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?
I don’t know. Should they be fired immediately regardless of whatever accomplishments that they have to their names? I don’t think anyone should be fired over this. I think they should be told and expected to never shirk the proper way of reporting things they suspect are improper. I guess that’s all the university can reasonably do. The university defended Lindsay Shephard, as it should have. What more can they do?
Legally, I suppose it isn’t slander.
It objectively isn’t. Peterson even admits that he isn’t suing on the grounds of slander which is defined as making a false statement damaging to a person’s reputation. (There’s also no way that someone thinking and privately claiming that the controversy of using a Peterson video is comparable to a Hitler video can possibly be construed as an objectively false statement that intentionally damages a person’s reputation; it’s just a stupid opinion held by a private citizen on a public figure.) He says he’s suing to make sure that it has a chilling effect on other professors that hold those opinions about him, which he made clear in this statement, “I’m hoping that the combination of lawsuits will be enough to convince careless university professors and administrators blinded by their own ideology to be much more circumspect in their actions and their words.”
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?
I didn’t defend the group or their conversation. I think they were wrong and stupid, but I don’t think they should be fired over this or otherwise have their careers severely impacted. Calling another professor a racial slur is much different because it demonstrates that they value people based on immutable characteristics and is harmful to that coworker and all coworkers or students of that race, which those professors have control and authority over. So that’s a ludicrous hypothetical. I didn’t know that Jordan Peterson’s stupid ideas were immutable characteristics. If I, in private, say that Jordan Peterson is a misogynist from hell, or an idiot, or an overgrown school-shooter, that’s not the same as calling some professor the n-word because he’s black. Also, it isn’t like these people work with Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson is a public figure that these people have never met. Imagine if you got sued by every “leftist wacko” that you think is taking over the world.
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.
The analysis that I provided is from people that actually know what they’re talking about. That doesn’t mean they’re automatically right, but they at least have some credibility on the issue. Care to provide me with an opposing assessment rather than vaguely referencing its existence? Do I just have to take your word for it? Am I supposed to go look for it and hope that it’s one of the analyses you’re talking about and present it as the alternative view that I’m arguing against? Are all sources equally credible? I can find you plenty of people that say 9/11 was an inside job too, probably one for every source you throw at me that says it isn’t. Does that mean that their take on the attacks holds equal weight to a historian or journalist that studied what actually happened? Of course not.
I called it the “pronoun law” because it’s sometimes referenced that way.
Yes, it’s referred to that way by people that are oversimplifying the issue.
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.
How?
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.
More vague generalizations with absolutely no clear evidence or examples to back it up. Notice how I actually provide concrete examples in my posts? When I talk about how awful Jordan Peterson is I quote him and reference his work. I try to do this whenever I make claims in this thread, and though I don’t always do that well, it’s something that I try to do. You should start doing stuff like that because I don’t even know how to respond to any of this. It’s just “some people say this, some people say that. This vague thing is happening. That vague thing is happening.” It’s a waste of everyone’s time. Not because I disagree but because it doesn’t say anything. It’s just a vague statement that no one can relate to because we don’t even know what the problem is. What’s happening in the tech industry? Are people getting fired for voting Republican? Are they being forced to participate in gender-reassignment activities? Are they being forced to renounce God? What’s happening? How are we supposed to respond to “what it’s doing to the tech community right now” when you don’t even tell us?