Ricardo Duchesne is a Puerto Rican-born Canadian historical sociologist and was until 2019 a professor at the University of New Brunswick's Saint John campus.
21 Facts About Ricardo Duchesne
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Ricardo Duchesne's mother, Coralie Tattersall Duchesne, was a British citizen of Anglo-Indian descent born in Kolkata, India; his father, Juan Duchesne Landron, was a medical doctor of Afro-Puerto Rican and French heritage.
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Ricardo Duchesne's parents met when his mother was studying at the Sorbonne; they were wed in Tangier, had three children while living in Madrid, and three more, including Ricardo, after they moved to Puerto Rico in 1956.
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Ricardo Duchesne's parents divorced in 1970 and Ricardo Duchesne's mother immigrated to Montreal, where she became active in the local cultural scene as an actress and playwright.
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Ricardo Duchesne immigrated and joined her there in the mid-1970s when he was 15 years old.
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Ricardo Duchesne took an early retirement from his position in 2019, following complaints of racism and hate speech.
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Ricardo Duchesne's uncle, Jose "Keko" Luis Duchesne Landron, was a saxophonist and a member of El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico from 1969 to 1980.
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Ricardo Duchesne is married to the dance choreographer Georgia Rondos.
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Ricardo Duchesne has voiced vehement criticisms of political correctness, multiculturalism, and immigration.
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Ricardo Duchesne argues that liberalism is uniquely Western and that Western identity is deeply connected to the ethnic character of Europeans.
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Ricardo Duchesne has shown support for white nationalism, including by providing a positive endorsement and cover blurb for a book entitled The White Nationalist Manifesto.
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Ricardo Duchesne has appeared as a featured guest on various white supremacist media outlets and he spoke at a forum of the National Citizens Alliance, a fringe political party known for its advocacy of white nationalism and far-right conspiracy theories.
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The book questions what Ricardo Duchesne argues are double standards of multiculturalism in granting both collective ethnic rights and individual rights to minorities and immigrant groups while, in his view, suppressing the ethno-cultural rights of Canadians of European descent.
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Ricardo Duchesne had been reprimanded by the University in response to at least one complaint made to them regarding posts on the Council of European Canadians blog.
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In September 2015, Ricardo Duchesne made statements to the Toronto Star newspaper supporting the creation of white student unions on Toronto campuses and criticizing "what he called a double standard in the media and academia against white and European pride".
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In June 2017, Ricardo Duchesne was the guest of honor at a private speaking event held by a Montreal alt-right group, according to people who were at or organized the meeting.
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Observers of far-right movements in Canada believe that Ricardo Duchesne was the otherwise-anonymous university professor who is known to have given a talk at the Leafensraum gathering followed by a lengthy question and answer session about the future of their movement and his experiences in the university environment.
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Ricardo Duchesne stirred further controversy by appearing as a guest on Faith Goldy's podcast.
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In May 2019, Ricardo Duchesne was indirectly linked to an attempt that had been made to embarrass the People's Party of Canada, a fringe right-wing Canadian political party.
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Mark Mercer, president of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship, questioned the school's decision to review Ricardo Duchesne, and argued that Ricardo Duchesne's position at the university should be protected in the name of academic freedom.
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Ricardo Duchesne had stopped publishing in mainstream academic journals even before his retirement.