Taken from the Montreal daily "La Presse" of October 13, 2002, here are excerpts from an article published under the heading "the letter of the week". The author is Reynald Bergeron, Professor at the "CEGEP" (College) of Sorel-Tracy, Quebec.
My first weeks of work were lengthy and tiresome because of this fashion, this "damn" fashion which "forces" the female students at revealing their anatomy as much as possible.
This year in particular, it seems that a certain audacious competition animates my female students: it is who will arrive at school with jeans as low as possible below the belly button; who will flaunt the low-necked plunging as low as possible.
The present fashions obstruct my profession with pitfalls that common mortals envy us of, but that they cannot really evaluate. I would like to bring to mind to my female students that, much before being a professor, I am a man...
Today, I am embarrassed sitting down with a female student. Is it possible for a 20-year-old guy to succeed with his studies in such an environment?
A school is not a physical conditioning center where the body is exalted, but a formation center where ideas and intellectual influence should prevail. Would this be one of the reasons that incite many at recommending the return of uniforms in the public schools?...
We are living in an era where complaints of harassment is affluent, in an era where professors judged too hard to please are victims of complaints, often without foundation. With their flimsy clothes, my present female students will understand my non-habitual "coldness" and my hesitation at meeting privately with them in my office. Their clothing is capable of giving credence to all calumnies that they could muster against me following a severe notation or any other frustration that I could subject them to. I will place all advantages on my side in order to preserve what took me so long to build up: my reputation,
Reynald Bergeron, Professor