hi everyone happy new year I've got some
things to say to junior high and high
school students and their parents about
the politicization that is occurring in
the public school system and what should
be done about that I have some very
radical suggestions I would say which I
am NOT putting forth lightly I think
that it is time for public school
students and their parents to actively
rebel against the indoctrination that is
being offered in the guise of Education
but before such a recommendation can be
reasonably offered or considered by its
recipients some careful argumentation
and review of recent events is in order
so please bear with me while I walk
through that process it's important to
get these things right and not to rush
about a year ago actually on September
27th 2016 I made a series of videos one
of them criticized a new piece of
federal legislation bill c16 bill c16 is
and I'm reading this directly from the
government website an act to amend the
Canadian Human Rights Act and the
Criminal Code here's the summary this
enactment amends the Canadian Human
Rights Act to add gender identity and
gender expression to the list of
prohibited grounds of discrimination the
enactment also amends the Criminal Code
to extend the protection against hate
propaganda set out in that act to any
section of the public that is
distinguished by gender identity or
expression and to clearly set out that
evidence that an offense was motivated
by bias prejudice or hate based on
gender identity or expression
constitutes an aggravating circumstance
that a court must take into
consideration when it imposes a sentence
now you may notice on careful reading
that the Act modifies the Criminal Code
to clearly set out that evidence that an
offense was motivated by bias prejudice
or hate extends the purview of what
might cost
- hate to a degree that's I think
completely unacceptable but that's the
least of the problems with this bill you
can't really tell what the other
problems are though unless you go read
the policy guidelines that were
established by the Ontario Human Rights
Commission which already guide
interpretation of similar legislation in
Ontario and would be used by the federal
government's own admission to guide the
interpretation of bill c16 now when I
made the videos I said as much I said
that there were two fundamental dangers
to this bill one was that because the
Ontario Human Rights Commission is a
radical and dangerous organization bent
on producing the most punitive possible
policies in the pursuit of its radical
neo-marxist postmodern agenda that the
legislation would introduce the
possibility of persecution or let's say
prosecution for so-called offenses that
should never be considered within the
proper domain of legal prosecution now I
also objected to the manner in which the
relationship between biological sex
gender identity gender expression and
sexual orientation was written into the
Ontario Human Rights Commission's
policies and therefore essentially into
the law pointing out that the law now
demands that we consider those four
different phenomena as essentially
independent when they are in fact very
tightly causally linked and as well that
the claim that's being made both
implicit and explicit that those four
sets of phenomena differ within each
strata as a consequence of socialization
in fact is also wrong but also
undermines the primary arguments that
transsexual people and gay people use to
buttress the reality of the our identity
namely that they have a biological
proclivity that directs them towards
such identities expressions and
orientations I pointed all of those
things out and that we were in danger of
legislating compelled speech in
relationship to preferred pronouns which
are the pronouns that people who vary in
their gender identity hypothetically
want to use to be referred to I pointed
out that we were in danger of making
compelled speech something
acquired in Canada so that for the first
time in our history and in the history
of the British common law the government
would be able to legislate the content
of your speech which is quite different
than legislating what you can't say
which is already something that's very
dangerous there are a variety of
consequences of making this video which
we're much more dramatic than I presume
they might be although I did know that
bill c16 posed a genuine threat to the
integrity of our state
now the first consequence was that a
very large number of faculty members at
the University of Toronto decided that I
had made the campus an unsafe place by
my statements and petitioned the
university to do something about that
and then there were a number of
demonstrations and then the University
of Toronto sent me two letters telling
me that I was violating their policies
and probably the law in Ontario which
was something I had warned about by the
way because the law was written in such
a dismal manner and over-inclusive
matter to ensure that even criticizing
it could be prosecuted under its
guidelines let's say and then there was
a debate that the university held we're
defenders of Bill c16 insisted that I
was all the terrible things that I had
been called and that I was
misinterpreting the bill and that the
dangers that I foresaw as a consequence
of its implementation would never
manifest themselves rather than to
address himself to the scientific
evidence concerning gender identity and
expression and by adopting rhetorical
strategies more common to Breitbart news
comm than a university professors
lecture dr. Peterson goes on to
discredit the very constructs on
political grounds instead of on grounds
provided by scholarly evidence that
these constructs are in no particular
order leftist radical and politically
correct on the subject of pronouns and
gender expression dr. Peterson is
emphatic that quote I don't recognize
another person's right to determine what
pronouns I used to address them I won't
do it for the vast majority of people he
goes on to say gender identity and
sexual orientation and I guess
he means sex are the same thing and
quote as for the definition of
transgender dr. Peterson claims that and
I quote I don't believe that they these
people these terms stand for good things
I think that these people use these
terms as a pretense that they stand for
good things as a pretext for them to
continue their nefarious activities and
quote well this is hardly the stuff of
academic scholarship now I should say to
the university's credit by the way that
once they got on their feet after
sending me the original two letters they
seem to have come down quite strongly on
the side of free speech in the last year
and so that's something positive that's
come out of all of this but the truth of
the matter was that I am none of those
things
and that I had read the bill and its
surrounding policies extremely carefully
and what's worse I actually understood
them and that what I had done was merely
communicate my understanding and I would
say my proper and accurate understanding
of the bill to a public that was
actually quite willing to take the time
to investigate the issue and follow it
carefully the press initially was very
ambivalent towards me but as some of the
leading journalists in Canada including
Christie Blachford and antonella are too
so and eventually Conrad black and also
Margaret went too early listen to the
videos that I had made it and then
actually read the policies in question
they understood that the bill did in
fact pose a threat to free speech in the
manner that I had described and came out
very strongly on my side now I have some
sympathy for the fact that I was tarred
with a variety of epithets immediately
after having made the video because I
was warning that there was something not
good going on in Canada and whenever
anybody warns that you should be
skeptical of them because Canada has
been a very stable and well-functioning
state for a very long period of time so
when someone pops out of his rabbit hole
or comes out of his swamp let's say and
says there's something rotten in the
state of Denmark the proper response is
no there's probably something wrong
with you and then the next investigative
strategy is to say well here's a bunch
of things that are typically wrong with
people that have something wrong with
them
bigoted transphobic racist etc maybe
you're one of those things and so we'll
throw those at you and see if they stick
because if they stick then we don't have
to pay any attention to the problem and
maybe it will go away but the truth of
the matter is that I was and am none of
those things I was fortunate because
there was evidence that that was the
case I have videotaped virtually
everything I've said to students in the
entire 25 years of my university tenure
and so everything that I thought was a
matter of public record and I had posted
it on YouTube in the form of hundreds of
lectures not only is there nothing
scurrilous and self damning in those
videos it's quite the contrary people
have found the content extremely useful
from a psychological perspective and and
that's now up into the millions of
people and so it turns out that I'm not
the bad guy of the supporters of this
Bill's imagination now the other tactic
employed by the people who have been
unhappy about what I have been saying is
to assume that I'm an all right or even
a far-right figure which is an
accusation that has been leveled at me
many times in the last year and there's
also a reason for that the reason for
that is that the group of people to the
right of the radical left is a very
large group and it includes everyone
from socialists say of the classic 1970s
type all the way to the most far-right
Nazis imaginable who are all united in
their opposition to the radical left
agenda and thus form what you might
describe as a group by default now the
fact that some of the members of a group
by default are unsavory characters does
not demonstrate that all of the members
of that group are of that type now it's
very convenient for the radical left and
much more straightforward than actually
formulating arguments to assume that
everyone who doesn't think exactly what
they think is some sort of monstrous
figure but it happens to not be the case
there are many reasonable people in fact
vast majority of reasonable people who
are firmly opposed to the agenda of the
radical left and it's completely
unreasonable to lump them in with all
right far-right and Nazi type figures
part of the reason that the postmodern
neo-marxist find themselves compelled to
do so is because they believe that they
are correct and that they have right on
their side and if it turns out that
anyone reasonable is objecting then the
fact of that reasonable opposition would
make it necessary for some things to be
rethought and so it's much easier and I
would also say much more gratifying to
an inner sense of resentment and
vengefulness to merely tar everyone who
doesn't agree with the same brush and
the argument be damned this brings us to
the most fundamental reason why there
has been such vociferous opposition
generated in relationship to what I've
been saying and that's because I got the
interpretation of Bill c16 and its
surrounding policies and the pernicious
postmodern Neel Marxist doctrine that
gave rise to it essentially correct and
it's in the best interest of those who
are pushing this pernicious doctrine and
its legislative consequences to do
everything possible to discredit me so
that the facts of the matter remain
hidden from the general public and
perhaps even from those who have
formulated the doctrine themselves so I
read bill c16 and the surrounding
policies that would guide its
interpretation as formulated by the
Ontario Human Rights Commission and then
I informed the public to the best of my
ability about the content of that
legislation and policies and its intent
and we've outlined the consequences two
major questions remain is what I had to
say to be trusted and if I was correct
in my analysis and diagnosis what steps
should be taken now if any to rectify
the situation so let's begin with the
question of whether or not my
interpretation is to be trusted and
we'll start that with a brief overview
and then an analysis
of the recent events at Wilfrid Laurier
University as you may know or may not
know but should know at Wilfrid Laurier
University recently a teaching assistant
named Lindsey Shepherd found herself in
hot water because she had the temerity
to play a video clip from TVO's the
agenda in the class that she was charged
with conducting as a consequence of
playing the video clip she was brought
in front of a disciplinary panel
consisting of three individuals nathan
rambo khanna herbert Pimlott and adrià
joel rambo comma and Pimlott are
professors in the communications
department at Wilfrid Laurier University
and Adria joel is an administrator who
was hired as a consequence of
legislation introduced by Kathleen Wynne
to conduct exactly the sort of
disciplinary investigation that she sat
in on now
Lindsay Shepherd had the presence of
mind and the fear to tape the
disciplinary hearing and after the story
about what had happened was released
lindsay released the entire audiotape
and caused a national and international
scandal i would be interested to see the
original complaint or complaints because
like i don't really have any context
like as to what exactly their problem
was can I just ask you anything - yeah I
just like to hear the whole like your
what what took place so if you just give
us okay so um we we have to teach about
grammar and in the Pearson book there
was a section about pronouns and using
like gendered language so I wanted to
make it more engaging so what I did is
we were talking about in papers using
bei as as like a singular and then we
were also talking about like
his-and-hers and like how to construct
sentences with that and then to
contextualize it I brought up like a
a YouTube debate so debate with both
sides during Peterson sides and this
this fellow named Nicholas Matt who is
also a prophet UT and they do have the
name of the UM it was from the agenda
with Steve Paikin what's in a name
potentially a great deal University of
Toronto psychology professor Jordan
Peterson has a fight on his hands after
objecting to proposed legislation that
he says would violate his freedom of
speech by forcing him to address
transgendered people using the pronouns
of their choosing joining us now to
better understand the issue and debate
what's at stake in Vancouver British
Columbia Theron Meyer transgender pundit
and youtuber in the nation's capital
Kyle Kirkup professor of law at the
University of Ottawa and here in studio
the aforementioned Jordan Peterson
professor psychology university of
toronto nicholas mat lecturer
transgender studies at U of T and Mary
Rogan whose article entitled growing up
trends is featured in the October issue
of The Walrus magazine good to have you
three here and our two friends and
points beyond we appreciate everybody
being on the program for what is I think
one of the hottest topics in the country
today professor Peterson and it's all
because of you and I think before we go
any further with our conversation here I
want to give people a sense of how hot
this has got starting on the downtown
campus of the University of Toronto
[Applause]
well as you can see the opponents of
free speech are capable of making
annoyance inarticulate noise free speech
is the mechanism by which we keep our
society punched by doing this I'm going
to post this online that you would like
people to not to be to be more
accommodating of trans people in people
of color at your events in future I felt
very common here there have been
multiple multiple recorded instances of
trans people killing themselves because
it wasn't for this wall I ask you why do
you have the authority to determine
whether or not an individual is worthy
of you using their pronouns like if I
asked you would you please use they/them
pronouns for me what what it would
depend on what do you want to jump my
pronoun okay with indulgence of
everybody else on the program I'm gonna
start with Professor Peterson off the
top here for a while because as I
suggested you thought long and hard
about this you posted a few things up to
YouTube because you had been thinking
long and hard about it one and a half
million hits later Jordan one and a half
million hits later this has become a
huge issue so let's start there why did
you post those views to YouTube in the
first place well there's proximate and
distal reasons the proximate reasons was
because I received some correspondence
from from from clients of mine who had
been I would say persecuted in a variety
of ways by people who were politically
correct and they sent me some
documentation about Bill c16 and The
Associated policy statements on the
Ontario Human Rights Commission which I
read and was not very happy about and
also because the University of Toronto
decided to make anti racism and anti
bias training so-called
anti racism and anti bias training
mandatory which I regarded as an in a
per
incursion into the domain of political
opinion by the university administration
have you taken that training yet no and
I don't have to yet it's it's the HR
department personnel that have to take
it if they decide that you have to will
you no way not a chance
and what's the other referred to
persecution that friends or clients of
yours had experienced so yes yeah well
there are lots of places now where the
workplace has become I would say
excessively politicized and so people
who have viewpoints and this also
involves includes I would say fairly
radical leftist viewpoints people don't
feel comfortable at all in in in being
able to use the language of their choice
or to have even opinions about a variety
of different things essentially I guess
what I'm asking is to lay the case of
what now what is it you find offensive
about this legislation well
fundamentally there were two things that
really bothered me although there have
been other things I've thought about
since one was that I was being asked as
everyone is to use a certain set of
words that I think are the constructions
of people who have a political ideology
that I don't believe in him that I also
regard is as dangerous what are those
words those are the made-up words to
read that that people now describe as as
gender-neutral and so to me they're
they're they're they're an attempt to
control language and in a direction that
isn't happening organically it's not
happening naturally people aren't
picking up these words in the typical
way that new words are picked up but by
force and by Fiat and I would say by
force because there's legislative power
behind them so just like these made-up
words Z and xur and that sort of thing
what about the they're not all made up
where quote-unquote made-up words for
example they is one of them yeah but we
speak to an individual as they write but
we can't dispense with the distinction
between singular and plural I mean I
know that the advocates of that
particular approach say that they has
been used forever as a singular and
that's actually not correct it's used as
a singular and very exceptional
circumstances so we understand your
views and where you're coming from you
decided to lay these views out in some
YouTube discourses yes you put them up
the response has been overwhelming did
you anticipate that you would get this
kind of feedback no there was no way of
anticipating this and I think you
mentioned in the intro you know that
this is a consequence of what I've done
and I
think that's true it's a it's a
consequence of the fact I thought about
it and I think the right metaphor is
that you know there's a large forest and
it's been a hot dry summer or maybe a
drought and there's plenty of dead wood
gathered and I lit a spark and you can't
blame the forest fire on the spark there
is out there an appetite against
political correctness which is what you
have described us as in fact your
YouTube videos called professor against
political correctness but let's make
sure we're all speaking the same
language here you would define that how
political correctness well I think it's
a particularly illogical game and I
think the outcome is twofold it's to
make the player feel morally superior
and also to take rather serious axe
swings at the foundation of society and
so the game is identify a domain of
human endeavor note that there's a
distribution of success some people are
doing comparatively better and some
people are doing comparatively worse
define those doing worse as victims
define those doing better as
perpetrators identify with the victims
have yourself a set of enemies handy to
vent your resentment on feel good about
it even though it didn't really require
any work on your part and then endlessly
repeat Jordan let's do one more question
here and then we'll get everybody else
into the conversation you know of course
that since this story broke you've been
called a lot of things yeah one of which
is a transphobic yeah some people have
accused you of using the free speech
issue to mask what's really going on
here which is an attempt to deprive
other people of what they believe are
their legitimate rights well I don't
want to give you the opportunity to
speak to whether or not you are a
transphobic well I can tell you that
I've received more letters from
transsexual people supporting me than
opposing me and I never said anything
really about transsexual people about
their existence although that was the
first thing that I was accused of doing
I didn't say that transsexual people
didn't exist I said that gender identity
gender expression and biological sex do
not vary independently which they don't
and so all this issue is in some sense
only peripherally about about
transsexual issues it's more essentially
about gender issues and then on top of
that and I think it's the biggest issue
is is
it's a free speech issue okay let us
continue to explore all of those issues
that you have just raised and why don't
we do this let's take a moment we're
going to explain a few basic things here
the issue of so-called non-traditional
pronouns goes together with
non-traditional gender identities New
York City for example recognizes 31 such
gender expressions in other words
besides man and woman there are 29 other
gender expressions for example pangender
queer gender gender fluid crossdresser
by gendered gender blender and the list
goes on and Nicholas this is where I
want to bring you into the discussion
because you teach this you teach trans
studies so if you would give us a brief
primer on so many gender identities that
in your view require non-traditional
pronouns basically it's not correct that
there is such a thing as biological sex
and I'm a historian of medicine I can
unpack that for you at great length if
you want but in the interest of time I
won't so that's a very popular
misconceptions it was like a YouTube
debate it was one hour long but I showed
about five minutes and then some I mean
the students were we're very interested
I could tell that all of their eyes were
on the screen and after when we had a
debate there were people of all opinions
and like from from what I could see it
was a very friendly debate obviously
this person who had an issue did not
express it to me they just went straight
to whoever I don't I don't really know
what happened so I'm just for some
additional context so you come you came
from UT all right no no I said himself
from sfuo I see you worked like one of
Jordan Peters and students yeah so just
to give you some context that of Jordan
Pederson is he is a figure that's
basically highly involved with the with
the alt-right he lectures about
basically like critiquing feminism
critiquing trans rights I'm familiar
like I Rosie I follow okay so the thing
is can you shield people from those
ideas am I supposed to comfort them and
make sure that they are insulated away
from this like is that what the point of
this is because to me that is so against
what a university is about so against it
I was not taking sides I was presenting
both arguments so the thing is about
this is if you're presenting something
like this it you have to think about the
kind of teaching climate that you're
creating and this is actually these
arguments are counter to the Canadian
Human Rights Code ever since I know that
you talked about
c16 ever since this past it is
discriminatory to be targeting someone
due to their gender identity or gender
expression so bringing something like
that up in class not critically and I
understand that you're trying to like it
was critical why I introduced it
critically how so like I said like I
said I it was in the spirit of debate
okay in the spirit of the debate is
slightly different than being like okay
this is this is like a problematic idea
that we won make me wanna unpack but
that's taking sides it's like it's
taking sides for me to be like oh look
at this guy like everything that comes
out his mouth is BS but we're gonna
watch anyway okay so I understand the
position they are coming from and your
positionality but the reality is that it
has created a toxic climate or some of
the students hey you know how many it's
great oh how many okay one yeah it might
be I know I have no concept of like how
many people complain like what their
complaint was you haven't showed me the
complaint yes I understand that this is
upsetting but there's also confidential
at comfy and confidentiality matters the
number of people's are special yes yes
is one or multiple students who have
come forward saying that this is
something that they were concerned about
and that it made them uncomfortable if
this is for example a trans student this
is basically debating whether or not a
trans student should have rights within
one of their classes and that's not
something that is really acceptable in
the
context of the kind of learning
environment that we're trying to create
it would be the equivalent of debating
whether or not you know a student of
color should have rights or should be
allowed to be married
do you see weird like how this is not
this is not something like that's
intellectually neutral that is kind of
up for debate this I mean this is the
Charter of Rights but it is up for
debate but I mean you're perfectly
welcome your own opinions but when
you're bringing it into the context of
the classroom that can become
problematic and that can become
something that is that creates an unsafe
learning environment for students but
when they leave the university they're
gonna be exposed to these ideas so I
don't see how I'm doing a disservice to
the class by exposing them to ideas that
are really out there and I'm sorry I'm
crying I'm stressed out because this to
me is so wrong can I mention the
gendered violence gendered in sexual
violence policy yeah please so I agree
that it does gender violence I can just
include sexual violence but it also
includes targeting folks based on gender
so that includes transphobia biphobia
homophobia all those sorts of things are
protected under the policy and so those
are things that Laurie has upheld as
values as well as the Ontario Human
Rights Code and so those are things that
we're responsible for not impacting our
students in that way I'm not um not
spreading transphobia okay so what I
have a problem with is I didn't target
anybody who did i target how by telling
them ideas that are really out there by
telling them that by telling time really
it's it's not just telling them in
legitimizing this as a valid perspective
as this is another valid perspective in
a university it's all perspectives
are valid that's not necessarily true
and well this this is something that's
being debated in current society and I
don't feel the need to shield people
from what's going on in society like
okay to imagine that this is happening
in university it's just bad okay so just
to give you a context also within all of
this is happening Laurier's being
blanketed with white supremacists
posters currently there's another debate
in society which is whether or not North
America should be a set of white
nationalist states and that it should be
ethnically cleansed of other people that
is also a current debate Society would
you show something in your tutorial that
you had you know white supremacist and
non white supremacists debating whether
or not other people should live in North
America is that something that you would
show if that was related to the content
of the week and we were talking about
right-wing speech bubbles maybe it
depends on the content like I mean if
there's really ideas that are existing
out there like that then I mean look the
thing is like I don't see what's
transphobic about showing a video during
Petersons he's a real person he's out
there he is a real person but he is a
real person who has engaged in targeted
behavior that are targeting of trans
students in the particular like like
basically daxing them if you know the
term like giving out their personal
information so that they will be
attacked harassed so that death threats
will find them this is something that he
has done to his own students he has done
to other students and this is also
something that the students are aware of
so this is this is basically like
playing not to kind of do the thing
where everything is kind of compared to
Hitler but it's like neutrally playing a
speech by by Hitler or Milo you know
police from gamergate this is the kind
of thing that
departmentally in terms of like critical
communication studies and in terms of
the course of what we're trying to do is
diametrically opposed to everything that
we've been talking about in the lectures
faculty and administration at Wilfrid
Laurier University reacted in a number
of different manners to the release of
this tape information I'm going to first
read you some excerpts from the
independent fact-finding report
commissioned by Alfred Laurier
University President Deborah McClatchy
she said I believe it is time for some
clarity around the events of the past
few weeks here at Wilfrid Laurier
University stemming from the very
regrettable meeting that followed the
showing of a TVO clip by a teaching
assistant during a tutorial there were
numerous errors in judgment made in the
handling of the meeting with miss
Lindsey Shepherd the TA of the tutorial
in question in fact the meeting never
should have happened at all no formal
complaint nor informal concern relative
to a Laurier policy was registered about
the screening of the video this was
confirmed in the fact-finding report
there was no wrongdoing on the part of
miss Shepherd in showing the clip from
TV Oh in her tutorial showing a TVO clip
for the purposes of an academic
discussion is a reasonable classroom
teaching tool any instructional material
needs to be grounded in the appropriate
academic underpinnings to put it in
context for the relevance of the
learning outcomes of the course the
ensuing discussion also needs to be
handled properly we have no reason to
believe this discussion was not handled
well in the tutorial in question so
after Deborah McClatchy commissioned an
independent fact-finder Lindsey Shepard
was completely exonerated I'll put a
link to where you can read the
university president's entire response
to the Disciplinary meeting in question
now this is how Deborah McClatchy sums
the situation up for those who have
chosen to use this incident as an
indictment of Wilfred Laurier University
or the plight of Canadian universities
in general I say your
is unreasonable and unfounded while that
really is the question isn't it was this
a unique occurrence consequence of the
misbehavior shall we say of two
ill-informed professors and an
administrator or was this actually
diagnostic of the genuine state of
Canadian universities perhaps
universities in the Western world we
have to review the evidence at hand
first we have what happened at Wilfrid
Laurier itself I would like to point out
that the events there were more serious
and less predictable even than what I
had warned about when I made my original
video I assumed that people would be
could be prosecuted for failure to use
preferred pronouns and I was objecting
to that as a example of compelled speech
but I never imagined that a teaching
assistant would be accused of breaking
provincial and federal laws bill c16
specifically for daring to show a video
about people discussing such issues on a
public television station and then also
accused of being a trans phob
which is let it be noted now a crime
under the Criminal Code provisions of
bill C 16 furthermore in the aftermath
of her release of this discussion
Shepard was accused of all of the
right-wing attributes that had been
leveled at me all of which are also
arguably prosecutable under the pages of
bill C 16 now we don't want to under
emphasize the importance of this
remember that these were two faculty
members and as well an administrator
Adria Jewell who is hired precisely for
this purpose so that's the first piece
of evidence
next we might consider the response from
others at Wilfred Laurier University
itself as well as professors and pundits
outside that university in other
departments and institutions I'm going
to start with a letter that was written
by 20 members of the Department of
Communication Studies at Wilfrid Laurier
which is the same department that houses
rambu Kenna and Pimlott here's what they
had to say about the matter
I'm going to paraphrase a meeting with
Shepherd was secretly recorded and sent
to the media by that ta this act sparked
columns and op-eds that rushed to assess
the meeting generalizing from this
single event a diagnosis of our program
the University and the state of higher
education in Canada we welcome the
widening range of perspectives on this
situation that are beginning to emerge
in the public sphere we recognize that
the meeting was mishandled we
specifically acknowledged the power
imbalance in the meeting as dr. rambu
Khanna
acknowledged in his open letter to his
TA in future meetings we're serious
matters pertaining to the conduct of TAS
are under discussion we acknowledge that
students should be encouraged to bring
someone representing them and their
interests we would support a graduate
student initiative to unionized TAS
which could provide student employees
with a grievance process and other forms
of support in cases such as this one as
we understand it
dr. Rambo Khanna did not operate
unilaterally when he called a meeting
with his TA rather we believe he acted
in response to a disclosure made by one
or more students to university offices
set up to provide confidential support
upon being notified of this disclosure
dr. Rambo Khanna as course instructor
understood that he had a responsibility
to act in line with university policies
including those laid out in the gendered
and sexual violence policy now I'm going
to interject here for a minute that's a
very interesting point because president
McClatchy has basically complained that
Rambo Cannon and Pimlott and jewel
herself acted outside the policies that
the university has established however
the faculty members writing in support
of their colleagues claim that the
reason that Rambo Cannon and Pimlott and
Joel as well acted in the manner they
did was because they were following
those policies so which is it
now here's my two cents for what it's
worth my suspicions are that the
policies are written so badly like bill
c16 itself and the surrounding policies
at the Ontario Human Rights Commission
that either of those interpretations are
possible it's convenient for the
university to disavow responsibility for
the actions of its faculty member and
its administrators and it's convenient
for the faculty members and
administrators to say that they were
just following policy and
it's not clear at all that the
independent fact-finding Council has
settled that to anyone's satisfaction
either way it's serious business back to
the letter while the free speech of a
single individual has dominated
discussion surrounding this situation
academic freedom is also a decisive term
in this context dr. RAM Buchanan
exercises academic freedom as a course
supervisor by setting parameters for the
multiple tutorials that supplement his
lecture it is within the scope of a
supervising professors academic freedom
to have workplace meetings with TAS
regarding how course material is taught
alright so I have to interject again it
isn't obvious to me that this meeting
with Shepherd constituted a normative
workplace meeting with a TA regarding
how course material is taught and the
fundamental reason for that is the
appearance at the meeting of the
administrator Adria jewel as well as the
numerous accusations that were leveled
at Shepherd so I think that that
sentence is disingenuous at best we
maintain that the use of materials that
invite controversy into the classroom
need to be approached with pedagogical
care and forethought public debates
about freedom of expression while
valuable can have a silencing effect on
the free speech of other members of the
public we uphold the rights of trans
non-binary and queer folk to be
addressed in our classrooms in ways that
they define those in positions of
authority in the classroom faculty
instructors teaching assistants are not
sitting equally around the table with
students instead they have a
responsibility to foster an environment
of mutual respect and critical thinking
one wherein students should never feel
that either their grades or their well
being could be impacted because of their
gender sexuality race class or any other
facet of their identity we appreciate
that our university has mechanisms
through which students who feel unsafe
unfairly treated or have experienced
intolerance in the classroom or
otherwise in the role of students can
make appeals and find support and
resources to help them we also
acknowledge that we can do a better job
of making students aware of these
mechanisms we are always so grateful
when students do approach campus offices
for reporting problematic classroom
situations as their courage makes us do
our jobs better we thank you for coming
forward
you are such valued members of our
community charges that our program
shelter students from real world issues
our Fosters classrooms inhospitable to
discussing contentious issues from
different vantage points seem to us
simply preposterous we reject efforts of
those who have seized this episode as a
strategic opportunity to disparage
disciplines and scholars with
commitments to improving social and
economic equality within universities
and in society at large commentary on
this event in the press and social media
has emboldened individuals who see
themselves as noble defenders of free
speech to intimidate our faculty and
students to the point that protective
measures have been taken in an attempt
to secure their safety okay so another
bit of commentary is necessary there so
there was a concerted effort made by the
neo-marxist postmodern radical leftist
types to paint Lindsay Shepherd as the
perpetrator and the faculty members and
administrator who were involved in this
issue as the true victims and that's
where this bit of conceptualization is
coming from perhaps the most remarkable
of such comments about Shepard was
broadcast on our national broadcaster
CBC TVs Sunday scrum where a number of
journalists vickima Shama John Emerson
and Susan Riley were discussing people
of the year it was vickima Shama that
made the comments that I've clipped John
who would your pick be another young
woman
Lindsey Shepherd who we have heard a lot
about she was a young teaching assistant
that Laurier University who was called
on the carpet for showing a video of
Jordan Peterson and it was the recording
of that disciplinary hearing that went
viral and that really exploded the whole
issue of the debate that's occurring
within the social sciences and
humanities on the right of freedom of
expression the right of freedom of
research versus the right of protection
the right to safe spaces the right not
to be subject to aggression this is a
virulent debate that's happening on
university campuses across the country
some of us have written about it in the
past but it has to be said well
no matter where you are in this debate
it was miss Shepard and that and that
tape that blew this entire issue open
and made it a part of the national
discourse and for that she deserves
great credit you disagree I think that
she is someone that exists and I think a
lot of people responded to her for the
same reasons they tend to respond to
things which is that she's a young
crying white girl but there are lots of
moments in which the academic freedom
conversation could have been had and
guts has been skipped over serially and
I don't think the choosing appropriate
person to have launched this
conversation because as it turned it out
she leans hard right and some of her
choices well whether you like what she
sees or not we're having this debate
here on this show now and we're having
it because of Miss Shepard back to the
letter against this politics of revenge
we acknowledge the moral imperative to
support and protect our colleagues and
students we urge our colleagues at
Laurier and beyond to monitor carefully
how this event has been framed and taken
up another bit of commentary for me I
would also encourage colleagues at
Lawrie and beyond to monitor carefully
how this event has been framed and taken
up I guess that's exactly what I'm doing
now we agree with Laurie as president
that we live in an increasingly
polarized world understanding the forces
and discontent driving this polarization
including how they are at play in this
situation and with what consequences is
a collective task in which we all have a
stake and 20 undersigned faculty and
affiliate members of the Department of
Communication Studies signed this
although the signatories of this letter
admit that the meeting was mishandled
they do not say much about how with the
exception that Shepard was not provided
with independent counsel or support to
the contrary they state that rambu kana
at all we're simply following university
policies put in place as quote
mechanisms through which students who
feel unsafe unfairly treated or who have
experienced intolerance in the classroom
or otherwise in their role as a student
can make appeals and find support and
resources to help them thus although
McClatchy and these letter writers both
claim in their way that this incident is
not diagnostic of the state of the quote
program the University and the state of
higher edge
in Canada both the statement from McLeod
she and the Department of Communications
indicate in fact that something has gone
deeply and profoundly wrong Ram
Buchanan's colleagues state that Rambo
Khanna Pimlott at all did nothing wrong
except Shepards lack of independent
representation and if they did do
something wrong it was merely because
they were following policy which was
laudatory and admirable in its intent if
not in its implementation
now the Wilfred Laurier Faculty
Association also weighed in on this
issue and here is the gist of what they
had to say I'll put a link to the entire
letter in the description of this video
but this is what they considered most
worthy of note to be clear WL u FA
condemns the violent speech and actions
that have unfortunately become a daily
occurrence on our campuses in particular
the harm that has been leveled at our
trans community and its supporters is
unacceptable WL UF a stands in
solidarity with our LGBTQ T community as
they continue to battle their way
through walls of ignorance and
oppression walls that seem to have been
disproportionately fortified in the last
few weeks
so that's commentary on and Lindsey
Shepherd affair from the Faculty
Association representing all of the
professors at Wilfred Laurier University
no comment whatsoever of substance on
the nature of the meeting itself only an
expression of concern for the
hypothetically and very poorly
documented by the way unsafe conditions
for faculty and students that have
arisen at Wilfred Laurier University in
the aftermath of the release of
Sheppard's tape of the meeting now I
said that I was speaking to junior high
and high school students at the
beginning of this video and so far I've
only talked about the state of our
universities but I'm doing this in
providing this extensive background
because universities provide the
teachers for our public schools as well
as the destination place for the most
academically able of the students who
come through the school system thus
before making my recommendations which I
will do with all seriousness I have the
document
discontent thoroughly I'm therefore
going to talk about the response to the
Shepherd affair outside of Wilfrid
Laurier University before returning to
the point at hand I'm doing that to
demonstrate that the state of affairs
indicated by Lindsey Sheppard's tape is
by no means unique to Wilfrid Laurier
itself I'm going to start with a few
video clips featuring Professor Reynaldo
Walcott of the Women and Gender Studies
Institute at the Ontario Institute for
the studies of Education these clips are
taken once again interestingly enough
from TVO's the agenda with Steve Paikin
Walcott recently appeared on the agenda
to discuss the events I'm speaking with
you about today I chose to highlight
Walcott because he's director of the
Women and Gender Studies Institute at
the Ontario Institute for the studies of
Education and I see as it's known is
perhaps the most influential educational
institute concerned with public school
curriculum in all of Canada and
therefore an organization whose
decisions are of critical importance for
determining the nature of what's taught
from kindergarten all the way through
high school not only in Ontario but
because of its influence all across
Canada and perhaps beyond I firmly
believe that Walcott's attitude is
indicative of the ideological stance
that characterizes the philosophy that
is taught to those who will be the
teachers of young people in the public
school system in Canada from
kindergarten through high school the
incidence of Wilfrid Laurier University
have certainly provoked a debate within
academia and Beyond on finding that
sweet spot between freedom of expression
and respecting the diversity of the
student body is it possible to satisfy
both of those legitimate aims let's find
out can we welcome in alphabetical order
shannond a professor of philosophy
University of Waterloo Emmett McFarland
professor of political science
University of Waterloo Thomas Merritt
Canada Research Chair in genomics and
bioinformatics at
Laurentian University in Sudbury Janus
teen founding director of the Munk
school of global affairs at the
University of Toronto and Reynaldo
Wolcott associate professor in social
justice education at Boise the Ontario
Institute for studies in education okay
so a couple of things one is that I take
a long long view on this so what we were
actually seeing today in 2017
it's a long cultural war that has been
waged in a university in the 60s when
women's studies and I happen to be the
director of the new studies at the same
University as Janice when women's
studies and black studies broke into the
North American University there's been a
consistent push against them from the
60s until the present and part of this
debate around free speech around
academic freedom are ways to diminish
the fundamental impact that women's
studies and Black Studies and other
ethnic studies has had on the university
all the way up to having women as
presidents and women as vice presidents
in our institutions
I teach difficult material all the time
my students I don't have to give trigger
warnings I don't have to do any of that
it's not about what's in our books
that's at stake here it's about a
reframing of the university where people
like myself indigenous people queer
people are making a demand on an
institution that had hated to a
previously locked us out and we're
saying that our voices matter too and
we're saying that the ways in which the
languages of academic freedom and free
and free speech have been framed within
the context of the university has often
provided pathways in particular for
straight white men to say really cruel
harmful hurtful things and words do hurt
and now we're responding to that and
we're saying no this can't happen
this kind of happened in our workplaces
where we come to where we come to study
and so on this is a cultural war that's
being waged within a particular
institution and we should be extremely
clear about that this is a push back
against the way from which academic
scholarship has actually revealed
underpinnings of the university as a
kind of white supremacist logic our
senior administrators jump into PR mode
not address what's happening inside the
university but to quell the shouting
voices largely of the right wing outside
University I see this every day at my
university University of Toronto with
the ongoing jordan peterson matter right
the response has not been to say
women studies Black Studies African
Studies these kinds of studies have been
tremendous contributions to the
University instead there's been a
profound silence as though the work that
folks who work in those areas do does
not matter that overall wealth and
generative intellectual spirits fear of
the university and that that is their
fundamental flaw that where we've seen
or seen administrators become managers
in favor of the donors in favor of a
scared right-wing mom you never see the
sole car left actually getting that kind
of response from university
administrators yeah I don't agree with
you and although on that I I think it's
much more subtle and it's much more
complex actually the role of university
administrators he's not to get into
those debates what really matters is
that all the programs you talked about
which are very important and from my
perspective a core part of the
university thought if and faculty
members and students feel free to come
into the classroom and have these
debates the role of university
administrators fundamentally beyond
everything else and many of them are
scholars in their own right but their
role in their current jobs is to protect
those rights but that their silence is
an abrogation of those rights by their
very silence by the very silence what
they're saying is that some voice says
madam Ward and others within the context
of things do you think that's true i
well be fundamentally disagree let's
look at what the University of Toronto
one concrete example did um when jordan
Peterson's work became very
controversial they did what do you Mercy
should do they organized a debate that
was fundamentally flawed and Jordan
Peterson it was not even the question of
joining Peterson's work because he
doesn't work in the areas that he's
claiming to criticize he has no
expertise in them if is a black faculty
University of Toronto had engage in the
kinds of things that Jordan Peterson
engage and I am sure I would have been
drummed out of the universe sidestepping
the issue the issue is really one about
the role that university has played in
helping to produce the very kinds of
oppressions that many of us teaching
research right now the
first is deeply implicated and producing
certain kinds of logics of white
supremacy and if we don't grapple with
that then we can't actually begin to
grapple with the claims that people have
been tradition who have been
consistently oppressed and shut out now
entering into the university are making
claims on that institution to better
respond to them this is what this is
fundamentally about but also I would say
to you Steve
that what happens is it's not from
women's studies and black studies that
these that these kinds of things emerge
from its neutrally from white male
scholars by the majority often making
claims about things for which they have
no expertise in and then we find the
entire institution coming into place to
support their right to speak take your
argument seriously and engage and say if
there are scholars in the university who
have no expertise as you claim who are
speaking and writing about things which
they are not really qualified to speak
about it's precisely when there's free
debate and academic freedom that that
kind of shoddy work is exposed and
that's where I want to agree with what
it is the marketplace of free ideas has
not consistently worked for non-white
people you should be honest about well I
think I think we're again there's a
confusion here I think having you call a
marketplace and I don't I call it an
Agora which is a different thing but an
open public square not a marketplace an
open public square of free debate not
only for faculty members where academic
freedom has been but for students
students also have to be feel free to
say things that may be unpopular may be
unconventional may be risky but not
illegal no of course not illegal right
we had marketplaces on a course where
people debated other people's humanity
as well right now what we do is in
classrooms we have people debating
whether or not trans identities are but
that's how universities evolve and
that's how they improve second they
evolve but also saying that some things
are intolerable what what is the fear of
saying that some forms of speech are
intolerable
in the world where we already have
limits on speech we've seen it happen in
the university around BDS we've seen it
happen the world is really a Part IV
we've seen the university and many
skillful kinds of ways limit speech
clearly it's morally and ethically
bankrupt the petition has harsh turns as
I can to debate other people's humanity
if we can't begin there then there's
something fundamentally wrong with the
university of the institution this
seemed to be one of the confusing
aspects of the situation at Laurier
insofar as one of the professor's who
was upgrading the teaching assistant for
the way she conducted the class didn't
seem to understand what the Canadian
Human Rights Code prevented or didn't
prevent covered or didn't cover do you
do you wonder whether faculty need a bit
of a refresher on what's legal or
illegal in their classrooms let's say
his name professor Rambo co-head found
himself in a very difficult situation
he's also an untenured man of color and
we know I've been a professor for over
two decades I know that as a young on
tenured black professor when I had white
TAS they often felt that they could do
the course better than I could to and
they often over stretch their own
responsibilities as TAS I am sure that
in the context of this one particular
incident that there's much more
surrounding that professor's own
experience with this young white woman
but she raised this environment speaks
to this longer deeper histories again
that the best academic and scholarly
work in women's studies Black Studies
and and other what I'm gonna have to use
this term sub all disciplines have been
raised in which is that you know we see
that kind of response when it's a young
white woman we see that kind of response
when it's a white woman in Parliament
right and it's not just about hypocrisy
it's about a long embedded history of
who matters who counts this is about a
culture war where where were
representative democracy have had to
yield more space the people who've been
normally shut out and as we come into
these institutions and we ask for their
transformation
things are beginning to fray much of
this is about the crisis of whiteness
taking place in the context of the
university it's the crisis avoiding us
the crisis of whiteness is that white
people are no longer
now to simply say and behave in ways
that they could for instance in the 50s
in the context of the university we now
push back on it we now call it
illegitimate we now call it intolerable
now that we've talked about universities
and those who teach the teachers and the
ideologies that possesses them say we're
going to move a little bit closer to the
school system itself I want to focus on
the Elementary Teachers Federation of
Ontario and the Toronto District School
Board these are institutions that are
unique in some senses to Ontario but I
believe they are reflective or perhaps
even lead the way in the development of
the kind of curricula that are or soon
will be used across Canada and the rest
of the Western world given how fast
information now travels the first
question we might ask is what should
children and young adults be taught and
not taught from kindergarten through
high school my answer to that is quite
straightforward they should be taught to
read and write and speak skillfully and
gracefully and that should be done with
a minimum of political bias if you agree
with that sentiment however imperfect
you might find it then you need to
realize that it is not in the least the
guiding principle of the current public
education system the people who are
teaching your children no longer believe
for example the children can be taught
without political bias they also believe
that their particular political
viewpoints are so self-evidently and
finally correct that it is proper and
just to concentrate on in tailgating
them into children as early as
kindergarten regardless of what their
parents or anyone else might want I do
not believe that this is a goal shared
by even a majority of teachers and many
have written to me indicating their
dissatisfaction but a small noisy
domineering victimhood claiming coterie
of radically left-wing thinkers have
commandeered the controls and are
steering the ship where they want it to
go screaming bloody murder if anyone
dares to question or worse oppose both
the Elementary Teachers Federation of
Ontario which operates at the
slash state level and the Toronto
District School Board which operates at
the level of the city have explicitly
adopted a social justice program and if
implemented curricula based on its
principles from kindergarten through
grade eight with similar programs
operating in the remainder of junior
high and high school the ETF old
elementary teachers remember is equity
oriented this means equality of outcome
not equality of opportunity and that is
a radical left-wing even Marxist goal
they describe their own organization as
a quote social justice Union end quote
and have produced educational material
aimed in their own words at fostering a
climate of social justice in Ontario
this material is part of the social
justice begins with me initiative the
ETF o Elementary Teachers Federation of
Ontario claims furthermore that the
education system is a key means of
delivering messages around inclusion
diversity and welcoming environments
they have developed a curriculum of
children's literature aimed at
delivering precisely this message
thus bending art as ideologues always do
to the purposes of propaganda justified
by their belief that their ends justify
their means the social justice and
equity project encompasses all elements
of the curriculum including language
arts mathematics science and technology
and the arts even the very act of
reading is taught from a Neal Marxist
slash post modernist radical left
perspective as students are encouraged
after finishing a given book to identify
the power claims of the author and to
note which groups have been excluded
from consideration by that author
the Toronto District School Board for
its part has its own social justice
action plan committed as it is to
fairness equity human rights and
economic egalitarianism that is the
slogan of a political manifesto not a
proper statement for an Administrative
Board whose proper role is the local
governance of the education system no
matter the tdsp unabashedly announces
its progressive agenda with no
consideration whatsoever given to the
fact that indoctrination and education
exist at precise cross purposes to one
another their policies continue the TDSB
has a shared responsibility to
contribute to positive social change
both locally and globally learning about
and engaging in social justice issues
such as equity diversity abuse against
women poverty reduction and
environmentalism will make school more
relevant and meaningful for all students
it will also ensure as much as this can
be done by Fiat that students within the
system adopt the political stance deemed
appropriate by their administrators and
teachers now make no mistake about it I
know perfectly well that there is a need
for right and left wing viewpoints the
right has a proclivity towards
counterproductive stasis and sameness
and has to be balanced by the more
innovative thinking that is part and
parcel of the psychological processes
that also drive left-wing political
belief so my objection to the
indoctrination of children by the state
and city has nothing specifically to do
with the dislike of the opinions of
those who occupy what is after all half
of the political spectrum but the fact
that such views are a necessary part of
balanced public debate by no means
justifies transforming public education
into a system of indoctrination and that
is exactly what has happened it has to
stop it has to stop now many people have
already discussed with me their intent
to pull their children out of the public
education system
because of this transformation but that
is not the proper solution the system
belongs after all to the parents and
children who use it and it is not right
that any faction bends its function to
their own use so I'm going to recommend
something radical I have no idea how to
set the universities right in any simple
manner as some of you know I've started
working on an online humanities
university but that is a major project
unlikely to bear fruit until years in
the future the humanities as they stand
broadly speaking geography history
languages and literature gender studies
cultural studies as well as many of the
social and Applied Sciences anthropology
sociology Social Work as well as law and
the faculties of education most
specifically are occupied by radical
left neo-marxists who will stay in their
positions for decades into the future
the corruption that characterizes their
academic practices has spread widely
into the general culture political and
corporate as well as educational
although it is only the latter that
concerns us at the moment I think the
only real hope of forestalling further
deterioration of this sort that would
require for example large-scale exodus
from the public school system which i
think is inevitable if present trends
continue is for the users of such
systems school children and young adults
and their parents to put a stop to its
politicization we have now reviewed
evidence indicating widespread
ideological corruption at the level of
the professorial administration
University Department University and
higher education systems in general as
well as a refusal to admit to that
corruption and a proclivity to name-call
deride shame and protest when such
issues are brought to light such
corruption particularly although not
uniquely typifies the faculties of
education where those who teach your
children are in turn taught because of
this the public education system
become politicized and that
politicization is broadening and
deepening presenting social danger in
the form of the involuntary
indoctrination of children and
compromising the proper function of
public education itself which is the
creation of autonomous self-governing
free thinking individuals so I am
recommending the following concrete
actions affected and concerned families
should first discuss the issues and
formulate a plan
I think the following two books are
invaluable
one more approximately locally and one
more distally there's a book called
understanding post-modernism by Steven R
Hicks the whole book provides a good
introduction to the problem but the
first chapter in particular provides a
solid overview
I think the Gulag Archipelago
by Alexander Solzhenitsyn is also
required reading for many reasons not
the least of which is his masterful
analysis of the relationship between
radical left-wing thinking and the
absolute collapse into tyranny and
catastrophe that characterized all such
experiments in the course of the last
125 years more directly I think students
should with the backing of their parents
if possible leave their junior high and
high school classes if any of the
following topics arise this means they
should stand up note their objections to
the content
this sounds like indoctrination to me
rather than education so I'm leaving and
then leave perhaps they could encourage
a classmate / friend to videotape their
actions and post it on YouTube it
wouldn't take very many students
performing such an act to produce a very
powerful effect and it is certain that
many who won't have the courage to do so
will agree secretly that such action was
necessary here are the topics I regard
is indicative of indoctrination rather
than education diversity
inclusivity equity conveniently these
form the acronym die which is exactly
what the philosophy underpinning their
grouping and use should be encouraged to
do white privilege systemic racism
gender I'm not claiming that there is
nothing to be learned about such topics
or even that they shouldn't be discussed
what I am saying is if they are brought
up in an elementary junior high or high
school classroom the odds are very high
that the lesson to be learned will be
one driven by ideological /
propagandistic concerns rather than one
aimed at the inculcation of knowledge
wisdom or skill here are the words again
diversity inclusivity equity white
privilege systemic racism and gender
there will be mistakes made with such an
approach some who discuss issues such as
inclusivity and equity are going to be
more reasonable than others but that
does not change the fact that the
philosophy driving the pushing forward
of such topics is essentially
ideological and propagandistic so I
think such active resistance will get
the point across very effectively it is
too bad that it has come to this but in
my opinion it has think long and hard
about it my feeling is this if effective
action is not taken now to counteract
the politicization of the public school
curriculum the need for such action will
merely increase and it will take much
more to forestall the process later pick
your poison
good luck the best to you and your
family and Happy New Year