Full Comment - Lindsay Shepherd on the battle against campus cancel culture

00:00:00.000 Our guest today has a fascinating story to tell, one of how she went from being an unknown

00:00:07.840 graduate student at an Ontario university to the viral subject of international controversy,

00:00:13.640 all for playing a five-minute clip from a mainstream Canadian news program during a

00:00:18.020 class discussion. It's the story of academia gone wild, of one woman's refusal to be pushed

00:00:23.560 around by it. It's the story of Lindsay Shepard, author of the new book, Diversity and Exclusion,

00:00:28.740 Confronting the Campus Free Speech Crisis. Hey, Lindsay, welcome to the show.

00:00:33.900 Yeah, thanks for having me.

00:00:35.020 Yeah, thanks for stopping by. Congratulations on the book and looking forward to having this

00:00:39.140 conversation with you about all of these issues. And I want to start, I want to go back to the

00:00:42.900 beginning and talk about before this big event happened to you that really changed everything.

00:00:48.520 Tell us, you were at Wilfrid Laurier University, you were a grad student. What were you studying?

00:00:52.640 Um, I was doing my MA in cultural analysis and social theory.

00:00:59.300 What is that?

00:01:00.260 Um, so yeah, when people ask what that is, I generally just say it's, it's like the worship

00:01:07.940 of Michel Foucault. There's not much else to it. Um, I thought when I was enrolling in the program,

00:01:13.420 that this would be a very philosophical program. Um, you know, it would be a combination of sociology,

00:01:19.420 um, philosophy, maybe some political science, but it ended up just being these, these obscure

00:01:25.800 theories, not that Michel Foucault is obscure because he's the most cited scholar in the

00:01:30.560 humanities. Um, but just this, it was the study of postmodernism and just these, these theories

00:01:36.980 that seem to me very unsubstantive. And what does this mean? The worship of Michel Foucault? I mean,

00:01:44.460 just take us back to basics. What, what are the issues that are being discussed? What are the sort of,

00:01:48.360 uh, foundational ideas and so forth?

00:01:50.480 Um, I mean, to be honest, there's not much to it. Uh, it's a very, it was a very easy grad

00:01:58.920 program. Um, all you had to do in your papers was cite the right scholars. So, you know, Foucault,

00:02:05.100 he's, he's someone who says, who theorizes about power, um, and about this, this thing called

00:02:11.280 biopolitics. It's honestly, it's not worth getting into because it's just so unimportant.

00:02:16.720 Mm-hmm. So what did you think you were getting into when you enrolled in this master's then?

00:02:21.140 I, I mean, I thought it would be the study of societies and the world and, um, getting into

00:02:28.540 the pressing issues of the day and just talking more philosophically about, about society and life.

00:02:37.080 Um, but it ended up being these, just the, the celebration of theorists from the, you know,

00:02:44.760 60s, 70s, 80s, uh, as well as Marx. I shouldn't leave out Marx. So really, I should say just to

00:02:51.700 summarize the gist of my program was, um, colonialism was bad. Patriarchy is bad and Marx is good and Foucault

00:03:00.560 is good. That's all you needed to excel in the program was that.

00:03:03.720 And Lindsay, when you decided to enroll in the program, what was your initial thinking? Like,

00:03:08.740 I guess you weren't prepared for what it became. Were you going into this because, um, you wanted

00:03:14.060 to enter academia and, uh, you know, as a professor going to your PhD, did you think that this was a

00:03:18.460 pathway for some sort of employment? I mean, what, what was the plan?

00:03:22.700 Yeah. So I, I'm a big fan of academia. I think it's a great institution. And I, I just wanted to go to

00:03:31.700 grad school because I loved learning and I loved reading and writing. And I didn't really go in,

00:03:38.440 I didn't enter academia for careerist reasons. I, I wasn't thinking, oh, an MA is going to really look

00:03:43.320 good on my resume. I didn't care about that. I just, I just wanted to learn more. Um, that,

00:03:48.920 that was my primary reason. I did think, you know, academia could be in the future for me,

00:03:53.300 you know, pursuing a PhD and then applying for, for jobs, uh, within the university. But, uh,

00:04:01.600 yeah, I, I, that wasn't my primary motivation, I would say, but I, I did think, you know, I think

00:04:06.860 I'm the right kind of person to go into this field because I saw myself as someone who's just open to

00:04:13.240 discussion, open to learning new things. Uh, I didn't have any kind of heavy ideological agenda.

00:04:18.680 And so I saw myself as someone who, who would do well in academia. Of course, I learned that

00:04:23.560 my, I was wrong on that front, but.

00:04:27.180 Were you politically minded when you entered this program and in any degree on the spectrum?

00:04:33.840 Um, I defined myself as a leftist at the time, but looking back, I would say I was a default leftist.

00:04:42.040 So, you know, that, that was just the default of, you know, you could say people my age, um, you know,

00:04:48.460 being right wing would be highly undesirable. So no one defined themselves as that, uh, as young

00:04:54.920 people.

00:04:56.060 And Lindsay, tell us what was the Wilfrid Laurier campus experience like? What, what, what was it

00:04:59.800 like to be a student on campus there?

00:05:01.640 When I first got to the university, uh, I was really excited because I saw Wilfrid Laurier as,

00:05:07.600 you know, maybe not the most highly ranked institution, but it seemed like an underdog

00:05:12.140 of a place. And I thought I, it would, you know, be a good experience for me. Um, but when I

00:05:18.840 first started doing the orientation sessions, you know, my first day on campus, I quickly realized

00:05:24.240 that my cohort in my master's program, cultural analysis and social theory, um, they were very

00:05:31.800 consumed by identity issues. And it was kind of very surprising to me. I had entered graduate

00:05:41.540 school thinking, this is kind of where the collective of the most open minds comes and

00:05:47.400 they're, they're willing to talk about anything. They're willing to dive a little deeper into

00:05:51.600 the issues of the day. But what I met was just kind of people who were interested in, you

00:05:58.560 know, representations of, of queerness in the media, uh, representations of, of homosexuality

00:06:05.780 in the media, uh, representations of hijab in the media. So that kind of stuff.

00:06:11.160 Sorry. And you mean, that was what people were talking about sort of socially hanging out at

00:06:14.560 social events, or that was sort of the thrust of grad seminar conversations. Where was this,

00:06:18.940 uh, rising to the fore?

00:06:20.260 That was their research interests. So what they would ultimately end up writing their

00:06:26.600 papers on. Also fat phobia was another one representations of fatness in the media, that

00:06:31.120 kind of stuff. Um, as well as yes, seminar topics and, uh, and everyday discussion. So all of the

00:06:38.280 above.

00:06:38.540 Now, obviously people are going to take some very niche and specific interests in their doctoral

00:06:42.120 dissertations. And I think it should be expected that the topics you mentioned will crop up once

00:06:46.340 in a while. Are you saying that these were, uh, occasional interests or this was sort of the,

00:06:51.100 the meat and potatoes of what was going on there in the curriculum?

00:06:54.480 This was the meat and potatoes. So, I mean, I, I was in a small program. I think there was only 13

00:06:59.580 or 14 students. And when I first got to, you know, the orientation session for my first day

00:07:06.040 in that program, uh, yes, almost every single student introduced themselves as having those

00:07:12.720 research interests. And that's where I kind of got the first signifier that, you know, this,

00:07:18.440 this program wasn't going to be what I expected. The university experience, you know, the graduate

00:07:23.140 school experience wasn't going to be what I expected.

00:07:26.020 And were you the only one who did not share that approach?

00:07:29.880 Um, pretty much. Yeah. I mean, if it wasn't an identity issue, it was a colonialism issue or,

00:07:36.940 uh, something about Marx. So, I mean, the topics were very predictable.

00:07:41.000 And looking back, do you think, I guess you were a little taken aback by all of that,

00:07:45.580 but looking back now, do you think that you should have known what to expect? Or do you think that

00:07:50.860 one, a student would be within the right to show up with the perspective that you had and go,

00:07:55.340 well, what's actually going on here?

00:07:58.180 Yeah. So when I looked back at, at the program page for the program that I applied to,

00:08:03.500 I did, I did think to myself, you know, how could I miss this? You know, there,

00:08:07.740 there are certain keywords, uh, you know, like social justice or, you know, there are certain

00:08:12.980 words where you kind of know what the bent of the course is going to be or what the bent of the

00:08:18.760 program is going to be. Uh, but at the time I just wasn't familiar with that language. Uh, I wasn't,

00:08:24.700 I just wasn't attuned to that. So, uh, I, I wouldn't have known.

00:08:28.380 So looking back, do you think that, that you were wronged by this experience? I mean,

00:08:33.960 we're going to talk about some, some real particulars, uh, in a few minutes, or do you

00:08:38.220 think, Oh, I just shouldn't have done that. Um, Oh, I mean, I'm the first one to say that I don't

00:08:43.060 think that academic program should exist. I mean, that is my master's degree. I have a master's degree

00:08:48.680 in cultural analysis and social theory. I don't think it should exist. I don't think it contributes

00:08:53.060 anything. I don't think it has any substance, but you know, I think anyone who graduates from

00:08:58.160 that kind of program, and there are other ones too, like, you know, social justice studies,

00:09:03.080 um, the graduates will keep on, you know, maintaining the facade that they, they have this

00:09:10.020 really important degree and they're a very important person because they have a master's

00:09:13.880 degree in this. Um, but you know, I'm, I'm just honest about my experience that, uh, this

00:09:20.040 program shouldn't exist. And there, there are many, like I said, similar programs, anything with

00:09:24.180 the name social, with the word social justice in it. Um, some, some people say that it's often

00:09:30.640 things that end with studies that are the most, um, you know, intellectually lightweight, academically

00:09:35.940 lightweight, the least studious, the ones that are called studies are the ones where you're doing

00:09:39.860 the least amount of studying. Uh, let's get to that, that fateful day here. Let, let's tee this up

00:09:45.540 because there was a seminar session that changed everything for you. You played five minutes

00:09:52.040 of clips from a TVO program, TVO Ontario program called the agenda with Steve Pakin. Now for those

00:09:59.380 across the country, they'll probably know Steve Pakin as someone who's typically, or who has often

00:10:03.960 been the moderator of federal leadership debates in Ontario. He hosts sort of one of the flagship

00:10:08.620 discussion programs on, on the Ontario public broadcaster, uh, TVO. I mean, Lindsay, would you agree

00:10:14.880 that, you know, at the time of you playing this clip, TVO is pretty much the most sort of mainstream

00:10:19.640 program, uh, you can really get in terms of discussion in Ontario. Oh yeah. And I mean, I've

00:10:26.240 first learned about the program because I had seen it played by other professors in, in my previous

00:10:30.880 courses. Um, yeah. So you played five minutes in a seminar of a discussion of three different, uh,

00:10:38.840 individuals, guests who were, who were all relatively unknown at that point. Although one of them

00:10:43.220 is professor Jordan Peterson, who is very known now, of course, why did you play that clip? What

00:10:49.140 was happening in the assignment that you were given for that day that led you to say, this is something

00:10:54.240 that is relevant to this discussion? So when you're a graduate student, you generally also have

00:11:01.440 a TA ship, a teaching assistantship. And so I was the TA for communication studies 101. So a first year

00:11:09.260 communication course, uh, because that's what my undergrad degree was in. And, um, the way the

00:11:16.280 course was structured was every week there was a kind of topic related to writing skills and language

00:11:23.540 skills. So it could be, um, punctuation, it could be citation, uh, and there were two weeks on grammar.

00:11:31.540 And so I thought, okay, grammar, I'll, I'll go over the typical do's and don'ts. Uh, but I also want

00:11:40.240 to show how grammar could be a really interesting issue that we encounter in everyday life. And to do

00:11:49.820 this, I, I showed the clip that you mentioned from TVO and it was a discussion on pronouns. And actually

00:11:57.660 in, in the textbook for that course, pronouns was, you know, mentioned, you know, gender, gendered

00:12:02.640 pronouns was, uh, a subheading in the textbook. And I thought, this is so interesting because Dr.

00:12:09.580 Jordan Peterson, uh, as well as Dr. Nicholas Matt, who's a professor of transgender studies at the U of

00:12:15.720 T they're, they're talking about what is fundamentally a language issue and grammar issue, but it's on a panel

00:12:22.980 discussion show. And this is, you know, I think this will be really interesting and relevant for

00:12:28.540 my students. And so I brought in, uh, the clip. Well, let me play that clip because we have that

00:12:35.380 clip right here. Uh, at least part of what you played here's professor Jordan Peterson speaking

00:12:40.060 on the agenda. What is it you find offensive about this legislation? Well, fundamentally there were two

00:12:45.600 things that really bothered me, although there have been other things I've thought about since one was

00:12:49.440 that I was being asked as everyone is to use a certain set of words that I think are the

00:12:54.760 constructions of people who have a political ideology that I don't believe in and that I also

00:12:58.400 regard as, as dangerous. What are those words? Those are the made up words to re that, that people now

00:13:04.140 describe as, um, as gender neutral. And so to me, they're, they're, they're, they're an attempt to 0.56

00:13:11.880 control language and, and in a direction that isn't happening organically. It's not happening

00:13:17.060 naturally. People aren't picking up these words in the typical way that new words are picked up,

00:13:21.380 but by force and by fiat. And I would say by force because there's legislative power behind them.

00:13:26.720 And I don't like these made up words, ze and zur and that sort of thing. Okay. What about,

00:13:31.140 they're not all made up, quote unquote made up words. For example, they is one of them. Yeah,

00:13:35.640 but we speak to an individual as they. Right. But we can't dispense with the distinction between

00:13:39.700 singular and plural. I mean, I know that the advocates of that particular approach say that they has been

00:13:44.320 used forever as a singular, and that's actually not correct. It's used as a singular in very

00:13:48.900 exceptional circumstances. Like if your child wishes to bring a book to school, they're welcome

00:13:54.200 to do so. But that's just dramatically incorrect. Well, it is also, there's some debate about that

00:14:00.060 because it is, they is used like that sometimes, but it's never been used as a singular replacement

00:14:05.200 for he or she. And so it's not, it's not a tenable solution. And that's the best of the solution.

00:14:10.620 So Lindsay, that's part of the clip that you played for the class. What was the reaction

00:14:15.620 to hearing this clip? My students were very willing to talk about this and everyone in the room had,

00:14:23.440 you know, different things to add. So I think at the end of the day, by the way, no one was offended

00:14:29.260 by this. Well, at least not, not that I could see no one cried or ran out of the room or got mad.

00:14:35.820 It was just a very collegial discussion. We talked about how language evolves. You know,

00:14:41.960 some students made the point that we don't speak, we don't speak Shakespearean English anymore. So

00:14:46.920 what's the big deal if we add Xi and Xur? Some other students were more on Dr. Peterson's side. So

00:14:54.840 they, you know, they were against compelled speech. We talked about they and them in the singular,

00:15:03.760 singular. And we talked about situations where maybe you already use that, that term in the

00:15:09.500 singular, because maybe you don't know someone's gender. And so you don't refer to them as a he or

00:15:15.100 her, you say they. We talked about whether some other students, whether any students in the class

00:15:20.800 speak other languages, and whether those languages have gendered pronouns or not. And overall, it went

00:15:27.480 really well. I taught three blocks of classes, kind of going over the same, the same things. And I went

00:15:34.000 home just like any other night, thinking that the class went well. And Lindsay, just to be clear,

00:15:39.600 I mean, in no other clip, I know Jordan Peterson has a reputation that precedes him that is not

00:15:45.380 necessarily accurate about the things he said, but he really focuses his remarks and his position back

00:15:50.240 then. This clip that's now four years old, talking about how he doesn't want to say

00:15:54.240 Zer and Zay, and he will not be compelled to do it by any rules or laws. But I believe he has been

00:15:58.640 explicitly clear that, you know, if a person would like to be identified as he or she, you know,

00:16:03.800 regardless of maybe he thinks, well, perhaps that person is biologically different gender,

00:16:07.620 what have you, he believes it's important to respect those choices, and it's no sweat off your

00:16:11.020 back. So do that. I mean, he has no problem with any of that. He just doesn't like the Zer and

00:16:15.300 the Zay, the neutral pronouns. Am I correct in representing that?

00:16:18.280 That's what was in the clip. If you watch some other footage of Jordan Peterson, which

00:16:24.860 I did later when it became clear that I needed to know more about him, but he also does talk

00:16:29.940 about how your identity is not, you know, individually constructed. You know, other people are going

00:16:36.180 to perceive you a certain way. And so, you know, you can claim to say what you are, you can claim

00:16:44.860 something, but that doesn't mean that other people perceive you that way. He's also said that in some

00:16:49.900 of his YouTube videos.

00:16:51.280 Okay, but in the clips that you played in the classroom for class discussion, there was nothing

00:16:54.380 particularly, you know, incendiary in the rest of that interview that didn't get out there. So,

00:16:59.740 so you went home and you felt like, okay, we'd done this seminar, we'd had this interesting

00:17:03.700 discussion, some people for, some people against, and it was fairly polite and well-mannered.

00:17:08.720 And then you heard from your supervisor, from Nathan Rambucana. Tell us what happened.

00:17:16.240 Yeah. So about a week after that class, I, I get an email and it's from the supervising professor.

00:17:23.940 Yes. Nathan Rambucana. And he says that, uh, there have been some concerns about my class and he would

00:17:31.300 like to meet with me as well as with my, um, my MA coordinator. So the coordinator of my master's

00:17:38.920 program, as well as the, uh, diversity office bureaucrat. So that the gendered and sexual 1.00

00:17:44.600 violence officer, uh, from the university, those are the formal titles of that person.

00:17:50.520 Yeah. I mean, it's actually longer than that. It was the gendered and sexual violence

00:17:54.600 prevention coordinator, something like that. Um, but yeah, someone from the diversity office.

00:17:59.340 Um, and so I got this email and the meeting was, was to be the next day. So it was less

00:18:04.640 than 24 hours notice and they didn't say in the email what the problem was. They, they just

00:18:11.120 used the word concerns. There have been some concerns about the content of your class.

00:18:16.140 And so I thought to myself, um, this is so fishy that they won't just tell me what the problem

00:18:21.300 is, or they, they won't just try to talk to me, uh, more informally. You know, they, they

00:18:26.680 want to bring in all these people. This is just kind of suspicious. Like what have I

00:18:30.480 done? I mean, I knew it was, I gathered that it was related to the Jordan Peterson

00:18:35.000 clip because that's the only thing it could have been from the previous week. Um, so I,

00:18:42.160 I said to myself, I think I need a way to protect myself when I go into that meeting.

00:18:47.640 I think the best way to do that is to record it and not tell them that I'm recording just

00:18:53.480 in case anything goes really awry. And I consulted with my mom too, and she agreed that, um, I

00:19:00.180 should record it. And, uh, so that the next day, that's, uh, what I did. If we want to go

00:19:05.660 into that part, what happened at that meeting? What did they tell you?

00:19:08.580 So they told me that by playing that clip from, you know, the agenda of Steve Paikin,

00:19:16.220 I had targeted trans folks. I had created a toxic environment. I had violated the university's 1.00

00:19:25.060 sexual violence policy, uh, because I, I invalidated pronouns. I invalidated, you know,

00:19:31.300 personal pronoun use. Um, I, they also accused me of, of making arguments that were counter

00:19:38.480 to the Ontario human rights code and counter to bill C-16 itself. Um, you know, bill C-16

00:19:44.700 was part of the clip I showed because Jordan Peterson was arguing against it. It's, it's

00:19:50.000 now law. It's now in the, um, you know, gender expression is, I don't know, codified. Is that

00:19:56.960 the word? What did you say in response to all of that?

00:20:00.620 So I was really confused and baffled as to why this was happening because my impression was

00:20:06.560 still that the university is somewhere where we can talk about anything where, you know,

00:20:10.940 nothing is, is off the table. And, you know, ideally we don't have ideological, uh, goals

00:20:17.780 to meet here because we're just trying to seek the truth. We're just trying to look at different

00:20:22.660 perspectives and different research. And, you know, I didn't, thing is when I went into that

00:20:28.220 meeting, I didn't have any background in, um, works related to freedom of expression or,

00:20:36.240 you know, academic freedom. I, you know, I had never read On Liberty by John Stuart Mill. I hadn't

00:20:42.180 read Kindly Inquisitors by, by Jonathan Rauch. So I, I didn't know the argument. So all I was doing

00:20:48.940 was trying to express in that meeting that, why are you guys telling me that being neutral could,

00:20:57.380 because this was the problem was that I didn't disavow Jordan Peterson in the class. You know,

00:21:02.120 presumably it would have been fine for me to show that clip if I had disavowed Jordan Peterson,

00:21:07.620 but I didn't, I just didn't take any position because that's what I saw the role of an educator

00:21:13.460 as is you just, you, you don't try to force any views upon the students. Um, and what happened

00:21:21.980 in that meeting in terms of any threats that, that, that were made to you veiled or otherwise

00:21:28.160 about the repercussions that you would be facing for what you had done?

00:21:33.380 They were very vague. Um, so the basis of, of me being pulled into this meeting was that there were

00:21:39.800 anonymous complaints or one complaint about the class. And so I repeatedly asked during the meeting,

00:21:48.080 can I please see the complaint? You know, is it written somewhere? Can I please see it? Um,

00:21:53.080 they said, no, I said, can you tell me at least how many people complained? They said, no. And so this,

00:22:01.120 this was another red flag, right? I mean, when, when you're telling me there's, there's an anonymous

00:22:05.900 complaint against me, but you won't even let me see what was said. Uh, it's, it's just, I just don't

00:22:12.580 have any reason to believe that. Were any of these people who were in this meeting in the class, uh,

00:22:17.960 observing what you were teaching? No. How did they get word about what happened then? The class,

00:22:24.900 was the class recorded by anyone? Nope. Um, it's, it's still very unclear how, how this, these complaints,

00:22:34.760 uh, came to be. And I mean, I could jump ahead and say that the university eventually did apologize

00:22:41.500 and admit that there were no complaints. Um, and so it's, it's still, there's been no transparency about

00:22:51.020 how did this meeting even come to be then? The university said in their apology statement

00:22:56.740 that the meeting should have never happened. So, you know, was, I mean, what could have happened

00:23:03.520 is maybe some students were having a discussion about how they really enjoyed that class.

00:23:08.500 And then someone from the diversity office overheard and brought it to Nathan Rambucana. Like, I don't

00:23:13.640 know, maybe someone was praising the class, uh, and then someone overheard, like, it's just,

00:23:19.860 it's still a mystery four years later, you know? And your meeting, it became quite emotional for you

00:23:25.000 as something that ended up being played out on the national stage. Uh, you, you broke down in tears

00:23:30.360 during that meeting at one point. Yeah. Yeah. I think I, maybe a couple points during the meeting

00:23:36.360 where, yeah, I cry because I'm just so confused as to why they're trying to tell me, you know,

00:23:42.600 they're basically telling me my, my understanding of academia is wrong. And that as a TA and as a student,

00:23:49.300 my job is to enforce a viewpoint. Uh, and that viewpoint is that, you know, Jordan Peterson is

00:23:55.620 bad. He's a charlatan. And we, we always have, we never have to question pronouns. You know, 0.94

00:24:01.760 we don't do that. That's what they were trying to tell me. And I was just quite baffled. Um,

00:24:07.500 how did the meeting resolve? The meeting ended on the note of, we're going to bring this to the

00:24:16.020 higher ups. And from now on, we're going to sit in on some of your classes. You have to send all,

00:24:22.180 all your materials to us first, and we have to verify it. Uh, and you're not allowed to play

00:24:27.380 any more videos in the class. Now they didn't know that you were recording this meeting, of course.

00:24:33.300 And soon after you shared this audio tape, other people heard it. This became a news story,

00:24:39.400 a national news story, an international news story. Everyone was talking about it. Everyone

00:24:44.240 had an opinion about it. How did it go from being a small class? As you said, not a lot of people,

00:24:51.680 uh, in your master's program, a meeting with a few of you to suddenly catching like wildfire.

00:24:57.600 Once I left the meeting that I was in, I thought to myself, this is no longer just about me and my

00:25:08.880 class and these professors. I think this has now gone to the level of being a matter of public

00:25:15.260 interest. And I think people need to know what is happening in universities. Uh, you know, parents of,

00:25:21.900 of students who are in university need to know, taxpayers need to know,

00:25:25.700 other students need to know. And so I, I sought out reporters that, that might be willing to cover

00:25:33.560 this because like I said, I thought it just needed to be public. And so, uh, you know, basically right

00:25:41.240 after the meeting, I started looking up reporters and I emailed almost, I think every mainstream media

00:25:48.080 outlet pretty much. And the first person to reply to me was Christy Blatchford from the national post,

00:25:54.840 the now late Christy Blatchford. Um, and, and she called me the next morning. I told her, you know,

00:26:00.700 I, I have this recording. She listened to it and, uh, she, she released her story in November, 2017,

00:26:07.380 November 10th. I think it was. Did you expect the story would go as, as far and as wide as it did?

00:26:12.880 No. So after, after Christy Blatchford's column, I, I had this, you know, I thought to myself, okay,

00:26:21.780 like I did my part. I, I contributed because I let people know something that is happening.

00:26:27.520 I alerted them to a wider issue and now my work here is done. And, uh, at that point I thought,

00:26:34.020 you know, maybe I'll, I'll leave Wilfrid Laurier University. I wasn't quite sure, but all I knew was

00:26:38.500 that, okay, I have this, this one column out and I'm happy now. And I think I've done my part to

00:26:44.680 alert the public. Um, but then, you know, after that, it was, uh, there were some more columns and

00:26:52.280 articles coming out and it really did pick up. And when I corresponded with reporters, I would send

00:26:58.660 them their recording, um, because so that they could verify it. And at the, at that point,

00:27:05.260 you know, when the first article was out, I said to Christy Blatchford, you know, I'm not sure it was

00:27:11.180 legal for me to do that secret, to record that meeting. And so could you not mention that I did

00:27:17.180 that? And, and she obliged, but later I found out that it was legal for me to have that recording

00:27:25.240 because all you need is for one person in the room to know that a recording is happening. So that

00:27:29.960 one person was me and, um, global TV, I did a TV interview with them. And when I was watching the

00:27:38.620 broadcast later that night, I noticed that they included some of the, an excerpt of, of the audio.

00:27:45.380 And, you know, I, I'm not sure I ever gave permission for that. I honestly can't remember,

00:27:51.840 but it turned out to be a good thing because that's when the story really took off is when people

00:27:57.720 could hear it for themselves. I think at first I was protective of the recording being public

00:28:02.060 because, um, I cry in it and I just found that maybe kind of embarrassing. But I think that was

00:28:08.400 a key part of what really made it resonate with people because there were, uh, there, there were

00:28:13.400 people who were parents of university age students who thought what is going on in these institutions?

00:28:19.500 Uh, there were people who thought, yes, academia is, is, is really messed up right now. There were other

00:28:23.680 people who had major criticisms of you. There was a commentator on CBC who denounced you for your white

00:28:28.760 girl tears. Why did you make of this deluge of response? Yeah, it was super interesting because

00:28:35.540 I was someone who, you know, prior to all this, I had no social media. I was a very private person.

00:28:42.020 Um, and then all of a sudden, you know, everyone kind of had an opinion and everyone was,

00:28:48.360 was talking about this. So it was on, um, a CBC panel show, the Sunday one. And there was a

00:28:56.840 panelist, John Ibbotson, who, who called me a newsmaker of the year for 2017. It's just, you know,

00:29:03.000 for a news segment, it's not any kind of award. Right. And, um, there was a writer named Vicky

00:29:10.220 Mochama. I think at the time she might've been at the star. I can't remember. And she rolled her eyes

00:29:16.280 and kind of scoffed when he said this on air. And, um, she said that I was only getting attention

00:29:25.080 because of my white girl tears and that it's too bad that I was the one to bring this free speech

00:29:32.780 issue to light because I lean hard right in some of my choices. And so, I mean, I rewatched that clip

00:29:40.240 four times to ensure I heard everything correctly because first of all, she was dismissing me based

00:29:46.520 on my race. And she was also dismissing me based on her perception of, of where I lean politically,

00:29:53.840 which I would say is, is not really accurate. But what, you know, what does it mean to say that

00:29:59.320 what only leftists should be bringing up free speech issues? If, if you, if you're perceived to

00:30:05.380 be right-wing, then, you know, you should not be bringing up these issues. What does that even mean?

00:30:10.240 And, uh, but I mean, some, some other professors and, and media commentators repeated that as well.

00:30:17.000 The, the white woman tears thing. And Lindsay, what would you say this sort of the ratio of support

00:30:22.640 to opposition is that you receive from the general public and emails that you saw in news stories,

00:30:27.080 uh, that you saw in terms of people who were coming to your defense to those who, uh, like the CBC

00:30:32.780 commentator had a lot of criticisms to offer you. I think there was, it was probably,

00:30:39.060 if I had to guess maybe 80, 20, 80 support and 20 criticism in that initial, um, during the

00:30:47.980 controversy. I, I, I felt very supported, um, by, by the general public, by a lot of, of journalists.

00:30:56.000 And what about by, by the institution? I mean, what happened officially with this experience

00:31:02.740 as the story was becoming a national and an international news story? What happened after

00:31:08.540 you left that meeting with Rambucana and the others? What was sort of the next step?

00:31:14.300 Well, the thing is, I went to, I went public right away. So I don't really know how the university

00:31:22.320 would reacted had I not gone public right away. Uh, I don't know if they would have tried to

00:31:28.160 discipline me further, expel me, suspend me. Uh, you know, I think the response was,

00:31:36.500 it was really just defined by it being a public matter. And I think the university quickly realized

00:31:41.740 that they were, they really didn't look good and they had to do something about that. And so they,

00:31:52.040 they kind of, um, just left me alone, you know, bureaucracy wise, but did you go to class next

00:31:59.240 week? The week after? Yeah. Yeah, I did. And how was that? You were in the news, they were talking

00:32:05.800 about you on, on national television and there you were back to, I guess, both being the TA and the

00:32:10.900 class you were teaching and also sitting in on the seminars you were participating in. What was that

00:32:15.040 like? What was the response from others? So previously with, with my graduate school

00:32:21.120 colleagues, I think we had a cordial relationship. Um, you know, when, when everyone out went out for

00:32:26.920 coffee after class, I would join, uh, we'd, we'd discuss the class, all that. So I felt like I was

00:32:33.160 part of the cohort, but immediately after, um, the controversy became, you know, news and, and you

00:32:41.640 couldn't avoid it anymore and you couldn't ignore it. That's when the alienation started. And that's

00:32:48.500 when I just started being ignored. You know, I walk into the room, they all look down. Um, I mean,

00:32:55.620 there were more serious things too, that I, that I describe in the book that I can't really go into

00:33:00.080 here, but, um, it really was defined by alienation. And the thing is though, it didn't really hurt me

00:33:09.260 because I had that wide support and it was just interesting how, when I logged onto my computer,

00:33:15.080 I had this barrage of support. I had all these letters coming in that were congratulating me and

00:33:21.260 thanking me, um, people wanting to connect with me. And then I go to class and I'm just, you know,

00:33:29.720 kind of alone. And, and, um, it's, it was, yeah. How far away from graduation were you when this seminar

00:33:36.620 took place and when the meeting with Rampakana took place? So it was November, 2017. Um, the academic

00:33:44.820 year would end in April, 2018. And then in the summer, I would be writing my paper, which is just

00:33:52.440 an independent thing. You don't need to go to class. Uh, and that means graduation in, in October,

00:33:58.480 2018. So I, but in terms of class, yeah, five, six months. Did you finish going to class?

00:34:04.720 Yeah, I did. Um, so I had originally told Christy Blatchford and she wrote in her column that I was

00:34:13.460 about 70% sure I would be leaving the university. And at the time I, I was pretty set on that. And a

00:34:19.720 lot of people were urging me to leave as well, but I started to think about it and, you know, they,

00:34:28.020 the university would love it. If I left, it would make things so easy for them. Uh, there wouldn't be

00:34:32.760 any kind of direct pressure on them. No one would be seeing what's going on on the inside. And so I

00:34:38.560 thought I'll stay. And, you know, and then I actually, I started a free speech club in, in January,

00:34:45.540 2018, the Laurier Society for Open Inquiry. And because the university kept reiterating that, oh,

00:34:52.060 they, they are big supporters of free speech. And of course they allow free speech.

00:34:55.260 And so we created this club myself and some, some friends that I met along the way.

00:35:01.000 And we, we thought, okay, well you, you claim to support free speech so much. Well,

00:35:05.660 let's see. And, uh, I mean, that kind of stuff is, is in my book. It turned out that they in fact do

00:35:12.180 not support free expression and they tried to stifle it over and over again. Uh, well, you wrote a

00:35:18.780 column for McLean's magazine before class finished on March 22nd, 2018. Uh, the headline was why I

00:35:25.200 invited Faith Goldie to speak at Wilfrid Laurier University. Uh, Ms. Goldie was a very controversial 0.77

00:35:31.180 figure. People have a lot of different opinions on her and Laurier Society for Open Inquiry invited a

00:35:35.880 number of guests, uh, throughout that academic year to speak. And Faith was one of them. Uh, the talk

00:35:40.860 ended up being shut down by, I guess, people pulling the file arm and it was a very controversial

00:35:44.960 event and people were calling for the university to shut it down and so forth. What happened at that

00:35:49.240 experience? Yeah. So, I mean, the club had, had held quite a few events before that, but we did want

00:35:57.500 to hold a high profile event because, uh, you know, we just wanted our club to kind of get noticed. Um,

00:36:05.220 you know, to be frank, we didn't have much of a cashflow. We kind of needed some money coming in.

00:36:09.560 And so we thought, how can we attract these things? And we thought, and someone suggested

00:36:15.420 Faith Goldie and, you know, I was someone who was just unengaged in the culture wars for all

00:36:22.080 these years. Right. I, when I was an undergraduate student, I just kind of went to class, went to work

00:36:27.920 and, and for the most part, minded my own business. Like, I mean, I read the news and all that, but not

00:36:32.640 really related to free expression issues or culture war issues. And so when someone suggested

00:36:40.580 her, I kind of looked her up. I thought, oh yeah, controversial, but, um, yeah, sure. And

00:36:46.700 yeah, like you said, the event was shut down by fire alarm. Um, the university said that very

00:36:57.420 mysteriously there's, there's no security camera footage in the area where the fire alarm was

00:37:02.760 pulled. So we'll just never know what happened. Uh, of course, no one will ever be, be charged for

00:37:07.580 pulling the fire alarm or anything like that. Um, but you know, there, there were actually some more

00:37:12.960 egregious examples of the university censoring as well. That was just the most high profile because

00:37:18.720 there was such a large protest. That's what really makes the news, right? Is when there's,

00:37:23.060 when there's a huge protest against something, right? Um, but yeah, there, there were some other

00:37:27.900 examples as well. Uh, for example, we, we invited Francis Whittowson, who's a professor at Mount Royal

00:37:34.560 University and she's, you know, one of the most outspoken, you know, leading voices against

00:37:40.900 indigenization initiatives in universities because she sees them as stifling open inquiry, um, as

00:37:48.840 being, uh, not beneficial to indigenous students. Because if you keep pushing indigenous students 1.00

00:37:56.400 into indigenous studies, rather than just other programs, um, they're not benefiting as much from

00:38:03.060 their education. So these are the kinds of arguments that she makes. So you did the society for open

00:38:07.600 inquiry. You did the events with, with a number of guests, including Faith Goldie, Francis Whittowson,

00:38:12.380 and then you went and, and you completed your thesis, did you? And you handed it in, um, you know,

00:38:17.720 at the due time. And, and did you get the degree in October? I did. Yeah. And was it Professor

00:38:25.200 Rambucana who awarded you that degree? Who would have been your supervisor? Um, so Professor Rambucana

00:38:32.020 was, uh, only my TA supervisor. So I just kind of had, I had a thesis advisor. Um, he

00:38:42.180 described himself as someone who was ambiguous about the whole controversy. You know, it seemed

00:38:47.880 like he didn't really have a strong opinion. Uh, so he was my main supervisor. And then my second

00:38:54.320 reader for my, my, uh, major paper was David Haskell. And he was a supporter. He wrote a couple

00:39:01.800 columns, um, just talking about the Laurier controversy. So he became another voice in support

00:39:07.320 of free expression at the university. So it was nice to have him as my second reader.

00:39:10.280 Have you ever spoken to Professor Rambucana since then, since that meeting you had together that

00:39:15.780 you recorded? No. What would you say to him if you spoke to him now after all of this? Because

00:39:21.280 there's so much of course had happened based on you and him in that meeting. Yeah. I mean, so in some

00:39:28.820 sense, I, I understand that Rambucana and, and Herbert Pimlott, who is the other professor in the

00:39:37.940 meeting, um, it would be hard to, you know, it would be hard in some way to have what you said

00:39:45.520 suddenly in the media. And I understand that and I'm, I'm sympathetic to it. But the thing is,

00:39:51.620 is they went silent for the rest since then. I mean, they never commented publicly. They never said

00:39:59.380 anything. I mean, yeah, sure. There was the, the statement, the official apology from Rambucana,

00:40:04.640 but they, they shut down all of their social media. Uh, they actually left the campus for an

00:40:10.520 entire year. They, they were still paid their six figure salaries, but they, they were not on the

00:40:15.120 campus. They only returned once I had graduated. And I just thought to myself, you know, if, if I was

00:40:22.220 ever secretly recorded and remarks I made were made public, I would just feel like I need to defend

00:40:28.180 myself. I don't, I just can't really respect the decision to cower away and, and not explain yourself.

00:40:37.240 Um, especially when it's, when it's a matter related to, you know, universities and, and really

00:40:44.360 the philosophy of education in Canada.

00:40:48.460 Lindsay, before we go, what are the main takeaways of your experience now,

00:40:53.280 really four years later after that happened, 2017, that meeting with professor Rambucana,

00:40:59.880 what does this mean for today's students and have things gotten better? Have they gotten worse?

00:41:05.760 They've gotten worse, uh, or at least it's been stagnant and there's been no change.

00:41:11.860 Uh, there's still a problem with, with censorship and self-censorship. There's a study by a university

00:41:19.500 of London professor named Eric Kaufman that came out recently. And he found that a third of

00:41:25.760 conservative PhD students in the U S have been disciplined. And so, I mean, this is,

00:41:32.200 you know, I mean,

00:41:34.280 Discipline for, for speech related issues and for running afoul of political correctness rules.

00:41:39.520 That's right. That's right. And so we, and there are incidents popping up all the time. I mean,

00:41:45.340 uh, Barbara Kay wrote in the post-millennial a few months ago about a student at the university of

00:41:50.920 Manitoba who on his personal Facebook wrote, um, pro second amendment. So pro gun rights and pro life

00:41:58.520 posts. And apparently more than a dozen anonymous complaints came in over his personal Facebook posts.

00:42:06.780 And he was actually kicked out of the university. And now the matter is before the courts.

00:42:10.700 This, this was, I think in the 2019, 2020 academic year. So there's, these things are happening all

00:42:16.200 the time. You know, the leftist professors still like to pretend that it's not happening. Uh, they'll,

00:42:22.260 they'll keep going on and saying that, uh, there's no problem. And, uh, I also, you know,

00:42:29.120 one of the conclusions I come to in my book and that I expand upon is that these diversity offices

00:42:35.620 need to be shut down. You know, I had a diversity bureaucrat in the meeting with me and, you know,

00:42:42.460 I, I had never thought much of diversity offices before that. Um, I was pretty neutral about them,

00:42:48.320 but I, I know now that they are offices of the enforcement of ideological conformity. You know,

00:42:56.460 that you have to think that trans women are real women. You have to be pro choice. You have to believe 1.00

00:43:02.560 that Canada is a systemically racist country. If you don't believe those things, then, um,

00:43:08.380 they're going to either force you to believe them or you're going to get kicked out. You're going to

00:43:12.360 get in trouble. That, that is why those offices exist. And so I think maybe the first step to

00:43:18.560 bringing back a flourishing culture of free expression on universities is to get rid of those

00:43:23.380 offices. And I mean, you know, the ideology permeates in, in academic studies too, but hopefully

00:43:30.860 shutting down the offices could be an important first step. Lindsay, if you had to, would you go

00:43:35.980 through this whole experience again? Would you do anything differently? I would go through it again.

00:43:42.480 Yeah, no, I, it was really important for me to, to learn about these things because if I hadn't gone

00:43:48.720 through this controversy, yeah, I might be someone who, who does deny that there is a problem.

00:43:55.660 Uh, I might be someone who thinks, Oh, you had complaints made against you at the university.

00:44:01.780 Wow. You must be a bad person. But now I know that basically anyone who's anyone who's had a

00:44:07.620 complaint made against them. Uh, it's not a signifier that you're a bad person. It just means maybe

00:44:12.260 you're, you're a little more edgy. Um, so I think that I would have come to have the views that I

00:44:18.220 currently have, but the Laurier controversy accelerated that learning process for me. And for

00:44:24.880 that, I'm quite thankful in my book. I described, you know, graduation day and how my, my classmates,

00:44:32.380 they kind of came out with the same degree that I have. And, uh, what did they learn? I don't know.

00:44:39.140 I, I didn't feel like I learned much. So I, I think they feel the same way. They actually did

00:44:43.180 indicate that they felt the same way, um, at some points in the program, but at least I came out of

00:44:48.680 it, understanding a really important issue. And that is the issue of free expression. And now I

00:44:54.140 feel like I have a, a very just strong background and a strong understanding of these issues.

00:45:00.380 It's quite a story. And it was one that was on the front pages, dominating the debates. I remember,

00:45:04.480 uh, my own radio program, uh, talking about it with the panelists and so forth and going on other

00:45:09.260 shows. I mean, it was quite something hard to believe it was four years ago. We've covered a lot

00:45:13.160 of the terrain, but I know there's a lot more details of it, both about your particular

00:45:16.860 experience and the broader concerns with campus free speech, all in your new book,

00:45:21.040 Diversity and Exclusion, Confronting the Campus Free Speech Crisis, available online at Amazon.

00:45:26.560 Lindsay Shepard, thanks so much for joining us today. Great conversation.

00:45:29.880 Thanks.

00:45:30.660 Full Comment is a post-media podcast. I'm Anthony Fury. This episode was produced by Andre Pru with

00:45:36.220 theme music by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libin is the executive producer. He can subscribe to Full

00:45:41.200 Comment with Anthony Fury on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:45:46.080 You can help us by giving us a rating or review and by telling your friends about us. Thanks for listening.

Full Comment - May 10, 2021

Lindsay Shepherd on the battle against campus cancel culture

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