Peterborough, Ont., Mayor Jeff Leal was forced to issue an apology after using a racial slur while giving a guest lecture to students at Trent University last month.
Leal’s lecture was intended to be part of the final exam in a business class so students were recording the mayor’s words, Trent Central Student Association vice-president Gold Jegede told Global News.
“We had multiple complaints from students about the same issue, stating that there was a class that they had attended, which was in administration management skills,” Jegede explained.
“They had a guest speaker, which was the mayor of Peterborough, Jeff Leal, and they had made mention of the fact that certain comments were made in class.”
“They really struggled to find the correlation with the course content and they felt very offended, that you went so off-tangent to the point where a racial slur had slipped into their course material.”
Global News has not obtained a copy of the mayor’s speech but according to the Arthur, Trent’s student newspaper, Leal said, “Lyndon Johnson was an F.D.R. New Dealer. He came out of the hills of Texas. He used this language that you would never use today, and he talked about poor n—–s and Mexicans that he taught Sunday school to.”
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Leal told Global News that he was quoting the former U.S. president as he was addressing the students in the administration management class.
“I referenced a number of leaders, historical leaders from a wide variety of countries, both Canada, United States and during that lecture, I referenced Lyndon B Johnson, who in the early years of his political career was noted to use racial slurs,” the mayor said.
“It was an absolutely wrong thing for me to do. It was a repugnant thing for me to do and I sincerely apologize for doing that.”
TCSA vice-president Kyra Myderwyk said the student association had been going back and forth with administration on how the situation would be handled, but it was beginning to drag on so the students made the school and political official aware that they were releasing a statement.
“I just think it’s important to note that the mayor’s office and the university only put out a statement after we had let them know that we were releasing a statement in 24 hours because we felt like they hadn’t done enough to publicly address it,” she offered.
On Tuesday, Trent University issued a statement in connection with the incident from a few weeks earlier.
“During a guest lecture, as an invited speaker, the Mayor of Peterborough referenced the writings of an historical figure who used racist language,” it read. “In doing so, the Mayor repeated a racial slur.
“Thank you to the students who came forward to express their concerns. The Mayor has since delivered a written apology to the class and released a public apology.”
The following day, the TCSA released a statement of their own requesting that the Leal not be asked back to campus while they are also calling for racism training for guest speakers and a screening process to be established for guest speakers.
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