Free speech AND THE politics OF progress

When the phrase “free speech” becomes a code for stoking discord, we have to ask ourselves, how will this end? Joel Rubinoff takes a look at the controversy that shook WLU this week

It’s a polarizing time, when things that should be straightforward — like the nature of discrimination — get twisted and distorted by those whose value systems clash with reality and, occasionally, common sense.

Left vs. Right. Young vs. Old. Rich vs. Poor. Black Lives Matter vs. White Ethnocide.

And then there’s grad student Lindsay Shepherd, who booked a far-right-wing speaker into Wilfrid Laurier campus this week as university officials bit their fingernails in frustration.

Casting herself as a wide-eyed innocent, the provocative teaching assistant gained national notoriety when the university challenged her use of Jordan Peterson video clips in a tutorial, bungled the disciplinary process and found themselves blasted as imperialistic left-wing bullies.

Shepherd’s response, after a grovelling apology from the university president, was to form the Laurier Society for

Open Inquiry and organize an “Unpopular Opinion” speaker series.

First guest: Faith Goldy, a white supremacist sympathizer who planned to give a speech entitled “Ethnocide: Multiculturalism and European Canadian Identity,” which loosely translated, means “Why The Privileged White Ruling Class Needs To Stamp Out Visible Minority Groups.”

The reaction: Chaos, protests and another black eye for Laurier’s weak-kneed administrators.

So who’s the bad guy? The university who welcomed this hate-monger on its campus? The churlish protester who pulled the fire alarm that saw the speech cancelled? Or the 23-yearold student provocateur who staged the whole thing like a showbiz virtuoso?

“What it means to be white in Canada is one of those taboo topics that we must be able to openly talk about and question,” wrote Shepherd in a Maclean’s essay in which she also — disingenuously — tried to distance herself from Goldy’s “distasteful” views that are “destructive to healthy race relations and completely deserving of harsh criticism.”

It reminded me of fallout from the Hedley scandal in which the Canadian pop-rock powerhouse issued contrite statements of regret after allegations of sexual misconduct saw them banned from radio, dropped by their management and removed from contention at Sunday’s Juno Awards — and then made lewd sexual innuendos the next night in concert as if it was all a joke. And get this: Seemingly no one cared. For every “right on” response to my columnized contention that Hedley’s accusers had credibility and should be taken seriously, I got two saying “innocent until proven guilty,” rock stars should be free to do as they please, the women who accused him of rape are probably lying and what’s with this whole conspiracy against white men, anyway?

I thought about answering, but as the trickle turned into a stream, and the stream turned into a flood, I realized there was no point.

There is no room for nuance in these debates.

If you believe that women making allegations are lying — or that white people are a persecuted minority group — there is no way I’m going to convince you otherwise.

It’s the same with campus crusader Shepherd, who presents herself as an open-minded seeker of truth in search of civilized discourse but — by aligning herself with alt-right groups who preach hate — stokes division and discord.

Like a millennial pop star skilled at image manipulation, her mantra is less “Fight the Power!” than “Oops! ... I Did It Again.”

“Oops! I did it again,” sang Britney Spears on her playfully deceitful radio hit. “I played with your heart, got lost in the game/ Oops, you think I’m in love, that I’m sent from above … I’m not that innocent.”

Believe me, there are plenty of people who think embracing the controversial Goldy — under the guise of freedom of speech — is just fine.

They would, I’m sure, also welcome white nationalist Richard Spencer, Hollywood pariah Harvey Weinstein and probably the Ku Klux Klan if they were invited to speak to Shepherd’s group, which they may well be in future.

Are people with dark skin inferior? Did the Holocaust really happen? Is the Earth flat?

The dangers of false equivalence can't be disregarded.

Even so, I’m not against Shepherd. She has her value system. She can live with it.

But how did one feisty grad student with a right-wing agenda bring a respected university to its knees so effortlessly, with such stylish aplomb?

How does Hedley frontman Jacob Hoggard profess deep regret over his “careless and indifferent” behaviour toward women and then joke about it the next night with full fan support?

And the big question: How does all this play out?

Does Shepherd continue to have free reign at Laurier while administrators sit on their hands and issue news releases about their support for freedom of speech?

Or does someone who earns a six-figure salary finally develop a backbone and say “We’re a publicly-funded institution with a responsibility to create a positive environment for students. Neo-Nazis and hate-mongers have no place on our campus!”?

Does Hedley, who wrapped their tour Friday in Kelowna, B.C., go on “indefinite hiatus” to re-evaluate their priorities and find work at a sexual assault centre?

Or do they come back a year from now, unrepentant, to find themselves happily reinstated on radio, backed by their management company, with nominations up the wazoo at next year’s Juno Awards?

Democracy is messy. If you believe Martin Luther King’s statement that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” you hang in and hope for the best.

But no one said there wouldn’t be roadblocks.