Political correctness can be destructive force

More people are finally taking a stand against political correctness on campuses. It’s long overdue. Postmedia recently told the story of Josephine Mathias, a fourthyear student who took to YouTube to speak out against an incident her sister had with an instructor.

Her sister was interested in writing a paper on the gender wage gap. She was planning to argue from the perspective that it was a myth.

This is a hotly contested issue with a great amount of research behind it. Therefore it’s perfect fodder for undergraduate students to tackle. But the instructor wouldn’t have it.

“Perhaps you want to write your paper on the glass ceiling,” the instructor responded. “You need to look at feminist sources on this issue.. Do NOT use business sources. They blame women. The reality is patriarchy.”

She also discouraged the use of Statistics Canada data. Mathias fired back at the instructor and others like her: “They have no facts. They have no tangible explanations or solutions for anything. All the sources or all the information they know comes from feminist literature that’s not even correct.”

Prof. Jordan Peterson made national headlines by refusing to use gender-neutral pronouns in his classroom and criticizing the rise of political correctness on Canadian university campuses. He attracts large crowds wherever he goes and recently suggested action to curb the erosion of free speech within our institutions of higher learning: “Cut the university funding by 25 per cent until they sort themselves out. I’d starve them because some decisions have to be made. But failing that, people have to wake up and understand where they’re sending their children.”

Post-secondary institutions receive significant funding from governments. Education is a top provincial expense. We’re being taxed to fund the status quo. We’re going into debt because of it. The system needs to change. Canada’s leftist elites are demonizing the emerging populism in our own country. Echo-chamber academics and brainwashed social justice warriors have plenty of opinions, but little appetite for debate, reason or compromise.

If universities won’t root out the destructive political correctness, we can cut departmental budgets and use it to lower tuition fees. That dose of reality might restore reason to our campuses.