"Last month, thousands of despondent American liberals began to turn their eyes northward after the election victory of President George W. Bush and his right-wing administration.
Henry and Susan Giroux were ahead of the curve. The couple, distinguished academics, took up new posts at McMaster University last summer, in the belief that the liberal and humanist traditions of American education were in jeopardy, and teachers like them out of step with the rapid march to corporatized education dominated by a hardline agenda.
"When we arrived in Canada it was like breathing fresh air for the first time in ages," says Susan Searls Giroux.
"We had forgotten what it was like to question, discuss and debate."
Signing up the couple is something of a coup for McMaster, which they describe as "a very special university that is interested in educating students to build global democracy."
Henry Giroux has been named one of the world's top thinkers in education in the 20th century, and is the author of some 40 books on education, cultural studies, political theory and media studies.
Susan, an expert in race and education, is a teacher, author and journal editor.
Their departure from Pennsylvania State University created a scandal in academic circles when it became known that the administration did nothing to try to change their minds.
"The fact that Giroux was allowed to walk away from Penn State ... ironically coincided with the school investing untold amounts of money to retain Joe Paterno, Penn State's football coach and apologist for the policies of George W. Bush," complained Mike Alexander Pozo, in the liberal journal Axis of Logic."
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