What does this place do anyways?
The Tomato has been publicly denied several attempts to interview the lead honesty officer at the university’s Investigation into Accountability Institute. The Tomato’s news team has been trying to secure a broadcast interview with Solomon Swear, the newly appointed lead honesty officer who began his term last May, but has been repeatedly shut down.
The Investigation into Accountability Institute was established in February 2023, after a member of the university’s Board of Governors (BOG) moved to create an internal organization dedicated to campus accountability. When a second board member raised the issue to ombudsperson’s office, the first board member replied that, “the more, the better.”
Solomon Swear was elected by the BOG in the following spring. Swear is a philosophy professor at the university, who specializes in morality and truth; in March 2023, he published a book titled, “Who’s to Say?”, which was subject of controversy due to the dubious nature of its interviews and allegations of plagiarism.
The Investigation into Accountability Institute’s (IAI) purview is to, “ensure that all students, staff, and members of the University of Ottawa community are equally held accountable for their actions, or at least some of them. Others are okay.” Unverified rumours say that over $10,000 went into the development of the IAI, a figure which compliments a redacted budget line found in the 2025 budget draft.
Since its inception, the Tomato has been emailing the Institute every week to no avail. Other avenues, such as visiting or calling their offices, were not feasible due to there being no public information detailing these means of contact.
“For the past week, the Tomato’s news team has been trying to hunt down professor Swear,” said Heidi Line, the news editor for the student publication. “The IAI released a report on Campus Accountability based on records from the past 20 years, but every time we try to open the PDF, our computers crash.”
“We tried calling Swear’s personal number, going to his office hours. I even planned to sit in on his class — only to realize he’s taking a sabbatical from teaching!”
The Tomato is calling on the IAI to make their reports non-destructible to electronic devices (or even mail them to the Tomato office in the basement of the Fulcrum). The students deserve accountability.
