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  • I'm here with a couple of professors from Wilfred Laurier to talk about the Lindsay Shepherd scandal.

  • And what happened with Professor Rambo Cana and Pimlott and Administrator Adri?

  • A droll Adrian.

  • Right, Adria Joel, who I think is the unsung What would you call it?

  • The unsung villain in this entire process?

  • Because she seems to have escaped relatively unscathed, even though I think her role is more reprehensible than anyone else's.

  • Anyways, why don't you guys introduce yourself and talk about what you've been doing?

  • It well for glory.

  • And also just let everybody know why we're meeting.

  • Yeah, well Ah, I'm Dave Haskell, and I'm a prophet.

  • Laura, I'm in the faculty of liberal arts.

  • This is my colleague Will.

  • Well, how do we come into this whole thing like this is this didn't just happen with the Lindsay affair.

  • Like well, to the background, we support maximum freedom of expression, and we've really found each other along with a few other professors who feel the same way that we do that free expression and free inquiry is the core value of a university.

  • But sort of How do we run into each other?

  • Isn't school s Oh, my exposure.

  • The faculty arts is minimal, and I've been really sheltered from this professionally.

  • But watching what's happening in the U.

  • S.

  • Watching what was happening to you at the FDA, I'm a grad.

  • I did my PhD here.

  • And, um, it was in January that our university leadership sent out an email, um, explaining to the faculty how to think about the Trump travel ban and declaring its its commitment to diversity equity and inclusivity.

  • And I was really offended by that that they would see fit to pronounce on a political issue in another country.

  • Uh, offended Why I got a pasty.

  • I'm able to reach my own conclusions about whether these things were good or bad.

  • I don't need my administration preaching to me about the right way to think about an issue of political issue, particularly so why do you think they did that on DDE?

  • What do you think they were thinking when they did that?

  • Because that sort of seems self evident, right?

  • It's not the administration's rule to dictate a political stance to the faculty.

  • That's just clearly not their rule.

  • So what do you think they were thinking it would seem like a manifestation of Trump derangement syndrome.

  • It seems like just the same reaction that the Democrats in the U.

  • S.

  • Were having, that they lost to this horrible person and they couldn't understand why.

  • And he was so reprehensible.

  • And here was yet another terrible thing that he was doing.

  • And we must all agree how bad it waas.

  • Well, I mean, even if the funny thing is, even if you can make that case and say personally and even socially the idea that you could make that case and then be university administration and then tell your faculty to think that way I mean, that's taking it in a whole different.

  • That's taking it to a whole whole different level of presumptive presumptuousness.

  • Did that come from administration from the diversity and equity from the administration from the leadership, the university leadership?

  • Is that privacy?

  • I remember the It's confusing because I remember we also got a knee email from the Diversity and Equity Office when when Trump won and they said that they've created a safe space and they were gonna be open for extra hours in case anybody needed to go and find comfort right that happened a lot in the United States.

  • Say what you think.

  • At least the Americans have some justification for it, given that it's their country.

  • I mean, we need safe spaces.

  • Because a conservative was elected in the United States in the not even in our country.

  • It does seem to be a little bit on the absurd side.

  • Well, it's just to me, you know, they didn't send out an email when Justin Trudeau one.

  • And I have to imagine that there were some students who were offended, like there's got to be conservative students at Lori, but it's It's very much a one sided conversation when we talk about administration, when we talk about the diversity and equity office, they talk about diversity, but they really don't mean it because they do not want those students who are ideologically diverse.

  • They talk about inclusion, but they purposely will exclude those students.

  • And email like that is proof positive of that kind of exclusion.

  • But so well, that was that was the thing that just got me hopping mad, and I was e mailing back and forth with a colleague Queens on.

  • We were talking about the importance of free speech.

  • And this had outraged me and and he sent me a link to a star article that David had written.

  • This is now maybe a month later, in February or March about, uh, this guest speaker.

  • Oh, Daniel Robitaille.

  • Yeah, Yeah.

  • And that she couldn't speak.

  • And when she was she, um Gomes, She's lawyer.

  • Yeah, yeah, yeah, eso Merely because she served as a defense lawyer for someone, she was pilloried.

  • Well, this was another like when people look at the Lindsay Shepherd affair, this is not an isolated case.

  • It Wilfred Laurier.

  • This is something that is it is a regular occurrence and now it isn't always as high profile, but whether it's students in my office saying I can't speak whether it's my colleague, sometimes saying to their students who believes that their stifled and every hand goes up and there have been cases of that.

  • Colleagues have come and told me, but we've got these other examples, Like when Daniel Robitaille.

  • I came to speak at the Branford campus of Wilfred Laurie and some students agitated until she was forced not to do so and and my my president, right, we should provide some background.

  • So that was the commission case, right?

  • And so Ghomeshi was a CBC journalist who was accused of sexual assault and sexual misbehavior by a number of people who was immediately let go at CBC who was dragged viciously through the press, I would say, and then was found innocent in the court's down.

  • And But And he had a defense lawyer and the defense lawyer had been invited to speak.

  • Yes, she was part of the defense team.

  • She was going to speak, and she wasn't going to speak about the Ghomeshi trial.

  • In fact, she was going to talk about what it's like to be, ah, high power, powerful lawyer in the big city in Toronto.

  • And I mean, that would have been really valuable for the criminology students.

  • But the students who were agitating against her, really, with the support of several professors, they were saying, We'll know if she comes on, it will trigger students.

  • It will it will mentally harm students, and so that was used as justification for the eye.

  • Interesting to to be to see that these claims of harm and so forth are generally put forth by people who have no clinical expertise whatsoever.

  • And their idea is that the way that you, first of all, that the way to aid people's mental health is to protect them.

  • And there's no evidence for that whatsoever.

  • And the second is that in your attempts to protect them, the best thing to do is to shelter them from exposure to ideas that would be challenging or frightening, which is precisely the opposite of what a clinician does when he's trying to.

  • Or she is trying to deal with someone who has access, anxiety, what you do in a case where someone who has excess anxiety even as a consequence of a trauma, let's say, is you get them to voluntarily expose themselves to increasingly larger doses of exactly what frightens them.

  • That's the curative route.

  • So not only is it, um, advice that's being disseminated, say, by people who aren't clinicians.

  • It's actually advice that's being disseminated, who are promoting the opposite of what an informed clinician would do.

  • And it isn't that isn't my opinion.

  • That's that that's is close to a consensus is anything you could reach among clinical practitioners, right?

  • One rules for clinical improvement is get your story straight.

  • Something like that.

  • Talk about your past, sorted out and expose yourself to the things that you're afraid of that you're inclined to avoid.

  • That's the pathway to two Brazilians said more robust mental health.

  • Okay, so tell us the story a bit.

  • You guys have an inside view of what's happened on the Wilfred Loria campus since the the Lindsay Shepherd affair broke.

  • I should just say that, you know, after this rubber tie event, I read David's piece, immediately, e mailed him and just said, And that's how we 100 right?

  • All right.

  • And we met and we had lunch on, uh, in just talked about, you know, free speech in the Chicago statement.

  • And how can we get it implemented the university, But we just couldn't see anyway, forward and really Right.

  • So that's another thing we want to discuss.

  • You guys have rewritten the Chicago statement, right?

  • So that it's more appropriate in the Canadian content.

  • Right?

  • We called the lorry a free Laurie.

  • A statement for freedom of expression.

  • Okay, Okay.

  • And you've been trying to convince or or you're trying to be in trying.

  • You've been trying to communicate with the university authorities to have that ratified, essentially adopted as a statement of principles.

  • And have you had any success with that or what's the consequence?

  • They deferred to a task force.

  • That's that's, ah, going to be held on.

  • We can certainly.

  • Okay.

  • Is it is that in the aftermath of the shepherd affair, is that going to be part of it, really do anything over the summer just because it just seemed too big a mountain on?

  • There seemed to be no way to introduce the idea.

  • Right now, you've got your catalyst and Lindsay Shepherd becomes the catalyst.

  • And you know what?

  • What object lesson in what goes on it, Laurie.

  • But also what an object lesson in how you handle these free speech opponents.

  • She's really given a model that other students I hope, will follow.

  • But it was it was through this robot I thing that we got to know each other and a few others.

  • Yeah, there's a couple more of you.

  • That's right.

  • And so about five, I think he told me That's right.

  • So?

  • So the rope Italians incident really brought us out of the woodwork.

  • We started to chat and say, you know, we see this problem on our university.

  • We don't know what to do.

  • And then when the Lindsay Shepherd scandal broke well, immediately we were emailing it.

  • It's happened again, is essentially what we were saying.

  • We said, We've got to do something about this.

  • I'd already that I was out on a on a trip and I came home and I said to my wife where the newspapers, this was Ah, November 12th when the story broke Christie Blatchford story And I said, Honey, where the newspapers?

  • She said, I can't let you see him I said, Why not?

  • She says you cannot read the papers.

  • And of course it was cause Christie Blatchford articles in there.

  • So soon as I read it, I was beside myself.

  • I thought, it's happened again, and this time this is really terrible.

  • They've attacked a ta is what they've done.

  • So I went with the full force of the administration and claims that she had done mental harm broken two laws to laws.

  • Federal and provincial was sincerely worried that they were gonna railroad this young lady or they could have easily taken her to the on terror Human Rights Commission.

  • They would have had field.

  • What was gonna happen?

  • I contacted Christie Blatchford.

  • I said, can you put me in touch with her?

  • She was kind enough to do so.

  • I got in touch with Lindsay and I said, I know that this is a terrible time, but you've got a professor who supports you.

  • I knew that these gentlemen also would Ah, and then quickly I as quickly as I could.

  • I wrote on Op Ed for the Toronto Star that week, just again saying this is happening.

  • The world needs to be aware of it.

  • But it was really after that that Monday, after the story broke on the Saturday we started to talk.

  • And how can we How can we assist Lindsay?

  • And?

  • And how can the our bed helped and you and and the fact that this star ran it was quite remarkable as well.

  • So a raid to the star, the star really does want to do its best to champion free expression.

  • Yeah, well, you think journalists would actually be concerned about that to some degree?

  • Well, and I think they are like one of the things that's happened to me in the last year is that although the press coverage of what I did and just to remind people.

  • So last year I made a video about Bill See 16 which was the bill Who's provisions Lindsay Shepherd theoretically transgressed against.

  • Just to be clear about that.

  • And when I first made the video, I was accused by all sorts of people, including journalists of, um well, first of all, making unnecessary noise and being unnecessarily alarmist, which were the minor accusations.

  • And then the more major accusations were that, you know, I was all the things that you'd expect a far right agitator to be a bigot and a transforming a racist and all of these things.

  • And so, But what?

  • What was interesting was that the journalists, by and large, especially the main journalists, turned around on that issue really quickly.

  • It was probably within three weeks because what happened was a couple of them actually went, read the policy documents that I had referred to on the on terror Human Rights Commission website, which is still there, in which are still appalling and have led exactly to this situation with Lindsay.

  • And as soon as they read what I had being what what outing?

  • Let's say in my video.

  • Then they started to understand that this that I wasn't just ringing a bell for no reason at all was actually reasonable.

  • I think of people to go after me to begin with, because Canada is such a safe and peaceful place in our political situation.

  • An economic situation is being so stable that when someone comes out and says, Look, we're in danger of making a major error, the logical first response should be No, there's something wrong with you.

  • It's like we're flying.

  • There's something wrong with you, right?

  • Exactly.

  • Well, then then and so it's reasonable.

  • I think it was reasonable for me to be hit hard in the aftermath of doing that because, well, generally speaking, whistleblowers in Canada or alarmists in Canada have very little to be alarmist about.

  • But this this Okay, so now So fine.

  • So this thing happened with Lindsay?

  • What have you seen happening on the world for Gloria?

  • Campus things that I'm not particularly proud of, I would say I mean, I knew that will end.

  • Some other colleagues were going to come to the aid of Lindsay, but I was thinking that once her recording became public, that we would just have a flood of professors coming to support our cause, Which is we had, ah, Lori a statement for freedom of expression modeled on the Chicago statement.

  • We thought that immediately people would just say, Of course, we need to reinforce that this needs to be the primary mission free expression Free inquiry needs to be the primary mission.

  • And we got that a pretty fast.

  • We really did in about 10 days, uh, and and and got it on change dot organ men work.

  • I was e mailing everybody that I knew and trying to get people interested.

  • And I would say, out of 50 e mails I sent, I got 15 signatures from personal relationships.

  • Eso Even with personal relationships, you could only get a 30% hit rate.

  • So what do you think?

  • Stopping professors from signing that, say or clambering on board, especially in the aftermath of the shepherd recording, which we should point out.

  • You know, this is one of the things that's very interesting.

  • Is that outside will for Gloria and perhaps outside universities that are in the same boat.

  • The reaction to that recording was universal, right and national and international and uniform, and the reaction was, What the hell?

  • This is scandalous.

  • There's nothing about this that is acceptable, right?

  • And so what's what struck me is so remarkable is that even though there's been international outrage over this and very and not and outrage of a sort that's only been disputed by a very small number of people, at least to begin with, Wilfred Laurier responded on Moss, Let's say as if this was somehow debatable, you know, as if there were two sides of the story here, Let's say And I thought, Well, I thought Rambo counter and Pimlott, who were the professors, that what they did, I thought was appalling for in operating her and in the manner in which they did it and in the language that they used.

  • But I thought what was truly terrifying was the presence of Adri, a Joel at that inquisition because she was, ah, administrator who was hired specifically to do exactly what she was doing by legislated necessity on the part of the Ontario Liberal government.

  • Right, because it wasn't just the university that was involved in this.

  • Her position was set up because of legislative necessity, which is something also to keep in mind when we're going after the university's.

  • Okay, so you had a hard time getting faculty onboard.

  • How many faculty members didn't sign it out of out of how many?

  • Factor.

  • 550 full time.

  • And now?

  • And so you say, Well, what's going on with them?

  • Well, I think that some maybe I know this is hard to believe, but maybe unaware even now there's a big proportion that are unaware.

  • I unbelievable, is that I think that.

  • Okay, well, that's its own mystery, because I don't know where you'd have to have Bean in the now last month to not have noticed that this is half of people, perhaps in the sciences, the computer sciences, the math, they they've got their head down in there.

  • They're doing the research.

  • And so and so I don't think there's anything diabolical there.

  • I think that what we this is.

  • Well, I got very few signatures from the business medical T meet some, but a lot of people just aren't engaged.

  • It's a bit of a commuter school a little bit, so I think people are just getting on with their research and they're teaching, maybe not aware of the well, that's it.

  • That's an interesting thing in and of itself, because I think part of what's led to the occupation of the university, let's say, by the radical postmodern types is the proclivity of the scientists in particular.

  • But also, I would say, the more serious scholars to be focusing narrowly on their field of inquiry, which is essentially what they should be doing and not paying attention to any of the broader contextual issues, which is actually a perfectly fine strategy when things are going well but a terrible strategy when they're not and what you also see.

  • So we've got these people who might not be aware, and we've got the the few who are aware in our supporting maximum free expression.

  • But then you've got these other people who are convinced that maximum free expression free inquiry is not a good thing for a university, and and those people are definitely congregated within the arts and the humanities, and they justify it because they're applying a social justice lens or what they would call a critical theory lens to this entire this insight tire issue.

  • And how about a quick summary of critical theory?

  • Well, critical theory.

  • I mean, in a nutshell.

  • It's an idea that came from the Frankfurt school in Germany, transfers over to Columbia University.

  • It is some German scholars who are Marxists, and what they're saying is that, uh, Marxism as an economic unit or as an economic philosophy really doesn't work.

  • It doesn't transfer very well, but let's change it over to, ah, social theory.

  • And it's a It's a theory of oppressor and oppressed, and it's very bifurcated.

  • You're either one or the other, and if you are the oppressed, you're good.

  • And if you're the oppressor, you're bad and it's a simple is that there's no nuance or Okay, I'm I'm being as bad as they are, Thio.

  • So I'm giving you the really broad strokes on this.

  • But essentially it does set up the villain and the victim, and it is the idea that we must do everything to silence the villain, the oppressor, and under center the T o press.

  • Yes, and then we will elevate the oppressed and the same thing happened, essentially with the French deconstructionist in the 1970 s.

  • So this is, this is the motivation behind it.

  • But when when you hear them talk about critical theory, it is not critical thinking there's a big difference.

  • And so parents will hear while they're teaching critical theory.

  • Isn't that a good thing?

  • No.

  • Because critical thinking means I'm gonna show you both sides of this argument.

  • Critical theory means I'm going to deliberately give you one side of the argument.

  • I'm gonna tell you who's right.

  • I'm gonna tell you who's wrong.

  • There's an oppressor and oppressed the oppressors, the bad guy, The oppressed is the good guy, and it's a very manipulative way of thinking.

  • So are so.

  • So there's, let's say, two reasons why people wouldn't sign the petition.

  • One is they're doing something else, and they're just not interested in it.

  • And and fair enough, even though I think that that's dangerous at the moment, the second is that they're actually philosophically or ideologically opposed to the propositions.

  • And so, to what degree do you think the ladder is the determining factor behind the relatively small degree of support that you that you guys have been able to draw monolithic thing?

  • That the group of fact they signed an open letter to the university complaining about the violence on, but the administration need to make the campus safe.

  • Yeah, they did the same thing with me after I made my video.

  • I was I made the campus unsafe and 200 people signed Signed a petition.

  • What does unsafe lean?

  • I mean, this is the problem.

  • The the the left, the far left are taking words that have a traditional meaning of traditional definition, and they're blowing that definition completely, completely away.

  • And at one time harm meant that there was an infliction of damage that would have lasting effect, and it would compromise the appearance or the function right.

  • We can think about damage to a car, right, lasting, and it's affecting the the appearance of the function.

  • That's what harm is.

  • But they've stretched that definition so that it becomes meaningless that my um, objectionable idea becomes harm that that when you show a video, you've made a place unsafe and that that's the language of trigger warnings and safe space.

  • But it's disingenuous that there was a trans rally, and one of the speakers said that letting I can quit this, probably letting Peterson's views be heard in the classroom is violence.

  • It is, yeah, right, right?

  • Don't know those certain.

  • Yes, you can react with violence.

  • Yes, well, that's often what I think, that I've thought a lot about one of the tenants of postmodernism.

  • Less so, I would say of critical theory, but particularly of postmodernism.

  • It's more marks experiences that the only motivation for the construction of hierarchies is power.

  • You think?

  • Well, that's no.

  • There's lots of reasons for producing hierarchies, right?

  • There's hierarchies of confidence.

  • There's hierarchies of interest.

  • There's higher hurricanes of aesthetic quality, like there's all sorts of wherever you could make a qualitative judgment.

  • You make a hierarchy.

  • So there's the idea that power is the only driving force between behind.

  • The construction of hierarchies is absolutely pastors.

  • Do you think?

  • Well, why in the world would anyone make that claim that it's only power that exists?

  • Well, as far as I can tell, at least one of the reasons is that it justifies the use of power.

  • If you have your position because of power, which is basically tyranny, then I'm fully warranted in my use of power against you.

  • That's all there is.

  • So I think it's a great justification for it.

  • Okay, So how many people signed the petition stating that the campus had become unsafe?

  • That was like 79 79 just like Okay, So you got more people signing a petition claiming that what Shepherd did made the campus on safe than you did getting some.

  • Okay, so that's interesting, because one of the things we're going to address later is the president's letter.

  • As a consequence of the inquiry into the Lindsay Shepard Fairey and one of the things she says, people who've tried to downplay what happened it.

  • Lindsay at Wilfred Laurie have said basically two or three things.

  • One is that, well, that Shepherd is not to be trusted.

  • And she's really like a subtle arm of the right wing that's 11 And the cheese reprehensible character.

  • Yes, yes, they're Peterson know they directly went after.

  • I'm quite sneaky that way.

  • The second is that him lot Rambo Cana and Jule misinterpreted Bill See 16 which I think is absolutely preposterous.

  • I think they interpreted exactly the way that it was written, especially if you consider the surrounding policies.

  • And that's what I was warning about last September, And the third is that this was an isolated incident and doesn't truly reflect the reality either of Wilfred Laurier or other campuses.

  • And that stated explicitly in the president's letter.

  • And so that's one of the things I wanted to discuss because I don't buy that.

  • I think this wasn't a normally this wasn't people stepping out of line, And I think the proof of that is not what Rambo candidate or Pimlott, because we could say, Yeah, yeah, they're ideologically committed professors and they and they're not very professional in their administrative abilities.

  • And they went after a ta unprofessionally and stupidly, that's bad.

  • That's not really bad.

  • What's really bad was that there was a paid administrator at the meeting who was hired to do exactly that.

  • And so the fact that she was there is the proof to me that this is not only not an isolated incident, it's actually are logical cons and at logical and inevitable consequence, off legislative moves that made these bureaucratic positions necessary and the practical reality that these administrative positions do exist on the campuses.

  • So there's no isolated incident issue there now.

  • How do you think Lindsay's being treated at Wilfred Laurier like, What's your What's your impression of her of her personal situation there?

  • I think that so on the positive side there have been students who have rallied to her support, and that's been really encouraging to see, uh, it was some students on campus who are dedicated to freedom of expression.

  • They mostly air coming from the conservative clubs, whether it's the conservative political club or other conservative groups.

  • Although definitely invitations have been extended to other groups of other political stripes or other, they really haven't rallied to Lindsay.

  • Sadly so, those students have to a certain extent, befriended her or brought her under the wing, or just have begun associating with her and saying, How can we support you?

  • I think in her classes, And I'm just going from what I've seen, I follow her on Twitter.

  • So I see what's been going on there.

  • Apparently, you know, and I don't think this is inaccurate.

  • The other grad students are being quite scathing.

  • Yeah, yeah, that's that's what I've heard from her.

  • And from her tweets is that at least their cold at minimum, they're cold and the professor's as well, including the one who told her that she couldn't use her laptop in class because she didn't want to be recorded.

  • I mean, you couldn't script this level of idiocy.

  • But my my thought is students always ask me, Dr Haskell, can I record the what you're talking?

  • I say yes.

  • Yes.

  • The answer is yes.

  • The answer is yes.

  • Because you know what?

  • I don't say anything in my class that I wouldn't publicly say because I and I want to be accountable.

  • I want people to know what I'm saying in my class.

  • I want them to know I'm fair.

  • I'm balanced.

  • I present both sides of the argument.

  • I'm not afraid of that.

  • I mean, why are people afraid of accountability?

  • That that's beyond my understanding.

  • Yeah, well, that's that's a very good That's a very good question.

  • So Okay, so, um, I think I think what we'll do now is go through this letter because what happened yesterday, I guess, is the president had appointed 1/3 party fact finder to look into what happened with the Lindsay Shepherd affair.

  • Right?

  • And there were concerns about that because many people, including Christie Blatchford, were concerned.

  • And the lawyer that's representing Lindsay Howard Leavitt.

  • Howard Levitt was concerned that the person who was appointed to do the third party investigation wouldn't be neutral because he had tweeted his agreement with a variety of Let's call them politically correct issues quite publicly.

  • But it does look like he's done incredible job, that that's how it appears to me.

  • Anyways.

  • The president, who is very closed mouth or assiduously neutral about this whole affair, has released a report, and I thought we could go through it and talk about whether or not we think that it addressed the issues reasonably so because I think it did in some part.

  • But I think it didn't in others.

  • So this is from McClatchy.

  • Deborah McClatchy, PhD, Who's the president and new and vice Chancellor Wilfred Laurie and relatively new at it.

  • So I mean, she's really being raked through the coals, that's for sure.

  • She was vice president, academic, which is the second most senior position, So she's accustomed to this.

  • Okay, okay, it is.

  • I believe it is time for some clarity around the events of the past few weeks.

  • Here it Wilfred Laurier University, stemming from the very regrettable meeting.

  • So That's an interesting turn of phrase to begin with.

  • That followed the showing of a TV oh clipped by a teaching assistant during a tutorial.

  • As the newly appointed president and vice chancellor of this incredible 106 year old institution, I'm here to set the record straight and announced some important changes.

  • The issue has highlighted some deficiencies, but but as importantly at his created opportunities yeah, well, to me, that's a that's a kind of marketing double speak.

  • It's like we could just go with the deficiencies issue for now, opportunities for Laurie A.

  • To improve our own performance, to lead a broader discussion on academic freedom and freedom of expression and opportunities to work together as a community.

  • To do demonstrate the strength we have is an institution.

  • When the issue first broke, I erred on the side of caution.

  • As a person and as a president of as the president of Loria, I'm sensitive to the viewpoints and concerns of our students, staff and faculty.

  • As an employer, I am cognizant that the four people who were in that meeting room, our employees and one is also a student.

  • All four are entitled to due process.

  • I did not want to rush judgment.

  • Rather, I wanted to ensure we were able to objectively assess the fax and make sound.

  • If it decisions flowing from that assessment, that seems reasonable enough.

  • I would say the events that have transpired probably justified her approach, although I had taken issues with some of the things that she had said and not said when she was on the agenda.

  • But whatever.

  • We hired an external fact finder with expertise in human resources issues.

  • I've received the report and we are taking decisive action to ensure these events will not be repeated.

  • The report, along with what we already knew, has led me to the final conclusions following conclusions and actions.

  • There were numerous errors in judgment made in the handling of the meeting with Ms Lindsey Shepherd, the ta of the tutorial in question.

  • In fact, the meeting never should have happened at all.

  • OK, that's probably the most damning statement in the entire report, I would say, because she and then, she says, no formal complaint nor informal concern relative to a lorry.

  • A policy was registered about the screening of the video.

  • This was confirmed in the fact finding report.

  • Okay, so we could take that apart a little bit.

  • No formal complaint.

  • Okay, So Rambo Cana claimed that one or more students had complaint.

  • He wouldn't say how many, and he wouldn't say what?

  • The nature of the complaint Waas.

  • Now what this document seems to indicate that, is that Well, if there was a complaint which it leaves vague, there was nothing that would constitute a genuine complaint in an administrative sense.

  • And that's why the meeting should have never happened.

  • So I guess one question would be, um what if any appropriate disciplinary action should be taken against Rambo, Khanna and Pimlott.

  • And I don't know the answer to that because, you know, they're not administrative experts, and I don't think faculty can be, But by the same token, I don't I feel like I understand exactly what happened to bring about the meeting to begin with you guys.

  • No, I mean, whatever we do know, we've had to piece together from different media reports because, as has been said, our president is not releasing the findings of this like, this is this is going to be This is a secret.

  • The Independent investigation.

  • We will never know what it actually says.

  • We don't know what all the recommendations are.

  • We I think we can take her at her word that she's telling us what's going on.

  • Why is she making its secret?

  • We're keeping it secret.

  • Is that is that this concern with what you call it?

  • Confidentiality?

  • That seems to be the what the the camouflage behind which these things are always hidden.

  • That seems to be implied and or even said explicitly.

  • But I've seen other cases where there's been disciplinary measures and end we.

  • We get more details than this, right?

  • So so I don't know.

  • I don't know the level of confidentiality that is required under law.

  • But what I can say and I let will talk about what the disciplinary actions could be.

  • Let's keep in mind that when Ram Buchanan said that there had been a complaint and it says here that there wasn't, he then echoes that in his apology toe Lindsay.

  • He then says, Of course, and I'm paraphrasing here, so I'm not being completely accurate in terms of what, exactly said.

  • But he said something like, Of course, there are things I can't discuss because of the complaint that was made by a student.

  • So he's echoing what seems to be an untruth.

  • Yes and well, this is about as close a statement as you might imagine in a statement like this, stating that was an untruth.

  • I mean, he said.

  • She said, no formal complaint nor informal concern relative to a lorry.

  • A policy was registered.

  • I mean, that's that's huh?

  • That's his closes.

  • You could get two coming right out and saying that the statement that there was a complaint was a falsehood, and I just want to follow that thread for a second.

  • So here we have a controversy that was started on an untruth, and it seems to be that this is part of the whole modus operandi I hear when we hear and there's been harm.

  • And it's unsafe daily violence.

  • Although again, when the media, global National News, globe and mail checked in to see if there were any police reports related to any harassment or any threats, no police reports had that university trunk.

  • So so at some point, don't we have to say there's a boy who cried wolf?

  • Well, this is even This is more egregious, even though than claiming harm.

  • I mean, because, you know, maybe people were getting nasty tweets and so forth, and I suspect they were.

  • But the thing is, is that Rambo Cana and Pimlott directly claimed that there had been a complaint, right?

  • And so that's a big problem that isn't thoroughly addressed here.

  • Well, and either Somebody heard about the tutorial in the fact that a Pearson video shop on or a mechanic found that somehow, but he decided that was and that the right way to approach it was to claim that a student had complained because it's not a problem that he found it.

  • It's not such a big problem that he found it unacceptable.

  • Let's say it is his class, like he has a right to talk to his ta about what's going to be shown in what's not going to be shown, even though he handled it.

  • I think reprehensibly in that meeting, but he could come out and say, Look like that isn't what the sort of thing I want to be discussed in my class.

  • I don't agree with Peterson.

  • I think he's a jerk and like here's the other things you should be concentrating on.

  • But to come out and say a student complained.

  • And then to buttress that with the accusation that she had violated federal and provincial law is what was the universe bring in?

  • I don't understand why Joel was there some sort of formal paperwork or evidence of a complaint?

  • Well, I I think that the the reason for that is that the positions that people like Jule Occupy are so ill defined and so fundamentally reprehensible in their organization, in their in their aims is that this is exactly the sort of thing that you would expect.

  • And so I thought she didn't say much in that little inquisitorial recording, But I thought the things she did say were spectacularly concerning.

  • Let's put it that way.

  • But what what's the discipline?

  • What is the discipline?

  • Do you have any sense of this?

  • I can't speculate.

  • I don't know.

  • Communications.

  • Well, what?

  • I don't what happens when somebody lies or when somebody brings, you know, forth a complaint that wasn't a complaint?

  • Well, that is that Well, that's one of the things this document does not address.

  • Like it's a big problem.

  • It's a big problem if there was no complaint and the reason she was disciplined was because because there was a claim that there was a complaint like That's well, we can wait.

  • We don't have todo claiming that there's harm.

  • What about if there's a claim that the campus has daily violence?

  • What if there's a claim that such and such area has become unsafe?

  • Does that need to be proven?

  • Or should we be seeking disciplinary action against people who are making those claims?

  • Well, that's That's a very good That's a very good question.

  • Okay, so that's it.

  • That's a That's a problem that isn't addressed in this report.

  • It's a big one, okay?

  • And and I mean, the president is obviously not help happy with this because she also says, um, the errors in judgment.

  • Okay, no formal complaint.

  • No informal concern was registered about the screening of the video.

  • This was confirmed in the fact finding report, so they're not beating around the bush about this.

  • Their statement Very clearly, the errors in judgment were calm, pounded by miss application of existing university policies and procedures, basic guidelines, basic guidelines and best practices on how to appropriately execute the rules and responsibilities of staff and factually were ignored, not just not understood, ignored or not understood.

  • Okay, that's a pretty damn damning statement there, too.

  • So I don't even know all the particulars here.

  • I heard Howard Leavitt say that she was entitled to some sort of represent.

  • Lindsay was entitled to some representation under the bylaws of our university.

  • She was supposed to have had that that nobody offered that right?

  • So that's an administrative fall up at the level of employee employer relationships, to say nothing of the academic issues at stake.

  • But we don't have policies and procedures about how to carry out an inquisition.

  • That's not what she's saying.

  • I think there's a medieval document that you can.

  • But one thing Jordan I want to point out here is that the errors in judgment were compounded by miss application of existing university policies.

  • Miss application of existing university policies.

  • At the end of this document, she's going to say that our gender and sexual violence policy needs to be reviewed.

  • So which is it was right?

  • Wasn't an error, an application or an error in policy, and that's this is confusing.

  • Yeah, it ISS because my suggestion would be the policy is terribly flawed.

  • We have a colleague who's one of the free speech proponents at a university.

  • Dr Andrew Robinson.

  • He is an expert in human rights law, and he went through our gender and sexual violence policy with a fine tooth comb.

  • And he says this document is unworkable.

  • It makes thought a crime, and he wrote an op ed to that effect.

  • So my point would be and and what and who did he What organization is he?

  • Part of it?

  • Yeah, but which which sub?

  • Which?

  • Which human rights and human diversity.

  • I mean, this is That's exactly it.

  • This is his field?

  • Yes, exactly.

  • And so when he looked at this, he says, this goes beyond what the Ontario government was even asking for.

  • And it gets to the point where it actually makes you could be guilty of thought crime.

  • You could be guilty of transphobia without any intent.

  • If someone, if someone says I've been harmed mentally, that is enough for conviction under this particular policy.

  • So this isn't miss application, I'm saying, Did Adria Joel actually get it right?

  • And so is that a Miss application or So it'll be interesting if the university does discipline her.

  • If she gets legal representation, who claims that she was actually applying the policies correctly?

  • Because that is the question, right?

  • So But it could be two things it could be.

  • The policies are flawed.

  • And this is the consequence.

  • And they were misapplied.

  • We don't know, but there's definitely ambiguity here and that, and that's a crucial issue.

  • I think Lindsay was guilty under the gender and sexual violence policy, and she was Adrian was right in accusing her.

  • She was wrong about C 16.

  • It would have been a terror human rights code violation.

  • But GSP she was right.

  • If there had been a complaint, right?

  • Right thing.

  • Right.

  • Okay.

  • Okay.

  • Then how many angels can dance on the right?

  • Okay.

  • Procedures in how to apply university policies.

  • Same issue here and under what circumstances were not followed.

  • The training of key individuals to meet the expectations of the university and undressing such an issue is a knish us, such as this was not sufficient and must be improved.

  • Okay.

  • The question is, who are these key individuals?

  • Do they mean Rambo, Cana, Pimlott and Joel?

  • Is that are they putting all three of those in there?

  • And then the next question would be how are they going to improve the training of key individuals?

  • Because that actually worries me as a faculty member.

  • Right?

  • Because whenever the administration decides that it's going to engage in some additional training of faculty members than that raises the hair on the back of my neck like, is this unconscious bias training?

  • Is that what they're talking about?

  • Which has been?

  • Well, I think Ah, I can't remember.

  • I've just read.

  • Recently Nosek himself, who developed the I'II, just published a review paper stating clearly stating clearly that attempts to reduce unconscious bias by explicit, expressive training.

  • There's no evidence whatsoever that they have any positive directing.

  • That was no Zach himself who helped develop the I 80 because the little coterie that developed that test, um ah, the chair of the Harvard Psychology department, will remember her name in a minute.

  • Green Wald, Anthony Greenwald and no ZEC.

  • What's her name?

  • Masari.

  • And banish the three of them developed it.

  • They're starting a fragment a bit because the thing is being pushed way too hard, right?

  • It's not a test that's valid for the purposes that it's being put to, and they know it perfectly well, even though there consulting about it and have made quite a enterprise out of it.

  • But no, Zach is.

  • You know what seems to be a pretty credible scientists, and he's actually looking at the data, and it's clear that the unconscious bias training programs have zero positive impact.

  • There's some evidence that they have negative impact because, of course, people don't like being accused of being unconscious Racists, right?

  • So I'm wonder, is that the kind of training on?

  • And there's nothing in here that says this.

  • But this is the problem that it says there will be training and unconscious bias.

  • Is that the same?

  • A systemic discrimination?

  • Well, it's the It's the neurological equivalent of systemic discrimination.

  • So imagine discredit.

  • Systemic discrimination is built into the structure of this system, right, unconscious biases built into your perceptual structures.

  • So even before you act or think you're biased towards against the members of an out group, that's the claim and not only biased in against the members of our group, which is a different claim that biased in favor of urine group which, of course, almost every human being is, especially if you think about your family, but that that that implicit bias also manifests itself in behaviors that would essentially be categorize herbal as racist, at least at a low level.

  • And there's very little evidence that the implicit bias that this test hypothetically measures manifests itself in measurable behavior.

  • So way went through a thing in the summer where they ran a regression on salaries at Lori and found that women were paid a little bit less than 4%.

  • And so they they include gate.

  • Did they include ages of co variant?

  • The answer to that would be no, the model was it had, um, rank.

  • I don't know that e It only had four categories of professor, though t rang when this has been done at University of Michigan for it because I looked at comparables, they had 21 categories of Professor Oh, are 21 department and at ours we had four.

  • So you were comparing people, for instance, within the business school who might be in marketing versus someone who Yeah, well, I know, I know from setting a progression equations ad nauseum that the the co variants that you, including the equation, determine the outcome of the of the of the equation.

  • The conclusion they reached the explanation for the statistical significance of the Jenna Coefficient was systemic discrimination, right, Right?

  • Of course.

  • Well, that that wasn't the conclusion they reached.

  • That was the conclusion they stepped into the inquiry with, And they Jerry mounted the statistics until they found a regression equation that supported their their initial claim.

  • So that was That's not an inquiry.

  • But so there's what I hear you saying is there's really no scientific basis for this idea that there could be this unconscious bias that could drive.

  • There is evidence that we're full of unconscious biases.

  • I mean, we couldn't even see if we didn't have unconscious biases, because we have to use shortcuts and heuristics to just process the world.

  • The issue is what measurable impact does that have on behavioral?

  • That's the first thing, and it's minimal at best.

  • First of all, it's not easy to distinguish between racial bias and novelty avoidance, right, because what you'd have to do is you'd have to find a person in a racial groups, say a white person who is just as familiar with black people as with white people and then show that there was a bias because otherwise you can't distinguish it from a novelty novelty aversion.

  • And people are characterized by novelty aversion.

  • You already have developed a preference for that top over the this company.

  • I mean, it happens that quickly, and it's that it's that subtle and and great and grand.

  • Let's say so.

  • The first issue is we can't really distinguish unconscious bias from perceptual habit, let's say, or from, or stereotyping from categorization for that matter.

  • And that literature has been under assault in a major way in the social psychology literature.

  • But even assuming that an implicit bias does exist, which you might, there might be grounds for by noting that people do have an in group preference, say, for their family members and props, even for the racial members.

  • Although it's hard to distinguish that from novelty or from familiarity, preference putting all that aside which you count, there's no evidence that these courses that are put in place to reduce that bias have any effect whatsoever on the bias.

  • It's complete even the people who are pushing the I 80 and the idea of implicit bias are willing to say while all these things that we're doing to

I'm here with a couple of professors from Wilfred Laurier to talk about the Lindsay Shepherd scandal.

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