A Wilfrid Laurier reprimand, and Bill C-16’s disputed role.
WLU TEACHING ASSISTANT ADMONISHED
During a communications seminar, Lindsay Shepherd, a teaching assistant at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., screened a debate from an Ontario public television show called The Agenda to illustrate the sometimes controversial politics of grammar. The video included University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson presenting his case against the use of non- gendered pronouns such as zie and zhr. After an anonymous student complained, Shepherd found herself in violation of the school’s Gendered and Sexual Violence policy, and was called in for an official reprimand. She recorded the subsequent 43 minute meeting, in which she was accused of creating a “toxic” environment. Some highlights of the recording are below. At the meeting were Shepherd, her supervising professor Nathan Rambukkana, another professor, Herbert Pimlott, as well as Adria Joel, the school’s manager of Gendered Violence Prevention and Support.
❚ Shepherd: I’m familiar (with Peterson). I follow him. But can you shield people from those ideas? Am I supposed to comfort them and make sure that they are insulated away from this? Like, is that what the point of this is? Because to me, that is so against what a university is about. So against it. I was not taking sides. I was presenting both arguments.
❚ Rambukkana: So the thing about this is, if you’re presenting something like this, you have to think about the kind of teaching climate that you’re creating. And this is actually, these arguments are counter to the Canadian Human Rights Code. Even since … C-16, ever since this passed, it is discriminatory to be targeting someone due to their gender identity or gender expression.
❚ Shepherd: Like I said, it was in the spirit of debate.
❚ Rambukkana: OK, ‘in the spirit of the debate’ is slightly different than ‘ this is a problematic idea that we might want to unpack.’
❚ Shepherd: But that’s taking sides.
❚ Rambukkana: Yes.
❚ Shepherd: It’s taking sides for me to be like, ‘ Oh, look at this guy, like everything that comes out of his mouth is B.S. but we’re going to watch anyway.’
❚ Rambukkana: I unders t and t he position t hat you’re coming from and your positionality, but the reality is that it has created a toxic climate for some of the students, you know, it’s great...
❚ Shepherd: How many? Who? How many? One?
❚ Rambukkana: May I speak?
❚ Shepherd: I have no concept of how many people complained, what t heir complaint was, you haven’t shown me the complaint.
❚ Rambukkana: I understand that this is upsetting, but also confidentiality matters.
❚ Shepherd: The number of people is confidential?
❚ Rambukkana: Yes.
❚ Rambukkana: Do you see how this is something that is not intellectually neutral, that is kind of ‘up for debate,’ I mean this is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
❚ Shepherd: But it is up for debate.
❚ Rambukkana: You’re perfectly welcome to your own opinion, but when you’re bringing it into the context of the classroom that can become problematic, and that can become something that is, that creates an unsafe learning environment for students.
❚ Shepherd: But when they leave the university they’re going to be exposed to these ideas, so I don’t see how I’m doing a disservice to the class by exposing them to ideas that are really out there. And I’m sorry I’m crying, I’m stressed out because this to me is so wrong, so wrong.
❚ Rambukkana: In legitimizing this as a valid perspective, as this is another valid perspective...
❚ Shepherd: In a university all perspectives are valid.
❚ Rambukkana: That’s not necessarily true, Lindsay.
❚ Shepherd: I don’t get why I’m being seen as transphobic by virtue, by proxy, of me saying saying, just stating, just exposing people to an idea.
❚ Rambukkana: It’s more about the effect than the intention. Obviously that wasn’t your intention. But, nevertheless, it disturbed students enough ...
❚ Shepherd: So everything’s about those students who are disturbed? Everything is catered to them?
❚ Shepherd: Sorry, what did I violate in that policy? (Gendered and Sexual Violence Policy).
❚ Joel: Um, so, gender-based violence, transphobia, in that policy. Causing harm, um, to trans students by, uh, bringing their identity as invalid. Their pronouns as invalid — potentially invalid.