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Have you heard about the latest education crisis on campus? Even if you have, the crisis may be worse than you think.
Teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd played a three minute video clip from TVO’s the Agenda (a state-funded television network show in the province of Ontario) in her class. She was promptly disciplined for daring to expose her Wilfrid Laurier University students to the views of Professor Jordan Peterson (University of Toronto) who appeared in the played video clip.
Called into a disciplinary meeting, it was a modern-day Inquisition, one based on as much ignorance and superstition as was the original. Shepherd secretly audio recorded the exchange and upon its release, media and public reaction has been one of deserved shock and disgust.
Yet, the real “problem” with Lindsay Shepherd’s showing of the Agenda is far more significant and dangerous than the narrow issues of “gender pro-nouns” and proper “grammar” that her inquisitors pretend it to be.
Wikipedia describes The Inquisition as “a group of institutions within the government system of the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy.”
Apparently, Canadian universities have similar institutions, like the university’s Gendered Violence Prevention and Support program. This is the group who “supported” Ms Shepherd by subjecting her to vaguely worded threats of dismissal and possible legal consequences.
Far worse, for this speaks to the real problem, they also subjected her to their own Leftist superstitions and ignorance with assertions and statements so glaringly and demonstrably false, that it became quite clear why they felt an anti-heresy inquisition was necessary.
Though her inquisitors claimed to be calling for “critical engagement,” it soon became obvious that they were in fact demanding critical disengagement. Irony of ironies: It was clearly and indisputably Lindsay Shepherd whose personal education agenda was one of encouraging critical engagement.
For the Gendered Violence Prevention and Support program, Shepherd’s Agenda was “problematic.”
If there is a silver lining to this unfortunate and inappropriate action on the part of the university, it is that the recorded conversation can now be heard and shared by all. It offers a perfect summary and insight into all of the Leftist evils that are the source of so much dysfunctional social/political thought in our culture today.
Perhaps, along with Lindsay Shepherd, we should all shed a tear: “I’m sorry I’m crying. I’m stressed out. This to me is so wrong, so wrong.”
It’s tough to disagree. Thanks to her courage everyone now knows, even through her tears and stress, with those words Lindsay Shepherd was Just Right.
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