in handguns at a
basement
>club in Ville St.Pierre. He passed the course on Nov.22, the day
after
>the mechanical engineering department sent its recommendation to
fire
>Fabrikant up to the engineering department's faculty personnel
committee.
This is usual The Gazette's tactics of falsification and manipulation of
dates
in order to prove connection between events, which are really not
connected.
The official date of DPC decision is November 18, 1991. The date of
November
22 is the day when I passed the exam, which was beyond my control. It was
not
a one-day course. The decision to take the course was prompted by
the
incident in the department on October 30, 1991, when I saw four
professors
behaving like muggers around me, I decided that I needed a gun
for
self-defence.
>After three meetings, the faculty personnel committee overturned
the
>decision [to fire Fabrikant]. The faculty committee claimed
the
>mechanical engineering committee concentrated too heavily on his
behavior
>and failed to properly evaluate his research and teaching
record.
Yet another comedy played by FPC: one does not need three meetings for
that;
if they needed three meetings for every professor they would have no time
to
do anything else.
>Nevertheless, the committee criticized Fabrikant for not working
within
>the department's research goals, for not supervising more
graduate
>students, for not contributing to curricula development and for
not
>teaching any advanced courses in mechanical engineering.
In the language of these bandits the phrase "the department's research
goals"
meant that I should write an article and include my superiors as
o-authors -
in this case I would satisfy perfectly "department research goals". As far
as
teaching "advanced courses", the committee knew perfectly well that I
was
teaching at that time the most advanced course for Ph.D. students
MECH-630.
Some explanation for readers not familiar with university: the characters
MECH
mean that it was the core mechanical engineering course, the first digit
in
the number indicates the level, namely, 2 stands for regular course, 3 and
4
stand for advanced undergraduate, 5 - Masters level, and 6 - doctoral
level,
and this was what I was teaching.
>Instead of renewing his two-year contract, the faculty committee voted
to
>put him on probation for one year, during which Fabrikant was
to
>demonstrate he could satisfy all of the committees concerns.
Without
>realizing it, the committee had Fabrikant trapped. He was in danger
of
>being uncovered as a fraud.
This committee had no "concerns" just six month earlier when they added 0.4
to
my salary progression step and recommended vice-rector to add even more.
The
whole decision is nothing but and arm-twisting attempt.
>He was not a mechanical engineer as he had claimed. He could not
teach
>advanced courses in the subject in which he had fraudulently claimed
he
>had a PhD.
At the trial I showed to defendant Marsden the excellent course
evaluation
from the course MECH-630, which I taught in the fall of 1991, and I asked
him
whether the doctoral level course looked sufficiently advanced to him.
He
looked pretty stupid.
Let us try to use elementary logic. I had been in the department for
almost
12 years by that time, published numerous scientific articles, over 30 of
them
were co-authored by people like T.S.Sankar, and nobody doubts that he was
a
specialist in mechanical engineering. Now, if my articles were not in
the
field of mechanical engineering, then how could Sankar be a co-author,
and
even in this case, Sankar must have at least read them, and he could
clearly
understand at least whether my publications did or did not fit the field
of
mechanical engineering. On the other hand, if my publications were in
the
field of mechanical engineering, how could I possibly write them, having
so
little knowledge of mechanical engineering? One can not possibly hide
or
falsify his field: it becomes obvious from any publication of his (of
course,
if he is a real author).
>Fabrikant had already tried to obtain a transfer to the department
of
>mathematics but was rebuffed. Nobody else wanted him. And
admitting
>that he had lied on his resume would get him fired.
Yet another falsification of timing by The Gazette: I tried to transfer to
the
department of mathematics much earlier (1989-90), not in 1991-92. And I
made
this attempt not because I "knew nothing about mechanical engineering",
but
because I wanted desperately to get away from these crooks. I was not
a
mathematician, but I was pretty good in math, as I showed before by
teaching
applied probability and statistics. I was "rebuffed" because Sankar
has
blacklisted me everywhere. He thought that this way he would be able to
use
me forever.
Even if I did lie on my resume, they could not have fired me for that
because
I started at Concordia from the very bottom, so whatever positions I had
in
Russia was irrelevant after 12 years of service and numerous promotions.
>So, early in the new year, Fabrikant began what would become
an
>international campaign to discredit the university and paint himself as
a
>victim of "fraud and corruption" on the part of his colleagues.
Now, after the top administrators at Concordia were fired, everybody
knows
that there was indeed fraud and corruption at Concordia. I did not start
my
campaign because I "felt trapped", there was nothing to trap me in. The
main
reason was the heart attack which I suffered in March of 1991. I almost
died.
I never smoked or used alcohol, was always in top physical shape, and I had
no
doubt that this heart attack was deliberately induced by tremendous
mental
torture, to which I was maliciously subjected on and off since 1988. I
felt
that I was being murdered, very legally and very professionally, and there
was
nothing I could do about it. I was also concerned that Concordia crooks
might
stage some kind of "accident" to have me killed. I decided to get all
the
information in public, so that they would have no point to have me
killed.
These were the real reasons why I went public.
>Vice-rector, services, Charles Bertrand wrote his memo quickly.
He
>glanced up the clock. Almost 5 p.m. It was getting late. The
rector's
>office was about to close for the June 24, 1992, holiday weekend
and
>Bertrand needed an answer right away.
>That morning, Valery Fabrikant had approached faculty secretary
Elizabeth
>Horwood to demand that she sign his application to carry a
gun.
>Fabrikant needed five signatures. The thought of Fabrikant with a
gun
>terrified Horwood and made Bertrand shudder.
Try to think logically: if I approached Horwood in the morning, why
would
Bertrand wait until almost 5 p.m. with such an important memo? What was
he
doing the whole day? I shall explain further, why he waited until 5 p.m.
The truth is that I never asked Ms. Horwood to sign anything: she was just
a
secretary, and I needed a signature of an "employer". I gave her the form
to
be signed by Osman about June 20, and she returned it back to me unsigned
on
June 22, 1992. On June 23, 1992, I have submitted it to the rector.
I
understood perfectly well that they would use this occasion to pretend
that
they were scared of me, this is why I brought with me my daughter to
the
rector's office as a kind of symbolic gesture: I am not threatening
anyone,
but I have small children, who need me, so I need to protect myself and
my
family. (In the usual manner of falsification, The Gazette distorted it
to
claim that I brought my daughter to contract negotiations).
One more act of intimidation took place at that time. I found that the
door
of my car was unlocked in the basement garage. Nothing was touched, so
I
thought at first that I just forgot to lock it. I took a ride, returned
back
and this time I made sure that I locked the door. When I returned an
hour
later, not only the car door was unlocked, it was slightly open.
Clearly,
someone was watching my confusion and this time wanted to emphasize, that
it
was not my absentmindedness: they had the keys from my car, and God
knows,
what else.
>And it angered and scared vice-rector, academic, Rose Sheinin. She
was
>aware of Fabrikant's threats against staff and faculty and she
always
>opposed his hiring because she believed he was disruptive and did not
fit
>in. But the university opposed her. This time, she and Bertrand
agreed,
>the university had to act.
If she really knew about my threats against staff and faculty, how come
she
never mentioned any specific threat in the memo?
There was nothing to be angry about: I was doing what I was obliged to
do
according to the law. I needed five signatures: one - from my wife,
econd -
from a friend, who knew me at least for 5 years, third and fourth -
from
neighbors in the same building where I lived, and the fifth - from
the
employer. I got the first four signatures right away, none of my
neighbours
was either angry or scared, all signed, without any hesitation.
>Bertrand hurriedly typed the memo: "It is our recommendation that he
be
>immediately suspended with pay from the university. In our opinion,
Dr.
>Fabrikant presents an immediate and continuing threat to the members
of
>university community as set forth in Article 29.07 of the
collective
>agreement. As a condition for reinstatement in the university,
Dr.
>Fabrikant must be required to produce a statement from a
psychiatrist
>chosen by the university, attesting to his mental stability."
Again, not a single fact to support their recommendation.
>Bertrand read the memo to Sheinin over the phone. "Sign my name,"
she
>told him. Bertrand dashed out the door and headed up de
Maisonneuve
>Blvd. to Bishop Court, where rector Patrick Kenniff was
waiting.
>Bertrand was sure that Kenniff would agree to bar Fabrikant from
the
>school.
Pay attention: Sheinin just told Bertrand to sign her name, she did not
tell
him to include specific facts of my "threats against staff and faculty".
She
also understood perfectly well that Bertrand had no right to sign her
name,
but she could have done it through FAX. She clearly wanted to
dissociate
herself from the whole thing.
Assume for the sake of argument that I am a violent abusive man, who can
kill
for nothing. What good would suspension do against such a person? The
result
would be obvious: such a person would use the fact of suspension as a
pretext
to shoot the person who suspended him or somebody else. Did
Bertrand
understand this? Not only he understood it perfectly, this was his
and
Sheinin's purpose: to provoke me into killing somebody else. This is why
he
waited until almost 5 p.m. He wanted Kenniff to suspend me close to the
end
of the day, so that I would definitely not know about suspension until
at
least June 25. In the morning of the next day, June 24, 1992, he and
Sheinin
planned to go out of country on vacation, so if I kill somebody, it would
not
be they. What proof do I have ?
Here is a quote from Cowan's report, page 27:
There were no signed complaints, and the two Vice-Rectors asking him
[Rector]
to do this thing [to suspend Fabrikant] were both leaving the next day
on
holidays (Bertrand for 10 days and Sheinin for 43 days) Neither had
exactly
offered to stick around and extract signed complaints. End of quote.
Pay attention: "there were no signed complaints" - how The Gazette can
explain
this? Remember, according to The Gazette, my file ballooned to over
600
documents, which were my complaints and complaints against me. Now it
looks
like all 600 were just my complaints.
It is of interest that Sheinin in her response to Cowan report denies that
she
went on holidays from June 24, 1992. She makes another interesting
claim:
that it was the Rector, who planned to disappear for 10 days. Dr.
MacKenzie,
in her response denies that Bertrand went on holidays either, and I
believe
her. Now, how to reconcile all this? Very simple: they all planned
to
disappear, hoping that the outrageousness of the planned suspension, which
was
not supported by any evidence, would inflame me enough to go and
shoot
somebody else, since they all would be out of country. But since
Kenniff
refused to suspend, there was no need to go on holidays.
What happened after that? We can deduce from Sheinin's response to
Cowan
report, where she writes that Kenniff initially refused to consider the
memo,
because Sheinin did not formally sign it. She claims that she was at
a
meeting in Loyola campus. It is difficult to believe that the meeting
lasted
the whole day. Kenniff understood, why her signature was not there:
she
wanted formally to dissociate herself from this dirty deal, so that in
the
case something goes wrong, she could blame Kenniff, have him fired and
take
his place. Now it is known that they were like cat and dog. As soon
as
Kenniff realized it, he refused to sign. It is difficult to presume
that
Bertrand did not ask Kenniff whether he would agree to suspend me prior
to
writing his memo. Clearly, he did, and if Kenniff said "no" right away,
he
would not write his memo.
>The first six months of 1992 hadn't been good to Valery Fabrikant.
His
>second book had been a disaster, his proposal for a third was
rejected,
>and he was facing possible dismissal from his job.
Pay attention: we dropped Bertrand at the crucial moment: he is "dashing"
to
Kenniff with a memo to have me suspended, as if this really would have
saved
everybody. Why did the yellow journalists do this "suspense"? Now they
need
to explain, the "why" I started shooting, and it is a lie upon a lie.
In the first six months of 1992, I had no idea, how my book was doing:
the
first financial statement I got in 1993, and it was quite good. As
I
mentioned before, scientific book is not being published to make money,
even
Einstein could not survive on his publications. I was doing extremely
well.
Imagine, just published a book in 1991, and in 1992 I already have
enough
material for a new book - this is fantastic! I did not want my third book
to
be published by Kluwer, because I had a better deal. Since they published
my
first two, I felt obligated to give them the right to refuse, they did, and
I
was quite happy. I signed a much better contract with CRC Press. If
anyone
wants to check, the publisher's name at that time was Sullivan, and
his
address was 22-24 Torrington Place, London WC1E 7HJ, UK. His telephone
was
011(44)-71-580-4190.
>The engineering department had put him on one-year probation during
which
>he had to prove that he could teach advanced mechanical
engineering
>courses. It was becoming increasingly clear to his colleagues,
however,
>that Fabrikant couldn't teach these courses.
My colleagues knew very well that I was teaching in the fall term the
most
advanced mechanical engineering course MECH-630.
>At first Fabrikant tried to get out of teaching altogether.
When
>department chairman Sam Osman sent a memo to all department professors
in
>November 1991 asking for their teaching preferences for the
academic
>year 1992-93, Fabrikant wrote back: "No teaching. I'll be on
sabbatical
>next year".
I did not try to get out of teaching: after sabbatical I would have
returned
to teaching anyway. But I was with the department for 12 years, and I
was
eligible for sabbatical, so I demanded one.
>Osman thought it was just another attempt to shirk his
teaching
>responsibilities. Fabrikant had no permission to take a sabbatical.
Nor
>did he have a right to one.
Here is a quote from Cowan report, page 25: "He [Fabrikant] was eligible,
in
my view, to be considered for sabbatical."
>Osman told Fabrikant that unless he indicated his teaching
preferences,
>he would assume that he had none.
I did respond to this letter, and I gave him quite a list of courses I
was
ready to teach. This is a quote from my letter:
I am prepared to teach various undergraduate as well as graduate
courses.
Those include (but are not limited to) ENGR-242, ENGR-243, ENGR-244,
EMAT-212,
EMAT-232, EMAT-391, MECH-221, MECH-321, MECH-443, MECH-498
(undergraduate);
ENCS-602, ENCS-650, ENCS-610, ENGR-631, MECH-644 (graduate). I am
also
prepared (if necessary) to develop new graduate courses in
elasticity
(three-dimensional), mathematical theory of fracture, and contact
problems
which at present are not available in Concordia Graduate curriculum.
End of quote.
I remind that the first digit in the course number indicates how advanced
the
course is: 3 and 4 - advanced, 5 - Master's level, 6 - doctor's level.
The
characters MECH mean core mechanical engineering course; EMAT
means
engineering mathematics course, ENCS means engineering and computer
science
course. Quite a field to choose from.
>Fabrikant felt cornered. His only refuge seemed to be the
passive
>sterile, international electronic-mail system called Internet.
[...]
>Fabrikant worshiped its power. It gave him access, free of charge
to
>about 15 million subscribers around the world with about one million
more
>linking up every month. He spent long hours, often on Sundays,
pounding
>his frustration into what become his own private international
broadcast
>network.
It is clear from the above that I had no reason to feel cornered. The
reason
I turned to Internet was as follows. First, I tried to publish
all
information in what supposed to be a "free press" - university press.
They
refused to publish my material, one article was published, but edited in
such
a way that it was totally distorted. When the editor refused to
publish
corrections, I turned to Internet. I am quite proud that I demonstrated
the
power of Internet at the time when majority of people did not see it yet.
The paragraph above creates false impression that I was broadcasting to all
15
million of subscribers, which is false. In all six months I did not
reach
even 1000 people.
>Early in 1992 his emissions started to reach a frenzied pitch. For
six
>months, reams of memos, letters and reports with lengthy explanations
and
>allegations of corruption came out of Fabrikant's computer and
flowed
>into those of fellow scientists at Concordia and around the world.
Again deliberate creation of false impression that I did broadcast
before
1992, and in 1992 I reached "frenzied pitch". The truth is that my
first
Internet posting was on February 14, 1992. There was nothing before that,
and
it was addressed to about 50 people at Concordia University, and that was
it.
In total, I placed about 10 postings in the whole 6 months, can one call it
a
"frenzied pitch"?
>Staring into his unquestioning computer screen, Fabrikant
recreated
>himself as Mr. Excellence. His papers and books became classic. And
his
>colleagues were bogus scientists and shams, corrupt and fraudulent.
I did not need to "recreate myself": I just retyped various documents,
which
were written by other specialists, and which described me as above. Some
of
those documents were written by the people who now wanted to have me fired.
>A push of a computer button transmitted his delusive
self-representations
>to the scientific world in lengthy transmissions which at one point
were
>so voluminous they caused a huge backup in McGill's
electronic-mail
>system.
There was nothing "delusive" there: all postings were various documents and
my
comments on them. I could not possibly cause any backup, because all
postings
were made usually on Saturday night, when nobody was using computers,
and
there was whole Sunday to sort everything out. None of my postings was
very
voluminous, usually it was about 20 Kb, never more than 100Kb. Here is
an
example of one of my postings:
Dear colleague:
You might be interested to read the attached letter to the Editor
(Appendix).
This is in response to a previously published report on world's most
"prolific" authors. The table presented there gives 20 top names, mainly
from
biology, none from engineering. The author number 20 has 322 publications in
the past 10 years. I have counted at least 311 publications of Dean Swamy
during the same time, which makes him about number 21 "prolific" author in
all
scientific publications, and since the top 20 are not from engineering,
NUMBER ONE most "prolific" engineering author in the whole wide world!!!!
CONGRATULATIONS, CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY!!!
V.I. Fabrikant
Appendix
From NATURE, Vol. 356, p. 471, 9 April, 1992, Letter to the Editor
AUTHORS AND EGOS
Sir:
Christopher Anderson's report (Nature, Vol. 355, 101, 1992) on publication
frequency by scientists should be cause for grave concern in the scientific
community. Authorship of a scientific publication is not a reward for having
assisted in some way, however trivial, in making a research report possible.
If one is conducting field research in the Andes, for example, the muleteer
hired to provide access to the study area obviously makes a vital
contribution
to the research effort but few would argue that this effort warrants
co-authorship of any publications resulting from the expedition's
scientists.
Similarly, someone who is awarded a grant does not automatically merit
co-authorship merely because the funds made possible the research of others,
any more than the largesse of an individual private donor who provides funds
for research would merit inclusion on an author line.
If this were not a serious problem in science, the almost childlike attempts
to feed enormous egos would be silly, indeed. Does anyone really believe
someone authors a paper every few days? Clearly not. Perhaps it is time for
reviewers of manuscripts and grants to stop playing this little game and
deduct point for patent ego engorgement.
Michael A. Mares
Oklahoma Museum of Natural History
and Department of Zoology
University of Oklahoma
Norman, Oklahoma 73019, USA
End of quote. Just one page posting.