Free speech battle resumes at Laurier
Right-wing writer invited to debate
WATERLOO — Criticism is mounting over a student event being held at Wilfrid Laurier University featuring a former host from a far-right Canadian media outlet.
Faith Goldy, who was let go by The Rebel Media for appearing on a podcast affiliated with a neo-Nazi website, will speak on campus on Tuesday. She was invited by the independent club called the Laurier Students for Open Inquiry as the first guest in its “Unpopular Opinion Speaker Series.”
The club’s president is Lindsay Shepherd, the Laurier graduate student who gained international attention after she was reprimanded for showing her tutorial a TVO video clip debating the use of gender neutral pronouns.
In an interview, Shepherd said the club, which has about 70 paid members, had intended to host a debate on immigration. The club invited Goldy to argue against open borders and was hoping to get an academic to counter that opinion.
Shepherd said the club reached out to five professors in Ontario, but all declined to attend. But Shepherd said Goldy’s opinions — some which she agrees are problematic — will not go unchallenged.
“I’m really anticipating that Faith Goldy will be challenged a lot,” said Shepherd. “I know some of our own executive student members have questions they want to ask her on points they disagree on.”
But criticism about the event is growing with social media posts calling on people to attend a demonstration and rally at The Quad on Campus before the talk.
Steve Wilcox, a Laurier assistant professor of game design and development at the Brantford campus, criticized Goldy’s invitation to campus in a letter to the university president and the president of the faculty association.
“The title of Goldy’s talk alone ‘Ethnocide: Multiculturalism and European Canadian Identity’ combined with her recent recitement of the neo-Nazi slogan, make clear that the speaker values white individuals above all others and she intends to pro-
mote this on campus,” he wrote. “How am I supposed to ensure that students of colour in my classes feel welcomed and accepted when on the other side of campus someone is promoting the view that they are inferior and unwelcome?”
And on Twitter, the university’s student union stressed it wasn’t affiliated with the event.
“Laurier Students for Open Inquiry (LSOI) is not a Students’ Union sanctioned club. They receive no funding or support from the SU and this event is being independently organized and the speaker is booked through Laurier’s Booking Policy,” said the union.
The Record reached out to Goldy for comment, but did not receive a response.
When the university was asked for its response to criticism of the event, spokesperson Lori Chalmers Morrison pointed to a statement on the school’s website regarding speakers on campus.
“Wilfrid Laurier University does not limit the peaceful and lawful expression of ideas,” the statement reads. “There should be room on all university campuses for the expression of both popular and unpopular ideas, and to challenge both the prevailing and emerging understanding of our physical, social and cultural experience.”
The statement also acknowledges some opinions may be difficult to hear and encourages students to reach out to the diversity and equity office for support.
Wilcox takes issue with the university’s stance.
“I would like the university to take their social responsibility more seriously in this particular situation, which is to build and foster an equitable and open learning environment for all students and to not promote or facilitate the promotion of discrimination or hate,” he said.
Shepherd is aware of the criticism and said some of the group’s posters have been torn. But, she said the club believes it is important to hear unpopular ideas to discuss and challenge them.
“I’m a believer … when you push an idea to the underground it only gets more dangerous and stronger,” she said. “It’s actually better to air it out.”