Now defend academic freedom

Wilfrid Laurier University in scraped some of the tarnish off its public image Tuesday by offering a belated but necessary apology to teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd.

The 22-year-old was brutally censured by Laurier officials earlier this month after she exposed her students to the ongoing debate about gendered language.

While people across Canada were outraged by the way this young woman was bullied, WLU officials initially made matters worse when they decided the best response was to set up a third-party investigation.

It looked like Laurier was trying to kick this wriggling can of worms down the road in hopes that public attention would quickly shift to other problems. And it was an inadequate solution. In contrast, the apologies issued to Shepherd by Laurier president and vice-chancellor Deborah MacLatchy and Shepherd’s supervisor, Laurier professor Nathan Rambukkana, are welcome indeed.

But they are only the first steps in what WLU needs to do to regain the public’s confidence.

The teaching assistant’s apparent crime was showing her class a three-minute clip from TVO’s public affairs program “The Agenda.” That’s all.

The segment featured a debate over transgender pronouns, which included the views of controversial University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson.

Peterson had previously made headlines for refusing to use what he considers to be “made-up” gender-neutral pronouns such as “ze” instead of “he” or “she.”

While disagreeing with Peterson, Shepherd believed showing the clip was relevant because she was teaching about grammar and, specifically, gendered language. But a student, or students, complained. And Shepherd was hauled before a disciplinary meeting with professors Rambukkana and Herbert Pimlott, as well as diversity and equity official Adria Joel. It looked like an outing for the academic thought police. Shepherd was lambasted for not telling her students what to think.

Trying to teach them how to think, which she saw as her mission, was deemed an offence.

At one point, Rambukkana said that showing the clip of Peterson expressing his ideas was like “neutrally playing a speech by Hitler.” What a ridiculous comparison. No one familiar with 20th century history could, without cringing, compare a U of T professor who espouses contentious opinions to the murderous dictator who started the biggest, bloodiest war the world has known.

The mistreatment of Shepherd constitutes a blatant and unacceptable attack on academic freedom at a Canadian university.

It’s good Laurier has apologized, though it’s worth noting the apology came only after Global News broadcast an abridged version of the Waterloo university’s not-sogrand inquisition.

Shepherd had wisely recorded almost the entire meeting.

While the university deserves credit for saying sorry, it should inform Shepherd that she will henceforth be free to explore issues and ideas — even unsettling ones — with students.

Then Laurier should state clearly to the public — whose tax dollars keep its doors open — that it is a bastion of free speech and the ongoing search for truth upon which our democracy depends.

And it doesn’t need a new and special task force to do this. John Roe