Juno News - U of T professor punished for encouraging debate

00:00:00.000 anyway it's a great game it forces you to confront your gut instincts about a particular issue and

00:00:06.720 then it forces you to engage with other people one of the questions that peter will ask participants

00:00:11.280 is okay what would it take to move you from agree to strongly agree or what would it take to move

00:00:17.360 you away from neutral and you end up having very spirited debates and discussions and it was a lot

00:00:23.040 of fun but in the university of 2024 this is just not the type of thing you can get away with as

00:00:29.840 learned by professor lee revers who's an associate professor at the institute of management and

00:00:34.960 innovation at the university of toronto mississauga was reprimanded by his department chair for daring

00:00:41.680 to do this with students uh lee it's good to talk to you thanks so much for coming on the show today

00:00:47.600 well thanks for having me it's great to be here so i mean what what what is the the the value in

00:00:53.680 this what is the pedagogical value of this that you were going for in the first place and then we'll

00:00:58.080 get into what happened yeah well because i really think university is a holistic experience you know

00:01:04.240 i think students should go and not just study their subject um but also learn how to think um so i'm on

00:01:11.120 a committee or i was i should say on a committee uh which sorts uh it prioritizes doing social events

00:01:17.440 for students so this was one of the events and we were all asked to come up with an activity and i

00:01:22.080 thought what peter bogosian was doing was terrific and i've played this game with colleagues and and

00:01:27.760 students in the past and it's a lot of fun as you pointed out with that brilliant clip there so we did

00:01:33.440 this um but of course it led to complaints i mean students feel uncomfortable i think you know there are

00:01:40.880 quite a few young people at the university now especially after the pandemic and i would

00:01:45.920 describe them as the young identitarians right so these are the people that you know they enter a

00:01:51.520 room and in this case if they find that there may be people in the room that don't hold the same

00:01:57.760 opinion uh that they hold uh then they make a fuss about it and and like to complain and that's

00:02:04.240 exactly what happened so quite disappointing really what were the the

00:02:09.200 oh i think we lost you but it appears you're back what statements did you use when you

00:02:21.840 set set this game up right well i thought you know i'd i'd look at the overton window and see

00:02:27.360 and that's just the window of like the discussion points that people are reasonably discussing and

00:02:33.440 started with something fairly simple such as uh vegetarians are morally uh superior to omnivores

00:02:42.560 right so uh what do you think to that and and a countdown and they move to the lines and so we

00:02:47.520 had some spirited discussion because some people you know think yes and others know um and we moved

00:02:53.200 on and of course it gets more interesting as it gets a little bit more political i was actually told

00:02:58.320 by colleagues don't get too political and by that i thought i'd avoid things like the trudeau carbon tax

00:03:03.920 that you were discussing earlier um but right um but we went on to things like um professor jordan peterson

00:03:12.000 requires media training um which i thought was topical um but according to my department chair that's

00:03:19.760 outside of the overton window that's not acceptable uh students aren't prepared they might have a manic

00:03:27.200 episode uh for instance uh by being challenged and feeling uncomfortable so you know and those were just

00:03:33.840 warm-up claims um so you can see how it might have uh got out of hand in that sense i mean what i

00:03:40.400 found to be honest with you were the students were really engaged uh when i started with the vegetarian

00:03:45.520 thing uh i had only a couple of students playing and by the end of this uh we had about 15 to 20

00:03:51.840 people playing it was not enough room on the lines uh for you know because people actually enjoy doing

00:03:56.880 this well and they were they were active in it too like one of the examples you gave here western

00:04:02.240 science is hampered by a political bias you had a student who identified as muslim and a woman of

00:04:07.680 color who stood in the strongly agree line and explained uh things that i disagree with and that

00:04:12.720 you disagreed with about science but but she was clearly selling her position on this which is that 0.64

00:04:17.760 the point of it so i'm curious where the complaints came from did students not like that they were being

00:04:23.840 forced to expose their beliefs or did they not like that certain questions were being put up as being

00:04:29.600 debatable i i think a bit of both i think students who don't want to express an opinion on any

00:04:36.240 particular claim because they haven't seen the claims at the beginning um so they stay on the

00:04:41.120 neutral line and i think that's reasonable uh you know you don't have to express an opinion or you can

00:04:45.680 stop playing at any point um but i think some people just don't like the idea that there are disputes uh i

00:04:52.800 i mean once i got to men can become women uh you know i think which i think is a very reasonable

00:04:59.520 discussion topic that's now everywhere on the internet and in the media um i think some folks

00:05:06.640 think that isn't up for discussion at all there is no dispute um but i find that hard to believe

00:05:12.800 because i keep hearing uh from both sides on that so there are two sides to that discussion there are

00:05:18.800 different opinions and differing ideas and uh so my job was simply to be as neutral as possible and

00:05:24.400 not express my own uh beliefs at all and and that was one that your chair very clearly said should

00:05:32.400 never have happened that question never should have been put out there yeah that's right i mean if i

00:05:37.200 wanted to do that i can do it on the university property on the campus but i would need to um

00:05:45.440 kind of flag that up first so that people could be suitably prepared now now my view first of all

00:05:52.080 the game is no fun if you you know what the claims are going to be part of the fun is yeah but it relies

00:05:56.960 on that gut instinct of just immediately stand on because and i'll say just for my own part when i

00:06:02.480 played it some of my answers surprised me which you may think is kind of silly because you're the one

00:06:07.200 that's choosing it but when you when you don't think about something when you just are drawn to a mat it

00:06:12.320 actually is a very useful self-exploration tool i think absolutely it is i i find the same uh which

00:06:19.360 is why i like hosting just to see how people respond themselves and uh you know even people i'm inclined

00:06:25.600 to agree with but i don't express that when i ask them why do you stand there and tell me why you're

00:06:30.400 standing on that line they have to think quite hard because of course they weren't expecting uh the

00:06:36.240 follow-up uh in that sense i mean they have to think and that is the whole point of doing this

00:06:42.080 right um think about the claims um take a position and then try to back up uh your stance uh preferably

00:06:50.480 with evidence i mean a lot of people say well i just feel um i don't think that commands a lot of

00:06:57.120 of sway you know from the audience necessarily i think obviously and we want students to be better at

00:07:02.080 this right because in life uh you know later on there's going to be the opportunity to debate

00:07:07.440 these things whether it's around a dinner table or maybe it's at work um and if they haven't

00:07:12.640 really been governed by the skills they haven't acquired the skills uh university then why are we

00:07:18.240 here um so so for me anyway i mean i teach chemistry normally so this is not something that i would do in

00:07:24.160 a chemistry class um but we're hearing a lot about this at the university as you know i mean i've been

00:07:29.840 asked to decolonize my chemistry and i'm working towards possibly a way of doing that but that

00:07:35.040 could be quite tricky um so my view is we need to let students make up their own minds and provide an

00:07:42.400 environment where they can actually have fun doing this and to reassure them that they can take any

00:07:47.520 position they want one of the the challenges that that i have always wondered about here and and i

00:07:53.440 don't know if you have any insights on this or not do you believe that your department chair

00:07:57.360 is a true believer in what was being meted out to you or do you think that there is just that

00:08:03.840 governance of fear and the governance by the administrators that are forcing people that

00:08:09.680 don't really think all of what you did was unreasonable to kind of pretend it was unreasonable

00:08:16.640 yeah i think i think amongst colleagues that they fall into two camps i mean i'm in stem so i think

00:08:23.040 the inherent bias in stem is this is all rather silly and a bunch of nonsense let's concentrate on

00:08:29.120 doing some science um i think i think that's very clear but i think people are afraid to express that

00:08:34.560 opinion and then there are some uh who seem to be uh the ones that get promoted to positions of

00:08:43.120 you know power and influence at the university and the administration who who really uh have drunk the

00:08:48.960 kool-aid actually um i i find it surprising uh they're usually not the hard scientists uh i would

00:08:56.080 say um you know we all believe in the enlightenment and the idea that you back up all your ideas with

00:09:02.640 evidence and i'm a progressive but i would call myself a rational progressive um but there are some

00:09:09.840 colleagues here i think they really do believe this uh that they they hook line and sinker actually

00:09:15.680 um so i think those are the ones that will be promoted to chairships to to to be deans and

00:09:22.320 ultimately to be presidents and principals of the university and i think we've seen that i mean we only

00:09:27.840 have to look to claudine gay uh and across the border to see that that has in fact proven true and i

00:09:33.600 don't think canada is immune at all so and u of t is the top university in terms of science right so

00:09:40.240 that's what we're going to do even here and one of the things i mean obviously it's a social event

00:09:45.040 and it's light-hearted and i think you fused academia with a game and with something social

00:09:50.640 pretty well i i was reading your national post op-ed about this which i would encourage everyone

00:09:56.080 tuned in to do as well and if you take away your contribution to this i i want to read your paragraph

00:10:02.080 about what was left there were jigsaws arranged on arrayed on one table a professor playing a variant

00:10:07.920 of snap with students at another and on a third no word of a lie were coloring sheets and crayons

00:10:13.760 aliens arriving from vega would be forgiven for mischaracterizing the event as a daycare

00:10:19.200 for human 20-something so uh you can't have any game that is more intellectually provocative than

00:10:27.200 coloring or a card game with university students in 2024 is basically what i take away from this

00:10:34.080 well when i walked into that room i mean i'd made some preparations to have a big tv screen and you know

00:10:39.920 pa system and all of this set up i couldn't believe my eyes right i mean i saw a table and i genuinely

00:10:46.720 thought what why are the crayons on that table this must be for this must be for the the you know

00:10:53.360 something else uh preceding event yeah we're doing the day camp early this year exactly which we do at

00:10:59.360 the university in the summer um and so i i just couldn't understand this at all i mean this is not

00:11:06.320 what university is about i mean these people these young people who i care a great deal about i mean

00:11:13.680 they can vote right so these these are these they're the age of majority and they'll be making

00:11:19.600 decisions about the future of canada will they not so uh yeah i find it shocking genuinely shocking

00:11:25.440 quite upsetting really that that was even countenanced as an alternative activity my feeling is

00:11:32.000 what i did was the only adult activity going on in the room um and actually i think uh you know people

00:11:38.560 voted with their feet when they came to play i mean not my fault that some people don't like the claims

00:11:44.160 um but they can absent themselves you know but i was i was told the chair told me this was transphobia

00:11:50.880 essentially um the the the you know she didn't say that i i i should clarify um that the complaints

00:11:58.560 indicated that it was transphobic uh for example to say um safeguarding of children is more important

00:12:06.720 than gender ideology excuse me wow you've got you've got a cameo a cameo on the screen now well welcome

00:12:14.000 uh i mean so basically though i mean your cat actually provides a natural segue here because

00:12:19.920 essentially the only things you'd be allowed to do uh would be you know cats are better than dogs agree

00:12:25.760 or disagree yeah exactly cats are better than dogs would be a perfect claim but it's not terribly

00:12:32.880 exciting is it it doesn't require great it comes down to personal choice very subjective i like cats

00:12:38.800 other people like dogs great um there's not a lot of engagement to be had there and i think you know

00:12:43.840 my favorite of course which is my chair's favorite is why not stick to uh pineapple belongs on pizza 0.67

00:12:51.360 and i know that was literally the example they gave of you could do this but only if this is your

00:12:56.400 this is your question or your claim yeah yeah otherwise get it run past some politically uh you

00:13:02.160 know sort of sensitive group that you know that that would kind of decide you know somebody is making

00:13:07.600 these decisions uh i thought i had academic freedom in fact according to my uh union which is uh

00:13:15.360 university of toronto faculty association according to them i am supposed to have academic freedom not

00:13:21.040 just in the teaching i do in a classroom but but also in all the activities that i engage on the campus

00:13:26.880 with students so that would include this and you know i didn't get to the end of the session because a

00:13:32.800 colleague actually told me to stop and uh they just thought it was getting really really too much

00:13:38.560 and that's a shame because i had some other claims i was quite excited to to present and i didn't get to

00:13:44.240 to show those um but yeah i i i think this is problematic uh for any serious university uh there is an

00:13:53.920 organization um at the university now a working group that's uh all about uh encouraging civil discourse

00:14:01.120 on the campus so i think they really want to uh to try to turn the boat around a little bit so i'm

00:14:06.880 very hopeful but it it's definitely something i think stem we and stem are concerned about all

00:14:14.240 right well worst case scenario you'll have to team up with uh peter bogosian and start doing it just

00:14:18.560 outside of the university perimeter and maybe you'll avoid the the sanctions then all right well

00:14:24.000 fascinating display i'm sorry you went through this but i'm glad you're speaking out about it the way

00:14:27.840 you are professor lee revers thank you thank you very much thanks for listening to the andrew lawton

00:14:33.840 show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - March 25, 2024

U of T professor punished for encouraging debate

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