Deconstruction: The Lindsay Shepherd Affair
Episode Stats
Length
2 hours and 10 minutes
Words per Minute
176.72687
Summary
In this episode, Dr. Jordan Peterson sits down with two professors from Wilfrid Laurier University to discuss the Lindsay Shepard scandal and the role of the diversity and equity office at the university, as well as what they think of the administration's handling of the scandal and how it relates to the Trump travel ban. Dr. Peterson also speaks with Dr. Dave Haskell and Dr. Wilfred Laurier's Adria Joel about their experiences with the Shepard and Rambucana scandals, and why they believe the administration failed to provide a safe space for conservative professors and administrators to speak freely and freely without fear of retribution from the rest of the campus community. This episode is brought to you by Daily Wire Plus, a project of the Centre for Canadian Mental Health Studies at the University of Toronto, which focuses on the intersection of mental health and politics at U of T. in Toronto. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/sponsorships/Dailywireplus and enter the promo code: JORDANB.PETerson to receive $5 off your first purchase of $50 or more, and receive 10% off your entire purchase when you enter the offer ends on December 31st, 2019. Thanks to all the listeners who support these podcasts by pledging $5 or more! and a free copy of his new book, Jordan B. Peterson's Self-Authoring is available on amazon.ca/JordanB. Peterson s Self-Selfauthoring . . Dr. B. is a self-authoring book is available for purchase. Jordan Peterson's self-authored and self-development book to be available on Amazon Prime and Kindle in paperback, and also on Audible and Audible, and will be available in hardcover and paperback on the Apple App Store and Vimeo, too! and also at Audible. and Audible , and wherever else you get your copy of the book will also be available for best listening you can get a copy of this book on the book on my podcast. or your favourite podcast on the podcast? I hope you enjoy the book. Thank you for listening to this podcast, I am looking forward to hearing from me. Thank you so much, and I hope it helps spread the word about it. I am grateful for your support.
Transcript
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00:01:11.980
I'm here with a couple of professors from Wilfrid Laurier to talk about the Lindsay Shepard scandal,
00:01:32.360
and what happened with Professor Rambucana and Pimlot, and Administrator Adria Joel.
00:01:38.140
Adria, right? Adria Joel, who I think is the unsung, what would you call it, the unsung villain in this entire process,
00:01:45.680
because she seems to have escaped relatively unscathed, even though I think her role is more reprehensible than anyone else's.
00:01:52.080
Anyways, why don't you guys introduce yourself and talk about what you've been doing at Wilfrid Laurier,
00:01:56.940
and also just let everybody know why we're meeting.
00:02:00.120
Yeah, well, I'm Dave Haskell, and I'm a Profit Laurier. I'm in the Faculty of Liberal Arts.
00:02:11.400
Like, this didn't just happen with the Lindsay affair.
00:02:14.660
Like, well, to background, we support maximum freedom of expression,
00:02:18.460
and we've really found each other, along with a few other professors who feel the same way that we do,
00:02:25.260
that free expression and free inquiry is the core value of a university.
00:02:33.620
I'm in the business school, so my exposure to Faculty of Arts is minimal,
00:02:37.460
and I've been really sheltered from this professionally.
00:02:41.240
But watching what's happening in the U.S., watching what was happening to you at U of T,
00:02:47.960
And it was in January that our university leadership sent out an email
00:02:55.820
explaining to the faculty how to think about the Trump travel ban
00:03:00.600
and declaring its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusivity.
00:03:09.640
that they would see fit to pronounce on a political issue in another country.
00:03:15.840
I've got a Ph.D. I'm able to reach my own conclusions
00:03:23.980
I don't need my administration preaching to me about the right way to think
00:03:28.340
about an issue, a political issue particularly.
00:03:33.580
And what do you think they were thinking when they did that?
00:03:36.160
Because that sort of seems self-evident, right?
00:03:38.340
It's not the administration's role to dictate a political stance to the faculty.
00:03:47.600
It seemed like a manifestation of Trump derangement syndrome.
00:03:50.860
It seemed like just the same reaction that the Democrats in the U.S. were having,
00:03:55.380
that they lost to this horrible person and they couldn't understand why.
00:04:01.260
And here was yet another terrible thing that he was doing.
00:04:08.060
Well, I mean, even if, the funny thing is, even if you can make that case,
00:04:11.780
say personally and even socially, the idea that you could make that case
00:04:15.420
and then be university administration and then tell your faculty to think that way,
00:04:20.460
I mean, that's taking it in a whole different, that's taking it to a whole different level of presumptuousness.
00:04:27.500
Did that come from our administration or from the diversity and equity office?
00:04:31.120
No, from the administration, from the leadership, the university leadership over the CPAM.
00:04:35.200
I remember the, it's confusing because I remember we also got an email from the diversity and equity office
00:04:41.600
when Trump won and they said that they've created a safe space
00:04:47.360
and they were going to be open for extra hours in case anybody needed to go and find comfort.
00:04:52.720
Right, that happened a lot in the United States.
00:04:54.860
But you'd think at least the Americans have some justification for it, given that it's their country.
00:04:59.140
I mean, we need safe spaces because a conservative was elected in the United States,
00:05:02.860
not even in our country, it does seem to be a little bit on the absurd side.
00:05:07.220
Well, it's just to me, you know, they didn't send out an email when Justin Trudeau won.
00:05:11.360
And I have to imagine that there were some students who were offended,
00:05:15.300
like there's got to be conservative students at Laurier,
00:05:17.660
but it's very much a one-sided conversation when we talk about administration,
00:05:22.680
when we talk about the diversity and equity office.
00:05:24.740
They talk about diversity, but they really don't mean it
00:05:26.960
because they do not want those students who are ideologically diverse.
00:05:31.660
They talk about inclusion, but they purposely will exclude those students.
00:05:36.240
And an email like that is proof positive of that kind of exclusion.
00:05:41.480
Well, that was the thing that just got me hopping mad.
00:05:44.620
And I was emailing back and forth with a colleague at Queen's,
00:05:47.680
and we were talking about the importance of free speech,
00:05:51.940
And he sent me a link to a Star article that David had written.
00:05:56.960
This was now maybe a month later in February or March about this guest speaker.
00:06:10.460
So merely because she served as a defense lawyer for someone, she was pilloried.
00:06:14.920
Well, this was another, like, when people look at the Lindsay Shepard affair,
00:06:19.380
this is not an isolated case at Wilfrid Laurier.
00:06:22.980
This is something that is, it is a regular occurrence.
00:06:30.800
But whether it's students in my office saying, I can't speak,
00:06:35.080
whether it's my colleague sometimes saying to their students,
00:06:45.200
like when Daniel Robitaille came to speak at the Brantford campus of Wilfrid Laurier,
00:06:49.760
and some students agitated until she was forced not to do so.
00:06:59.820
And so Gmeshi was a CBC journalist who was accused of sexual assault
00:07:09.040
who was dragged viciously through the press, I would say,
00:07:19.460
and the defense lawyer had been invited to speak.
00:07:24.100
and she wasn't going to speak about the Gmeshi trial, in fact.
00:07:27.240
She was going to talk about what it's like to be a high power,
00:07:35.580
And I mean, that would have been really valuable for the criminology students.
00:07:39.100
But the students who were agitating against her,
00:07:42.960
really, with the support of several professors,
00:07:47.340
well, no, if she comes on, it will trigger students.
00:07:53.540
And so that was used as justification for the agitation.
00:08:07.420
first of all, that the way to aid people's mental health
00:08:21.960
which is precisely the opposite of what a clinician does
00:08:36.080
is you get them to voluntarily expose themselves
00:08:44.060
So not only is it advice that's being disseminated,
00:13:58.080
on the Ontario Human Rights Commission website,
01:39:01.000
knowledge is advanced why are we afraid of that why are we
01:39:05.560
afraid what's made made every university a great university
01:39:09.720
since because we're doubtful about the integrity of the institution like this this critique that whose claim is that our institution
01:39:18.160
our patriarchal institutions are fundamentally corrupt and oppressive is sufficiently what would you say makes people sufficiently guilty so they're perfectly willing to circumvent their adherence to policies to charter policies like that
01:39:33.860
i i just think that at some point you have to say this is why you were created
01:39:38.420
maybe we should get back to this and maybe i mean maybe there's a someone who is in the provincial parliament who's going to say i'm kind of upset that you've actually rejected the very founding charter
01:39:50.660
i i would yeah well there's no one in the current well in the current legislature that would do that
01:39:55.700
certainly not in the current government not by any not by not no chance at all okay
01:40:00.300
um we support our teachers in navigating complex and divisive issues with care and confidence
01:40:05.500
we are leaders in ensuring our students faculty and staff have the necessary supports and tools
01:40:11.920
to help those who've experienced marginalization and discrimination to engage fully
01:40:16.400
okay okay so now you see the reversal right right away here is and this happens every time now that a modern university virtually every time that a modern university comes out
01:40:24.840
with a statement in favor of free speech the next thing they do is is bring in this competing set of claims like the uh
01:40:32.500
to help those who have experienced marginalization and discrimination to engage fully
01:40:38.120
as soon as the word marginalization is in there then you know that that postmodern ethos is in has has what has has
01:40:45.300
has manifested itself within the within the confines of the document properly grounded academic debate at laurier occurs every day
01:40:53.740
and encourages critical thinking and civil discourse yeah ideas that one finds objectionable should be challenged and debated
01:41:01.180
the common good of society depends on the search for knowledge and its free expression
01:41:05.340
hey fair enough good statements free expression in academic university academic freedom at the university require accompanying
01:41:13.060
responsibilities and accountabilities to be met by members of the university community
01:41:18.500
well even that statement's not so bad i mean okay faculty members have responsibilities and they should be accountable
01:41:25.720
i think i think that university should be a civil place i think that it should be civil
01:41:30.500
yes right yes definitely and and i think that there should be tolerance but tolerance is very different
01:41:36.500
from an embrace and a complete embrace of what diversity is now defined as or equity is defined it tolerance means
01:41:43.700
i disagree but i'm going to let you speak anyway yes and that really is the goal of a university
01:41:48.480
uh so anyway yeah okay we we will continue to ensure that we are protected against protecting against and dealing
01:41:55.120
with hate and intolerance these have those have no place in civil society see that i'm not so sure about
01:42:02.000
that hate and intolerance have no place in civil society the problem with that is hate hate and
01:42:07.860
intolerance is not defined here that that is the problem and and the i keep hearing hate speech is not
01:42:14.520
free speech and then when i ask well what do you mean by hate speech yes that is the problem
01:42:19.020
well the other thing too is i'm actually allowed to hate you it's okay you might have done something
01:42:25.680
that makes me hate you but that but there are limits on what i can do as a consequence of that hate and
01:42:31.140
that is not so there's two problems right the first problem is this is a big one who defines hate that's
01:42:36.680
a major problem and the second is well you don't limit hate you can't limit hate any more than you can
01:42:42.840
limit anger or aggression but you can limit the manner in which people conduct themselves when they're
01:42:47.860
motivated by those emotions and let's be clear there is really a clear definition of hate when you look
01:42:53.740
at the criminal code under sections 318 and 319 it says you cannot advocate physical violence against
01:43:01.480
an identifiable group i am totally on board with that like let's let's be clear you can't say go and
01:43:09.180
hurt these people i got that but that's really clear where's that definite well i just want to see
01:43:16.560
well the issue there is something we discussed earlier is well then we can gerrymander the definition of
01:43:22.040
hurt right well i'm talking physical advocating physical violence right physical i throw that
01:43:28.340
physical in there because the criminal code also does i think it does it in such a way to say we can
01:43:32.940
harm what is harm again harm is long-term infliction of damage that compromises your ability to function
01:43:42.580
or your appearance right it's a pragmatic definition and it's grounded in common law so we actually have a
01:43:47.740
history of defining it so that's safe and let's not move away from these definitions because they're the thing
01:43:52.720
that allow us to have conversations that are uncomfortable but needed
01:43:57.340
okay good they uh these have no place in civil society let alone on a university campus they will
01:44:06.540
not be tolerated at laurier yes well we see we saw an example of that not being tolerated with the
01:44:13.500
lindsay shepard case i remain concerned by the way faculty staff and students involved in aspects of
01:44:19.180
this situation were targeted with such vitriol now now things are starting to get out of hand
01:44:24.360
i remain concerned by the way faculty staff and students involved in aspects of this situation
01:44:29.780
were targeted with what with such vitriol vitriol that's acid eh so um is she you think she's talking
01:44:35.960
about the tweets that lindsay has received then is that faculty staff and students so not just lindsay
01:44:42.220
but i just wonder is this does this apply to those who have been advocating free speech and and i i'm
01:44:50.140
i'm just i'm pointing it out there i mean all of us who have come out in favor of maximum free speech
01:44:55.220
have been subjected to a lot of vitriol uh both emails and and it's always anonymous emails it's always
01:45:02.980
from people who will not say who they are so but my point would be i and unless there was something
01:45:09.840
that simply said i am threatening your life i just i delete it that's what i do because this is what
01:45:16.820
happens i mean i wish people were civil but they're not there's no discussing hard issues without
01:45:22.200
conflict like that's just not happening the question is how you limit the conflict and you can't limit it
01:45:27.720
to none because then people can't have a conflict they can't solve a problem so what you do is you you
01:45:32.700
limit it well as we've limited quite successfully in our country to date right we use the definitions of
01:45:38.340
violence that have prevailed throughout the establishment of english common law and that
01:45:41.960
works just fine my concern about that paragraph is is that she's kowtowing let's say to concerns
01:45:50.660
about the way that the people who actually let's say perpetrated this event were um dealt with by
01:45:58.100
members of the general public so okay member members of the university community must be supported
01:46:04.640
to work and study in an environment free of discrimination and harassment that's a tougher
01:46:09.880
one and they have my commitment we will continue to make this a university priority yeah that's a
01:46:16.240
sentence that worries me in an environment free of discrimination and harassment and they have my
01:46:21.660
the problem is it's so difficult to distinguish that between real dispute you know i mean if you're
01:46:28.280
if you're committed to a line of argumentation you've staked your whole your whole life on it say
01:46:32.840
your your whole academic career and you're engaged in a dispute with someone else who holds a contrary
01:46:37.940
viewpoint there's going to be heat and sparks generated by that exchange there has to be
01:46:43.140
because otherwise you're not talking about anything of any importance yeah if we all agree we don't need
01:46:48.040
free speech i mean that's yes that's the standard that's the thing right but when i read this line
01:46:53.000
uh members of the university community must be supported to work and study in an environment free of
01:46:59.600
discrimination and harassment and and i just wonder how equally that idea has been applied at my university
01:47:09.500
so far because certainly we know that our president has sent out letters of support to the lgbtq community
01:47:17.660
which she was right to do if if they are feeling harassed i have no problem with that but at the same
01:47:24.180
time there are official bodies at our university the women's center uh and other bodies that are under the
01:47:30.700
auspices of the diversity and equity office if i'm correct that are petitioning to have uh there's a pro-life
01:47:37.380
group on campus and and they are petitioning to have them defunded and shut down right so so did deborah
01:47:44.260
mcclatchy send out a letter to all the people who are supporting lindsey shepherd to say well we're really sorry about all the
01:47:49.800
harassment this is my point you're receiving this is my point our president is aware that there's a group on campus
01:47:56.140
that are marginalized yeah these are the the pro-life students and i don't care what your position is pro-life
01:48:03.180
or or or pro-choice whatever your position is you bloody well have to admit that there's at least a debate
01:48:08.900
there is a debate but and the point i would make is here truly is a marginalized group of students
01:48:15.200
who have received no support from our university none and i know my president is aware because early
01:48:21.600
on in this controversy i said and another matter is that these students are being attacked or i'm sorry
01:48:28.640
i don't want to use hyperbolic language these students are being harassed and they are being harassed
01:48:33.720
because they're they're being threatened with having their funding removed by official bodies of the
01:48:39.220
university yeah well this the pro-life students are real canaries in the coal mine as far as i'm concerned
01:48:44.360
regardless of what you think about what they're doing they represent diversity it's ideological
01:48:50.080
diversity but we're not seeing any reception of these diverse students do they are they being
01:48:57.220
included in this diversity and inclusion no they're being excluded purposely by actual offices of my
01:49:04.220
university so i'm saying yeah that's that's standard practice i would say on campuses across the
01:49:09.640
country it's just uneven yeah it's uneven and i think that what what we need to see uh is just a
01:49:17.340
policy that applies to all students and not just those who smell right or are orthodox to the social
01:49:23.960
justice orthodox who are in the what would you call acceptable class of victims that's right okay it
01:49:30.020
bears repeating in the current context that laurier's support for our lesbian gay bi trans queer and two
01:49:35.580
spirited campus community and transgender people in particular is unwavering it isn't obvious that it
01:49:40.920
bears repeating in the current context because the issue here fundamentally is that lindsay shepard was
01:49:47.100
was subject to an administrative inquisition despite the fact that she was 100 innocent by the
01:49:54.080
university's own standards and so it doesn't bear repeating in the current context that laurier's support
01:50:00.120
for our lbgt2 lgbtqts campus community and and transgender people in particular is unwavering
01:50:08.960
it actually isn't about them it's not about them at all it's about the fact that she got pilloried for
01:50:14.480
doing something that she was actually right to do so i'm not happy with the fact that this paragraph
01:50:20.840
was inserted into here i think it's an indication of exactly the kind of administrative weakness that
01:50:27.420
allowed this sort of event to occur to begin with now this is the theme though right of the justice
01:50:33.000
warriors is that this is the victim group yeah they've repeated over and over that there's been
01:50:37.120
violence harassment vitriol everybody's picking up on that the union president said that was daily
01:50:43.160
occurrence the president's repeated she's issued a campus-wide email in response to the open letter
01:50:48.420
saying uh we're going to make this a safe campus uh she's repeating it here so the validation of their
01:50:54.240
narrative of victimization emerging from the lindsey shepard event without evidence we we we actually
01:51:00.140
sent an email to our faculty uh the union the union president and we said we're concerned about this
01:51:08.220
daily uh violence on campus could you please supply us with evidence of this and she wrote back and she
01:51:16.420
said uh what did she say well something as i'm telling everyone in the press no yeah because it would
01:51:23.480
inflate didn't she say because it would inflame the it would inflame the situation even further
01:51:28.600
yeah with something like that so how how in the world providing evidence that something like that
01:51:33.860
we're members of the union we are paying our fees just like everyone else and we just we wanted
01:51:40.380
substanti some some substantiation to these claims that there was violence as a daily occurrence the whole
01:51:47.760
premise is that there's injury happening and that's why we can't speak about these things
01:51:51.920
so if they can establish the violence then maybe we're sympathetic to the argument that the speech
01:51:56.720
shouldn't occur but but that's susceptible to bogus claims if there's no substantiation
01:52:02.280
you can't build policy that way yeah not without getting into the kind of trouble that's already emerged
01:52:09.120
in light of recent events we have added measures to improve campus safety well it is by no see that that
01:52:16.360
that that actually seems to me to be the one sentence in this article so far that's actually a mistake
01:52:23.400
because by going forward with um what practices that are going to improve campus safety then
01:52:32.580
the president is validating the claims of the people who claim that this occurrence produced an unsafe
01:52:40.360
environment on the campus it's like so i i i think that that was weak we will ensure that all students
01:52:49.180
staff and faculty know exactly what our commitment to academic freedom and freedom of expression means
01:52:53.800
in the classroom that would be good to us in that end we have established the task force on freedom
01:52:59.220
of expression to take input from our community which we should point out which won't include lindsay
01:53:05.080
shepherd yeah right because she asked to be part of that task force in fact i believe that they
01:53:09.800
offered it to her i'm not exactly sure about she was some some grad students nominated her and it was
01:53:15.460
prior to the revelation being made that it would be the position would be filled by the president of
01:53:21.140
the graduate students association who and i think this was poor form uh just before that announcement
01:53:29.160
was made the president of the graduate students association put out a statement where i i'm not
01:53:36.380
sure if it's a he or a she or i'm not sure of the the uh gender pronoun used but um that they were
01:53:43.080
standing 100 behind the trans and lgbtq yeah and they and that the fact that they were going to sit
01:53:49.900
on the on the task force would indicate that all students would be represented properly but it's just
01:53:54.940
they they showed this incredible uh bias and and then they said and we're going to be sitting on
01:54:01.600
this i just don't i don't know that that does a service to all the grad students who they represent
01:54:05.840
all right look at best practices beyond laurier hey they could look at chicago that'd be good
01:54:13.540
and develop a clear tangible and you never know maybe they will you never know and develop a clear
01:54:18.880
tangible set of practical implementable guidelines that will bring clarity to this issue for our own
01:54:23.680
classrooms and will have the potential to serve as best practices for others well that's exactly
01:54:27.840
what you guys are recommending that is my commitment to you well and it's not like the university of
01:54:32.740
chicago is a lightweight and it's not just the university of chicago over 30 universities many of
01:54:38.640
them ivy league have adopted right the chicago statements to great effect right right and so so this
01:54:43.600
is this is something that has worked yeah that is working yeah it's clearly something that should
01:54:49.440
happen in canada it would be a wonderful thing it would be a wonderful thing it would be it would
01:54:53.280
be a wonderful so it's not like we're trying to institute this policy that hasn't worked and that
01:54:58.880
hasn't been been accepted by really prominent universities in the u.s and it doesn't it doesn't
01:55:05.200
involve u.s uh law or legalese it is simply a statement of philosophy about what we want and which
01:55:12.960
is maximum free expression and free inquiry within the bounds of the law and i just think this task force
01:55:18.160
is going to be a disaster because the justice uh advocates aren't interested in free speech they
01:55:25.760
they want to forbid certain forms of speech and it's just a question of which topics and who's going
01:55:30.880
to control the well there might be enough public scrutiny like i don't think interest in wilfrid lorie
01:55:35.760
i'm sure that the president would be real happy if this went away but i think the probability that
01:55:40.800
it's going to go away is very low because i think wilfrid lorie is now being watched and being watched by
01:55:45.920
very many people to see what the genuine outcome of this will be and i think that even if it was
01:55:51.360
ignored by the mainstream media which it might be it's not going to be ignored by people on youtube
01:55:56.240
and the people who've been who've been generating content associated with lindsay shepard and the
01:56:01.440
the magnitude of that content online is absolutely overwhelming i don't know if the wilfrid lorie
01:56:06.320
administrators know because you know people older than 40 usually don't know much about online media
01:56:11.840
but the amount of commentary this has been generated this is generated on youtube is
01:56:16.960
absolutely beyond belief like it was a major scandal back to the task force though and will you've said
01:56:22.640
this in the past the freedom of expression proponents we already are the compromise position
01:56:28.400
because we are saying we want you to be able to articulate whatever position you have
01:56:34.000
we want you to be able like we are the compromise position we're not saying we want to shut down
01:56:39.280
anybody whatever your position is let's hear it that's that that is where we are so we're already
01:56:46.960
in that compromise position within the boundaries of the law within the boundaries of the law actions
01:56:51.040
of the and and out of respect for the university and its operations of course so so we're already
01:56:56.480
saying we want all these sides to be able to be heard i don't understand it's already a pro-diversity
01:57:01.920
of opinion it is it is and and so what i have to look at is many of the colleagues that i have who are
01:57:09.120
on the left and are hoping for restriction of free expression are really to a certain extent linguistic
01:57:16.400
imperialists that's exactly why i objected to bill c16 i said that i wasn't going to let the linguistic
01:57:23.680
imperialists take control over my voice the fact that it happened to be about transgender pronouns was
01:57:29.360
well that was just how that problem manifested itself at that period of time but that that what
01:57:34.960
did you call them linguistic imperialists that's exactly right and and these the the these ideal
01:57:40.480
ideologues on the radical left who are so good at neologisms are unbelievably good at grasping the
01:57:46.560
linguistic territory i mean the the the propagation of words like cisgendered is a perfect example of that
01:57:52.080
so yeah it's just i don't understand how they can be so against colonialism and imperialism and
01:57:59.360
then want to do that in in the sphere of language put in an authoritarian structure which can only be
01:58:06.160
abused well that's that's part of the weird see there's this weird marriage between post-modernism
01:58:13.040
and marxism right which makes no sense because you actually can't be a post-modernist and i guess you
01:58:18.160
can be a critical thinker and a marxist but you cannot be a post-modernist and a marxist at the
01:58:23.040
same time because the post-modernists hypothetically are critical of grand narratives right they don't
01:58:29.680
believe that they that they have any universal validity of course the problem with that is that
01:58:33.680
without a grand narrative you can't act but they sneak the marxism in through the back door and then
01:58:39.200
the justification i think is for these authoritarian impositions is that well it doesn't matter as long as
01:58:45.360
the right people are being hurt by them and the right people would be the people who are in
01:58:49.360
positions of power now who who have no justification for being in those positions of power right because
01:58:55.760
they don't a stable solution but you're making the assumption that what's being sought after is a
01:59:01.200
stable solution and i think that's i think that's a dangerous assumption because i think that the
01:59:07.040
university activists mean exactly what they say when they say that we should be flipping over the
01:59:13.280
patriarchy they've put no counter proposal forward throughout this right it's like they don't have
01:59:19.040
a solution uh they're not even talking about a list of forbidden topics and who's gonna adjudicate
01:59:26.880
it and what the appeals process that's always that's always done post-hoc that way you can keep the
01:59:31.440
level of fear the highest you can keep adding to the list as well yes definitely that would because
01:59:35.600
it's way better it's way better if you it's way better if you want to exercise power over people
01:59:40.720
to never let them be sure which policies they are violating and i think that what happened to
01:59:45.680
lindsay shepard is an excellent example of that so it's a it's a canonical example of that free it's
01:59:51.280
it's the uh orwellian idea freedom is the ability to say two plus two equals four and they want to
01:59:56.640
keep avoiding the ability to say two plus two is four by creating new answers and moving on you just
02:00:03.120
went through this whole process yes came up with a statement on free expression and goes on from
02:00:08.640
paragraphs and paragraphs and then the last nearly the last sentence is freedom of expression does
02:00:13.680
not trump all other rights in the university community freedom of expression can only thrive
02:00:20.480
constructively when accompanied by other rights including the equality rights of equity diversity
02:00:26.480
and inclusion there you go there you go that's right and so now you no longer have free expression
02:00:30.400
man that's the snake in the garden right there reading that yeah so there's there's this but how
02:00:34.720
i mean those those are so complicated there's individual rights and group rights there's
02:00:38.720
positive rights and negative rights and they're all in this salad with no guidance as to how you're
02:00:44.080
going to trade them off against each other it's it's like you say it just ad hoc uh as we go forward
02:00:49.520
we'll we'll yeah well it's so funny to produce an entire document talking about freedom of expression
02:00:54.400
and then to put a sentence like that in as a codicil it's and by the way also this it's like wait a second
02:00:59.840
it's not also this it's that little admixture of poison uh destroys the integrity of the entire
02:01:06.880
argument and and and to and to put all those words in there diversity okay what the hell do you mean
02:01:12.000
by that exactly inclusivity that's a word that really that's one i really have a trouble with
02:01:17.600
because it's very difficult to understand even what that means and equity equity is equality of outcome
02:01:23.760
and so that's an impossible goal to begin with because it multiplies in difficulty as you add
02:01:29.600
number of measurement dimensions right so and that's the intersectionality problem so to speak
02:01:35.520
so all right well well with the task force the interesting thing is will didn't want to sit on it
02:01:41.200
because having looked at what had happened i i suppose it was the experience at ubc that that well i just
02:01:48.320
saw big arguments happening with no no possibility of a constructive outcome and so but i was more
02:01:55.600
hopeful and i understand will's position completely right uh yes well it's easy as a faculty member to
02:02:01.840
get pulled into interminable administrative duties that have no positive outcome whatsoever in fact it's
02:02:07.200
pretty much par for the course well he makes the i mean your most compelling argument well two one look
02:02:12.800
what happened at ubc and two we're already the compromised position you mean what what more can
02:02:17.920
you want and and i get that but i i have let my name stand for nomination uh we'll see this week i
02:02:25.600
guess whether or not i i'll i don't know if i'll get voted well one of the things we should find out
02:02:31.520
and and publicize is whether any people who have a strong free speech orientation will end up on that task
02:02:37.280
force yeah i mean that that's a that's of absolutely critical importance well they'll certainly get
02:02:42.560
their work done quickly if no one from the free speech side is on it because they'll just say right
02:02:48.160
but maybe they'll have to create a list of their own about what can't be talked about
02:02:52.000
right who knows where that will go one one thing that strikes me though is just the disregard for
02:02:57.760
history uh people who uh are marginalized or would be considered in the marginalized group if we look at
02:03:05.040
how did they get the rights that they have today right how did that happen it was because of free
02:03:12.640
expression right actually the easy case to make for free speech is left-wing it's like powerful people
02:03:19.840
don't need their free speech protected they're powerful they're rich they can say whatever the
02:03:24.080
hell they want it's people who are precisely marginalized and oppressed who need all the protection of
02:03:29.520
the law of course they want to weight it against saying yes we want to have people without power to
02:03:34.640
have the freedom of expression but let's make this a quicker process by making sure those that have
02:03:38.960
power can't speak whoever those who have power is right well that's that's the issue not to
02:03:44.000
well you know you could say well wouldn't it be wonderful if those who had unfair power
02:03:47.920
weren't allowed to speak it's like well maybe it would be wonderful but who the hell is going to
02:03:52.080
decide who has power and who has unfair power like the devil's in the details there so the only fair
02:03:59.280
application of this principle is to let everybody have equal opportunity right not equal outcome by
02:04:05.600
the way well that's the free market solution right because you can't determine these by central fiat
02:04:11.360
because it's technically impossible which is actually something post-modernists should know because
02:04:15.760
that's actually one of the logical consequences of their philosophy right things are too complicated
02:04:20.160
to decide by fiat in some sense but all right is there anything else that you guys want to say
02:04:25.920
that that that you've observed as a consequence of this lindsay shepherd affair or that or that
02:04:31.520
you're hopeful about or pessimistic about what what what's the how do we solve this just the way
02:04:37.920
we're solving it this is the way to solve it is to is to have i think this is a textbook case of the
02:04:44.480
utility of free speech shepherd was able to make her case publicly there's been a huge debate about it
02:04:50.160
there's been some moves made on the part of the university that look positive we've got ample opportunity
02:04:55.200
everyone has ample opportunity to have their voice heard you know this video we're making tonight
02:04:59.200
will probably be watched by 150 000 people it's like and we had a perfectly reasonable discussion
02:05:04.960
you know i think we gave credit where credit was due with regards to this document and and are jointly
02:05:11.120
hopeful that something positive will come of it and made some pointed critiques about about what it
02:05:16.880
does contain and what it doesn't but we don't want to underestimate the utility of doing these things
02:05:21.840
it's useful and i think the fact that you guys have this little cabal of people at wilfrid laurier
02:05:26.480
who are willing to speak i was shocked when when you wrote that op-ed and when the toronto star
02:05:32.400
published it i mean nothing like that from an academic happened in relationship to me last year and
02:05:38.480
bill c16 we've seen such uniformity of outcry about this from all the newspapers globe star sun which
02:05:47.520
which which really just shows you the disconnect between what is happening in the academy and what
02:05:52.400
is right it's a disconnect of staggering magnitude people outside the academy say well how can you
02:05:58.000
believe that yeah what they've been saying is really this happened this actually happened that's the
02:06:04.720
universal response and and you know the response on the campuses is well yeah it happened it's and we
02:06:11.120
were right i have a solution i have a solution i mean it's not a solution but it's i don't i call it
02:06:18.160
an inoculant actually so yes let's get the laurier statement for freedom of expression at our university
02:06:24.480
and similar statements at all universities why the federal government is not tying funding to this i know
02:06:29.760
that the conservatives mentioned suggestion that i made to the conservatives well this is this is what
02:06:34.000
needs to happen but in addition to that i think that young people and and parents of young people
02:06:39.600
need to look at what's happening and they need to start educating their their kids at home and they
02:06:44.640
need to start and i've written several op-eds where i've said people ask me what is the solution i say
02:06:51.520
start watching the videos of jordan peterson start watching the videos uh there's a jonathan height
02:06:57.520
jonathan height you bet look into the heterodox academy they know what they're doing who who definitely
02:07:03.440
are scholars of repute the they they are moderate in the like incredibly civil uh there are also some
02:07:10.720
people outside of academia there's a um a fantastic youtuber uh my name is josephine she's a canadian
02:07:17.600
political science student who is at u of t moderate really well spoken articulating classical liberal ideas
02:07:25.200
my name is josephine okay yeah okay i'll have to remember her so another she's actually been at the
02:07:29.920
reason that i know she knows you she was at one of your rallies i saw it in a video there she is in
02:07:34.000
the background um there another uh young lady uh sorry woman who is her name is roaming millennial
02:07:41.280
yeah i know roaming millennial i've been on her show oh yeah yeah yeah you bet you bet yeah and she's a
02:07:46.960
tough cookie that girl you bet and i would say start watching these people yeah yeah well the young
02:07:52.480
people are watching them in droves you know she has a big following roaming millennial and i'm grateful for
02:07:56.880
that because in fact when these students go into the university classroom if they choose to go into
02:08:01.440
the arts or the humanities they're going to go in with knowledge where they can i realize it's tough
02:08:06.800
to challenge a professor but start a facebook group and say hey did you know that there are other ideas
02:08:12.560
too do you know that there's an opposite side to this debate well we should all we could also encourage
02:08:17.600
parents who might be listening or or students thinking about going to university who might be listening
02:08:22.240
to this is that check to see where the university stands on free speech and if they dampen down their
02:08:27.600
support for free speech and free inquiry with statements about diversity inclusivity and equity
02:08:33.440
then go somewhere else it's a worry another uh thing and this is just beginning in canada uh there we
02:08:40.160
have a society for academic freedom and scholarship that professors can join if if a sorry if a professor
02:08:46.800
has joined the society for academic freedom and scholarship you can be pretty sure they are going
02:08:52.080
to be wanting to give you both sides of the story so that's not a bad check either yeah yeah where do
02:08:57.760
they have to do their research though the students to due diligence well that's good it'll educate them
02:09:03.200
right i mean lindsey shepherd definitely got educated over the last two months they should just give
02:09:07.600
her the degree yeah yeah no kidding no kidding she's got her phd thesis in communication pretty
02:09:13.600
well demonstrated there's an auto ethnography for you yeah i caused an international scandal by just
02:09:20.400
revealing what had actually happened yeah all right all right good my pleasure thank you guys for coming
02:09:26.960
and also for it's not common for faculty members well to talk to me first of all like this certainly not
02:09:34.240
on record and it's certainly not common for them to be writing and speaking openly about such issues so
02:09:39.280
i don't know what the hell got into you guys it's really good that's happening at wilfrid laurier too
02:09:44.800
we realize we're finished now by being associated with you yeah yeah yeah i i said uh well it's good
02:09:50.480
good of you to offer yourself on the sacrificial altar i you've got to look your kids in the eye
02:09:55.680
eventually yeah and uh how are you going to say that you need to stand up for truth
02:10:01.120
truth if you actually don't stand up for truth that is a problem yeah yeah all right guys