Jordan Peterson is bad news!

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Except students did complain, and anyone who questions that can read it in the Macleans article posted at #133.

That same Maclean's article adds:

"Update: On December 18 Wilfrid Laurier President Deborah MacLatchy released a statement admitting no complaint—formal or informal—was ever received and that the meeting with Shepherd should never have taken place."

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And while it is his choice, it is telling that the one person he is not naming is the one who made all this information public.

She didn't defame him.

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So regardless of what the university claimed, those supervisors actually had a very good reason for talking to her about not being careful how she presented material to first year students.

If they'd been able to keep themselves to that, they wouldn't be facing a lawsuit.  I think that three senior professionals should have been able to do that without trying to make Shepherd concede that Peterson is a Bad, Bad Man, comparable to Hitler and white supremacists.  But maybe a court will call that fair comment.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

See that's the thing Peterson might not be anticipating - that this will compel them to back up their comments by pointing out claims he has made which are false, or made without academic evidence.

As for using the Hitler example as material that would be appropriate to show to a first year class unprepared, it is a bit of a stretch to go from that to claiming they said Jordan Peterson is like Hitler. They didn't. 

Unlike this direct comparison to Mao's authoritarian repression :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DuQbXrSRvg

And they didn't try to make her say anything about Peterson. The conversation was about what material was appropriate for a first year class.

Though it does kind of turn his free speech claims on their head, since his suit is about an allegation of defamation.

 

And it's fairly easy to show that Peterson is essentially arguing that non-binary people support Stalinism, which is far more defamatory than any comparison to the Lobster Prophet himself and Hitler.

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Have you noticed these "free speech warriors" like Peterson, Sheppard and Trump scream for the right to call people whatever they want, but sue when others do it? Cowards

As noted in the post literally right above yours, defamation is between individuals.

And that's good news for you.  Otherwise you'd have been defaming "Liberals" about 3 times per day for the last few years.

And I know in your heart you wish there was absolutely no reason for those supervisors to talk to the teacher.

But in fact we have someone saying that following the video the biggest response was for some students to make fun of trans people. So whatever the university administration wants to say, it seems to me they had very good reason to talk to her about presenting material to students in an appropriate way, and to be aware if that material had any basis in academic standards.

But be honest now, have you never heard of a head of government or an institution not telling the whole truth, sometimes to sweep it under the rug? Or perhaps to avoid a  lawsuit? As the first editorial I posted says, some believe that is what happened here.

The university might be technically telling the truth in saying there was no formal or informal complaint received by them . But clearly that was not the whole truth. Adding the update of her comments does not erase the other comments unless the update says that they were false.

In answer to your question of how she could say that when in fact there has been a complaint (which there has).  And if there is one thing good that may come out of these lawsuits, it is that we may actually hear the details behind those complaints.

Watch this interview, in particular around the 2:30 minute mark, when Shepherd herself acknowledges there was a student who "had concerns".

(very likely the same concerns about trans people being ridiculed as was quoted in that article)

But she dismisses it as "just a discussion", and that the actual complaint was made by the Rainbow Centre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut8NbXeRUeI

So it was not just a case of her supervisors making it all up, and in fact the university may have been trying to bury this on a technicality. In case I need to explain that, a techicality is pretending that there was no complaint just because it wasn't made in a formal way, or informally in relation to university policy.

That is what a technicality is.

Gee Magoo, I consider the quote in that Macleans article to be enough of a complaint. I don't think it is very responsible to have a class descend into ridiculing people, which is what was reported. Is that written down clearly enough for you?

And did you watch the video? Shepherd points out that it was the Rainbow Centre which complained to her supervisors.

As for the investigator's conclusions, there are others who have questions about that too:

Administrators of the Rainbow Centre have argued that freedom of speech is being used as an excuse to justify transphobic behaviour in the response to Shepherd’s ordeal.

Toby Finlay, the centre’s administrative co-ordinator, says the debate has become disconnected from the initial argument over whether Peterson’s anti-gender pronoun stance should have been presented neutrally at all.

“These conversations that are framed as debates are really a conversation where one person is denying the existence of the other,” Finlay said Wednesday.

“Engaging in these quote-unquote debates is a request of trans students and an obligation for trans students to engage in a conversation about the validity of their identities and their experiences.”

Finlay says some of Laurier’s trans students have been dealing with “really transphobic and really hateful comments” both on-campus and online since the issue flared up.

They say the school shouldn’t have apologized to Shepherd until it knew exactly what had happened, and want to see the investigation include interviews with trans students.

“By not following through this investigation before issuing an apology, the voices of trans students are being silenced on this campus,” Finlay said.

https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/wlu-trans-students-facing-hate-on-campus-an...

If you don't interview the people who are most affected it isn't surprising that you don't turn anything up. Well that, and roadblocks like  the requirement that it be delivered formally, with references to university policy.

Mocking people in a university class because of their identity? No I don't think that is fair.

And I don't think academic freedom or free speech extends to being an excuse for stuff like that. In fact, there is a good explanation of that in the tape Shepherd secretly recorded.
 

And speaking of mocking people for fun, seeing as you are pulling  "zee" " Wolfkins" and "masturbating with my hand" out of your bag of throwaway slurs for the umpteenth time, are you going to start yelling "misogynoir" for us again?

Or have you run out of new material to make fun of the freaks?

Mr. Magoo wrote:

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“These conversations that are framed as debates are really a conversation where one person is denying the existence of the other,” Finlay said Wednesday.

If anything, more like denying a special, new, official cateogry for the other.

I don't believe in Wolfkins.  That doesn't mean that the people who imagine that they're Wolfkins don't exist, and it doesn't mean that I think that Wolfkins aren't people or aren't entitled to the same rights as the rest of us, including the right to pretend that they're wolves.

It just means that I don't want any part in reinforcing their belief.  If I have to validate that "Wolfkins" are rationally and scientifically wolves then they're just masturbating using my hand.  They're free to believe whatever makes them feel special, but please leave me out of it.  Is that fair?

Are these people taking Wolfkins hormones that are having an undeniable effect on their physiology?

Yes, those indeed are the hormones I'm referring to.

Some people with male genitalia who were socialized as males transition to female.  They take testosterone blockers and estrogen and they have the experience of being female.  Maybe they always felt female.

There are other transpeople who have a very different experience.  Rather than feeling like they are the wrong gender, they don't feel like they're either gender.  So someone in this boat, with male genitalia, socialized as a male, might take testosterone blockers and estrogen, and not have the experience of being female.  They're not men, and their bodies aren't being governed by male hormones.  But they're bodies and socialization aren't female either.  Someone in this boat might have opted for just blocking testosterone, but I think if blocking testosterone, it's safer to also be taking estrogen.

Some trans people know they've always wanted to be the opposite gender, and when they transition they go very masculine or very feminine.  Other trans people have always felt othered by gender, and when they transition they may choose to present very androgynously.

Hormone therapy is pretty intense.  If somebody's serious enough to go through that, I'm willing to call them however they want.

There is this idea you seem to have that people want to change the way they're addressed every day and it's all "on a whim".  That is not the experience that I have had with the trans people I know.

wage zombie wrote:

Are you seriously asking who authorized a prof to talk to their TA about the content of a seminar?

6079_Smith_W wrote:

So whatever the university administration wants to say, it seems to me they had very good reason to talk to her about presenting material to students in an appropriate way, and to be aware if that material had any basis in academic standards.

Deborah MacLatchey, president and vice-Chancellor of Laurier University said:

...the meeting should never have taken place...

That just can't be that hard to understand. And, wage zombie, this wasn't just a meeting between a prof and a TA. There were three members of Laurier staff in addition to Shepherd, and they lied about the cause of the meeting.

It's just a damn lucky thing Shepherd had the smarts to record the proceedings of that kangaroo court, or it would have been just another 'he said/she said' thing I know the left hates.

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Hormone therapy is pretty intense.  If somebody's serious enough to go through that, I'm willing to call them however they want.

OK.  But I don't think it's more intense than this:

While I can respect that commitment, that alone isn't reason enough for me to refer to him as a cat.

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To have the existence of your identity made into a debate within a classroom setting directly impacts trans students.

I'm sure it does.  The problem is, you can't just make up (or discover, or adopt, or however we wish to describe it) a brand new identity and expect people to immediately be on board with it and validate it for you.  It's really not reasonable to just expect that of everyone else in the world.  Homosexuality existed in ancient Greece, and finally about 15 years ago, two men could marry in Canada.  I think the "non-gendered" or "fluid gendered" or "______-gendered" can't just skip over the steps where everyone else understands and approves and nobody thinks twice about "xe" anymore.

I'm sorry if that sounds arrogant, or priveleged, or consdescending, but expecting others to change is usually a pretty slow process.

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No one is expecting you to change, Magoo.

Then what are the new pronouns about?

If it's about the non-gendered using the pronouns of their choice to refer to themselves, of course I have no issue with that.  But I thought that somewhere in there I was expected to, too.

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not just some guy's opinion that students might be inclined to take for truth just because he has a degree.

I doubt anyone would change their mind because some talking head on a TV screen in a classroom has a degree.

But aside from that, does anyone know whether the snippet of The Agenda that Shepherd played in class was solely Peterson speaking?  Or whether she also played/discussed the counterpoint?  If she only played Peterson and then said "well, there you have it" then I'd agree that's worrisome.  But if he was rebutted, or if similar class time was given to the opposing point of view then it's hard to imagine how Shepherd somehow created an "unsafe space" or whatever.

And FWIW, if someone says "I have no gender", I don't specifically disbelieve them.  I don't believe that they're being dishonest, but I retain doubts about what "non-gendered" is supposed to mean.  Is it like a "third" pole on a magnet, between north and south?  Is it like some "middle ground" between "off" and "on"?  My beliefs on this aren't carved in stone, but personally, I need to hear more.

Also, FWIW, I'm not mentioning things like Cat Guy (AKA "StalkingCat", RIP) or "wolfkins" in order to mock or belittle the non-gendered.

But in the same way that the Flying Spaghetti Monster serves as a way to try to show the faithful how all religions look to an atheist, or anyone who doesn't already believe in God or Allah or Buddha, I think that these other "lived identities" might similarly demonstrate what "fluid gendered" looks like to someone who doesn't already believe that we can be "fluid gendered" (or whatever).

If you're reluctant to refer to a "wolfkin" as a wolf, perhaps you can better understand my reluctance to refer to anyone as "xir".  I trust there are no "anti-lupines" here, so if there's reluctance, it must be something else.

If people wish you to call them "moron", it is unjust to call them anything else. After all, they asked for it.

There was actually no discipline. The only action taken was that they wanted to see her lesson plans.

When those sorts of things start happening in a classroom there is some responsibility on the part of the instructor to deal with it. Personally, I don't think there needs to be a smoking gun connecting those comments to the video for it to be problematic. But the issue was raised by the video.

And I agree completely, it would be very helpful if there was a bit more information about what happened. That is also the concern raised by the representative of the Rainbow Centre about the lack of a complete investigation, and Mohammad Akbar's editorial, also upthread.

But there's the other side of this...  the administration saying there was no complaint and therefore no reason for the meeting to have happened. If the details on what happened in the class are thin, that is at best evasive, and at worse, absolutely false.  For one thing they disregard the fact a campus organization  did come forward to relay a complaint they received. How is that not a complaint?

As for there being no reason, the concerns I heard on that tape seemed reasonable and valid. The claim that it should never have happened seems frankly bizarre.

Why do I keep repeating the fact that a student did have concerns about what happened in that classroom? Because every other voice seems determined to shut it down and insist nothing happened. Whatever did happen, it is simply not true that no one was concerned.

And if anything good will come out of these lawsuits it may be that questions that may not have been asked will be.

Did you watch that cbc interview with Shepherd? She said the Rainbow Centre complained to them. Why do I need to keep repeating these basic things?

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She said the Rainbow Centre complained to them. Why do I need to keep repeating these basic things?

Because this was conflated with a complaint from a student in Shepherd's tutorial.

ed'd to add:  the "tell" here is that when Shepherd asked to see the complaint, none of the three could produce it.  Nor, it seems, could they even paraphrase it.  They didn't seem to even know if there was one complaint or more than one.

If a University-funded organization were to lodge a complaint that would be sufficient to warrant a meeting such as this one, wouldn't policy and procedure expect some sort of record of that, even if the name of the actual student is redacted?  Otherwise, what specifically separates such a third-party, unverifiable complaint from hearsay?

Seems to me a similar question formed part of the Erin Weir/Christine Moore discussion.  She wasn't involved, but she brought the complaints forward, anonymously, then Weir was accused, not duly informed of what and by whom, and the rest is history.

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People don't tell the truth sometimes Rev. That can't be too hard to understand, can it?

It's true.  People often lie.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

I get why the university fell back on technicalities here, but why do you not think anyone should be able to bring a complaint about something they feel may be discriminatory - especially, as in this case when they are student members of the association concerned with LGBT issues? Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Fell back on technicalities??? You mean fell back on the truth, don't you? The truth was no complaint had been received, even though that was the justification for calling Shepherd to a meeting to 'justify her lesson plans'.

You can dodge and weave all you want, but you can't deny the clear statement from the president of the university.

I wonder why no one appears to have spoken to someone who was in the class the day the dreaded two minutes of Jordan Peterson was played for the students. If indeed nasty things werre said about trans people, all who were in the class would have heard it, and most would know who actually spoke the words.

Rev Pesky wrote:

Fell back on technicalities??? You mean fell back on the truth, don't you? The truth was no complaint had been received, even though that was the justification for calling Shepherd to a meeting to 'justify her lesson plans'.

You can dodge and weave all you want, but you can't deny the clear statement from the president of the university.

I wonder why no one appears to have spoken to someone who was in the class the day the dreaded two minutes of Jordan Peterson was played for the students. If indeed nasty things werre said about trans people, all who were in the class would have heard it, and most would know who actually spoke the words.

The school fucked up. They unethically targeted a student and really made some dumb decisions. Were the political roles reversed here I think we'd see a hell of a lot more outrage over this. I hope the school takes a beating in court if anything then to prevent this kind of bullying in the future.

How about this.

You're at work and your boss calls you in the office with other supervisors and lies about your work not meeting the standard. They then take turns telling you you're wrong meanwhile circumventing you asking exactly how you failed to meet the standard (because they're lying about it).  Then they make libel statements about who trained you and deflame them repeatedly.  What do you you think a union is going to do about your bosses lying to you about you not meeting the standard required of you then ganging up on you in an office?

Have you listened to the whole recording? I just listened to 42 minutes of it.  It's 100% the university staff having a problem with Jordan, lying about a complaint in order to push their personal views and beliefs on a student and bullying her in an envrionment she shouldn't have been placed in.

The realistic thing here is they screwed up big with their treatment of a student, their professional integrity and committing what sounds very much like libel. . Now the court system will figure out damages (if any) for their behavior.

Lindsay is right. The unethical actions of the university made her a pariah.

The thing with libel is that it usually gets fluffed off, I think because we collectively insult so many people as a society, but when someone takes offenses and actually doesn't let it go or drop it they have some very real legal backing to take action. If someone has money to burn in a civil suit or whatever then they can really push someone through the ringer.  If the court finds in Jordans favor and those staff members cost the school a million and a half dollars plus legal fees they might need to find a new job.

[i]

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Common-law provinces

At common law, defamation covers any communication that tends to lower the esteem of the subject in the minds of ordinary members of the public.[1] The perspective measuring the esteem is highly contextual, and depends on the view of the potential audience of the communication and their degree of background knowledge. Probably true statements are not excluded, nor are political opinions unless explicitly stated as such.[2] Intent is always presumed, and it is not necessary to prove that the defendant intended to defame. Where a communication is expressing a fact, it can still be found defamatory through innuendo suggested by the juxtaposition of the text or picture next to other pictures and words.[3]

Broadly, Canadians can be held liable by English-Canadian courts for comments on public affairs, about public figures, which are factually true, and which are broadly believed.[citation needed] They cannot be held liable for opinion, inference, hyperlinking without explicit agreement with the content, reportage when this is based on honest research and journalistic ethics.[citation needed] Plaintiffs need not prove falsity, malice or damages

Ezra Levant called  Khurrum Awan a liar and an anti-Semite. Cost him $80'000

Smith:

Did Shepherd justify her use of the TVO clip by saying that Peterson is an authority on Canadian law?