Arch-hypocrite pseudo-intellectual Jordan Peterson sues university over comments made in private by employees of the university “in order to make academics more careful about what they say about him.”
What a litigious, hypocritical fraud. For those of you that don’t know, Jordan Peterson’s claim to fame is that he pretended that his freedom of speech was under attack, even though he was never fired, disciplined, or censored in any way by his university.
Peterson’s lawsuit against the university is legitimate. The university’s employees attempted to intimidate and punish Lindsay Shepherd, a graduate student and TA, for showing a clip of a Peterson lecture (with whom she hardly agrees on anything, by the way) during her class. The university employees lied about having received complaints from students when they had received none and told Shepherd she was propagating hate speech. Thankfully, Shepherd recorded the entire exchange and it’s probably the only reason she’s still a student there.
The university deserves to be sued and their employees fired for being liars who tried to push an agenda, damage a student’s reputation, and label Peterson as an extremist with hateful views.
The only thing this situation has to do with free speech is Lindsay’s right to show a Peterson clip during her own class, upon which her university infringed. Peterson is suing to protect his character and reputation, which is valid.
She did play the clip and was brought into a meeting with professors who went against the university policy and she faced no disciplinary action from the university. In fact, the university condemned the meeting and defended her. How is that grounds for a lawsuit against the university? How are private comments that someone else made public comparing Peterson to Hitler, as ludicrous as that is, in any legal way “slander”?
What disciplinary action did those professors receive from the university?
Legally, I suppose it isn’t slander. What if this were a private conversation where some white professors referred to a black professor using a racist slur and a third party made the comments public? Would you defend the group because the conversation was private?
Peterson’s, and every other Canadian’s, free speech was under attack by the “pronoun law”. There’s nothing pretend about it and it had nothing to do with the university where he teaches.
I referenced this already, but here’s that claim being debunked:
https://www.cba.org/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=be34d5a4-8850-40a0-beea-432eeb762d7f
“The amendment to the CHRA will not compel the speech of private citizens. Nor will it hamper the
evolution of academic debates about sex and gender, race and ethnicity, nature and culture, and other
genuine and continuing inquiries that mark our common quest for understanding of the human condition.
The amendment will, however, make explicit the existing requirement for the federal government and
federally regulated providers of goods and services to ensure that personal information, like sex or
gender, is collected only for legitimate purposes and not used to perpetuate discrimination or undermine
privacy rights. In federally regulated workplaces, services, accommodation, and other areas covered by
the CHRA, it will constrain unwanted, persistent behaviour (physical or verbal) that offends or humiliates
individuals on the basis of their gender identity or expression.” - Canadian Bar AssociationHow in the hell, is that a violation of anyone’s free speech?
EDIT: I mentioned the connection to his university because he claimed that his university would use C-16 (which you inaccurately call the “pronoun law”) to deplatform him, which obviously never happened.
For every analysis that says C-16 is harmless, there’s one that says it isn’t.
I called it the “pronoun law” because it’s sometimes referenced that way. I understand it’s not literally about pronouns, but it has the potential to be used to defend their use and punish those who mis-gender.
All I know is that activism is slowly replacing reason on the left and seeing what it’s doing to the tech community right now is enough to make me leery of any law that encourages more of it.