For those who think "do what your teacher tells you, you deserve thr consequence" is a tennable position, here's how this stuff works. Accepting the professors politics and citing another institution of academia to vouch is the definition of circular. Its also myopic. There is a political agenda, and its evil. Its not business as usual, do what youre told bc thats life. Its a problem.
You may mean well and be a pragmatist, but you're welcoming and conceding to an evil. Being pushed and accepting it, bit by bit, will leave you pushed miles out further than you realized you would. you'll only recognize it when its too late and you cant push back.
Peterson taught at Harvard, currently teaches at Toronto University. Is wildly respected and accredited; has received the largest research grant ever awarded to a psychologist.
Now he's getting muted and defunded, and is using different channels of communication to post his work and his defense, so people know the truth and can watch this travesty happen with the privilege of being informed of how and why as it unfolds.
Professor who refuses to use wrong pronouns coincidentally loses his first research grant ever
A convenient opportunity to make their displeasure known’
Jordan Peterson has a stunningly high “h-index,” a metric for measuring the quality of scientists beyond their publishing count. He taught at Harvard six years.
When he received his last five-year grant for work previously approved by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, a government agency, it was “the largest amount ever awarded to a psychologist,” the
National Postreports.
But the veteran University of Toronto professor, who became a pariah last year for
refusing to use gender-neutral pronouns such as “ze,” just coincidentally got his first rejection ever for a federal research grant:
“I think that it’s (the controversy) provided someone with a convenient opportunity to make their displeasure with what I’m doing known,” he told Postmedia in a recent phone interview. “I can’t shake the suspicion.”
It wasn’t just the rejection, he said – it was the clownishly low ratings his application received, meaning the council’s critique was not “credible.” A spokesperson for the council said that “past funding is not a guarantee of further funding.”
MORE:
Transgender activists attack professor who won’t say ‘ze’
Peterson said he figured his grant funding would be in danger if he continued to speak out against transgender activism’s harm to the academy. In a series of videos last year, he spoke out against a bill that would make it a crime to “misgender” others.
In one video, he said:
The changes of the law scare me because they put into the legal substructure of the culture certain assumptions about basic human nature that, not only I believe to be untrue, but they’re also dangerous and ideologically motivated. …
I think some of the things that I might say in my lectures might be illegal [under the proposed law].
Peterson told the Post that the university warned him “to stop repeating these statements” because they threatened transgender people.
By denying the grant application, the government has actually hurt his grad students more than him because the money would have helped them pursue their Ph.D. degrees, Peterson said.
Peterson isn’t simply facing government-sponsored discrimination.
MORE:
Don’t let the government criminalize your speech, professor says
A recent panel discussion about “free speech and political correctness” at Canada’s McMaster University fell apart when protesters announced they would disrupt the event, leading everyone but Peterson to drop out, George Leef writes for the
Martin Center:
When Peterson attempted to speak, he was drowned out by protesters using air horns, cowbells, and a megaphone. Among their chants: “This is where we draw the line!” and “Trans rights are human rights!” …
If the protesters had waited until Peterson had finished his talk and then asked why he won’t adopt their gender-neutral, “inclusive” language ideas, a fruitful exchange would have occurred. Peterson would have had to explain his position and defend it against criticism. People in the audience who were undecided on the issue would have heard his reasons; some might have been persuaded while others not.
But if you engage a scholar in public discussion, you’d better be ready to present and defend your own case. Evidently, the protesters were not willing to do that.
