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Lindsay Shepherd vs Wilfrid Laurier University


Dral

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2 hours ago, Warhippy said:

100% agreed.

 

Most of the issues surrounding universities are not PC students.  But PC leadership.  It isn't a left thing or a right thing

 

it's people who re far to enamoured with their own opinion

Except in universities, the faculty and students are overwhelmingly left... yes, this attitude is found on the right as well, but not in so much in post secondary...

I also think a lot of the PC leadership ARE students, at least on campus

 

Jonathan Haidt talks about this

 

 

 

 

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8 minutes ago, Dral said:

There are a lot of students who are buying into these ideas as well... have you seen any of Jordan Peterson videos where he tries to talk to the students about his stance? It's pretty scary as well.... and as Lindsay Shepherd said in one of the interviews, the biggest group that is sending her hate mail over this are PH.D students

I-learned-that-very-often-the-most-intol

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17 minutes ago, Dral said:

There are a lot of students who are buying into these ideas as well... have you seen any of Jordan Peterson videos where he tries to talk to the students about his stance? It's pretty scary as well.... and as Lindsay Shepherd said in one of the interviews, the biggest group that is sending her hate mail over this are PH.D students

Yeah, I watched many of Peterson's videos and have seen much of this sort of things with students too. I'm almost think that some student think that because they are in university, that automatically makes their opinions more valid than others. It's oddly counter-intuitive given the purpose of university.

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24 minutes ago, Dral said:

What should she have done to handle the situation better?

Using the video was a poor choice.

 

Especially because she didn’t frame the content. Just offered it up as an example of “the issues” surrounding pronoun usage as part of what was supposed to be a class on grammar.

 

There were plenty of other ways to open up a lively discussion. 

 

Choosing a video where one of the parties is making statements about trans rights being some conspiracy by the “authoritarian left” to bring down the structures of our society was highly problematic. Same goes for including content where someone is trying to delegitimize the identity of trans people (by stating the biological sex and gender identity cannot exist on separate spectra).

 

She should have realized this could get her on the wrong side of university policies. And, given she was acting as an instructor (and employee), she should have considered this.

 

Also, as a TA, it’s really not her job to be creating and introducing new course content without approval from her supervisor.

 

If she wanted to introduce this content (when she was supposed to be teaching a class on grammar), she should have presented a lesson plan and gotten approval.

 

And she should definitely have taken steps to frame the material better.

 

Also, I think she should have been more willing to consider the reasons why some students might have objected. And have been less quick to dismiss their concerns as oversensitive snowflakism.

 

I can easily understand why a trans person might have had an issue with that video being introduced to their class. Especially as an example of what their instructor deems to be “the issues” surrounding pronoun usage.

 

And I can well understand why they’d feel a complaint was warranted.

 

Not that any of this excuses the university from the host of mistakes and poor decisions made from their side.

 

I just don’t see any “heroes” here. Just a lot of regrettable decisions, on both sides.

 

 

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Always with those liberal arts studies.  

You rarely ever hear of issues with gender, SJW, or whatever the latest fad conflict when it comes to studies relating to business, economics, comp-sci, engineering, physics, etc.  

 

My uncle is a prof at UBC (stats) and when I ask him about all the PC culture going on on university campuses, he pretty much stated that he has no time for all that BS.  

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21 minutes ago, SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME said:

Using the video was a poor choice.

 

Especially because she didn’t frame the content. Just offered it up as an example of “the issues” surrounding pronoun usage as part of what was supposed to be a class on grammar.

 

There were plenty of other ways to open up a lively discussion. 

 

Choosing a video where one of the parties is making statements about trans rights being some conspiracy by the “authoritarian left” to bring down the structures of our society was highly problematic. Same goes for including content where someone is trying to delegitimize the identity of trans people (by stating the biological sex and gender identity cannot exist on separate spectra).

 

She should have realized this could get her on the wrong side of university policies. And, given she was acting as an instructor (and employee), she should have considered this.

 

Also, as a TA, it’s really not her job to be creating and introducing new course content without approval from her supervisor.

 

If she wanted to introduce this content (when she was supposed to be teaching a class on grammar), she should have presented a lesson plan and gotten approval.

 

And she should definitely have taken steps to frame the material better.

 

Also, I think she should have been more willing to consider the reasons why some students might have objected. And have been less quick to dismiss their concerns as oversensitive snowflakism.

 

I can easily understand why a trans person might have had an issue with that video being introduced to their class. Especially as an example of what their instructor deems to be “the issues” surrounding pronoun usage.

 

And I can well understand why they’d feel a complaint was warranted.

 

Not that any of this excuses the university from the host of mistakes and poor decisions made from their side.

 

I just don’t see any “heroes” here. Just a lot of regrettable decisions, on both sides.

 

 

 

Post Secondary is supposed to be a place where you are introduced to all types of ideas, including ideas we really don't agree with. It's supposed to be a place where we learn to think critically about those ideas and come up with reasonable arguments for and against those ideas. It is NOT supposed to be a place where you are sheltered from things you find offensive... as Lindsay says in the recording, these people are adults.

 

The video she showed was aired on public TV, it wasn't an underground snuff video... if ideas that are talked about openly in society, on government funded TV are not allowed to be discussed in a class room, what can be discussed?

 

Also, I think you've badly misrepresented Peterson's argument, he doesn't want to take away human rights from trans people... or legitimize them as human beings... his concern is freedom of speech. If someone calls you a woman, when you consider yourself to be a heterosexual male, is that a hate crime? No - the person calling you that is either just trying to be funny or is an a**hole.

 

Should we also not study Nazi Germany in WWII for fear that Jewish students might be offended? As soon as the standard you set is "can someone find this offensive", you've made the entire post secondary learning process a complete farce. Life is offensive, and if we are not going to equip students with the ability to critically examine and discuss ideas that may be offensive, we're in a world of trouble.

 

 

 

 

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24 minutes ago, Lancaster said:

Always with those liberal arts studies.  

You rarely ever hear of issues with gender, SJW, or whatever the latest fad conflict when it comes to studies relating to business, economics, comp-sci, engineering, physics, etc.  

 

My uncle is a prof at UBC (stats) and when I ask him about all the PC culture going on on university campuses, he pretty much stated that he has no time for all that BS.  

Interestingly enough, they are almost non-existent in technical schools like BCIT....

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1 hour ago, SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME said:

Using the video was a poor choice.

 

Especially because she didn’t frame the content. Just offered it up as an example of “the issues” surrounding pronoun usage as part of what was supposed to be a class on grammar.

 

There were plenty of other ways to open up a lively discussion. 

 

Choosing a video where one of the parties is making statements about trans rights being some conspiracy by the “authoritarian left” to bring down the structures of our society was highly problematic. Same goes for including content where someone is trying to delegitimize the identity of trans people (by stating the biological sex and gender identity cannot exist on separate spectra).

 

She should have realized this could get her on the wrong side of university policies. And, given she was acting as an instructor (and employee), she should have considered this.

 

Also, as a TA, it’s really not her job to be creating and introducing new course content without approval from her supervisor.

 

If she wanted to introduce this content (when she was supposed to be teaching a class on grammar), she should have presented a lesson plan and gotten approval.

 

And she should definitely have taken steps to frame the material better.

 

Also, I think she should have been more willing to consider the reasons why some students might have objected. And have been less quick to dismiss their concerns as oversensitive snowflakism.

 

I can easily understand why a trans person might have had an issue with that video being introduced to their class. Especially as an example of what their instructor deems to be “the issues” surrounding pronoun usage.

 

And I can well understand why they’d feel a complaint was warranted.

 

Not that any of this excuses the university from the host of mistakes and poor decisions made from their side.

 

I just don’t see any “heroes” here. Just a lot of regrettable decisions, on both sides.

 

 

Jordan Peterson has some pretty extreme and out there stuff, no doubt. Maybe a video of him isn't a good choice for the topic. But discussing when to use which pronouns is exactly what a grammar class is about, it's highly relevant.

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I don't understand how the university took it so far as to have to call her into a meeting. As far as I can tell, she brought in a video clip that was about a controversial topic in an effort to bring about discussion. Isn't that what we want to see when it comes to education? Students discussing things and being exposed to different ideas?

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1 hour ago, riffraff said:

Too similar to real life.

One theory is that people in blue collar jobs and disciplines in post secondary is that they are generally from a lower class and more concerned with getting their next paycheck... these PC ideas only come about when you have the money and time to sit around and talk about them

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1 hour ago, Sweathog said:

I don't understand how the university took it so far as to have to call her into a meeting. As far as I can tell, she brought in a video clip that was about a controversial topic in an effort to bring about discussion. Isn't that what we want to see when it comes to education? Students discussing things and being exposed to different ideas?

It's a difficult line to draw, the problem is (as explained in the open letter apology from the professor to Lindsay) that when you have a complaint like this from one student, the university and people involved have to take it seriously... and then you get more people who feel they should be involved in the process to investigate the complaint which leads to a situation where someone like Lindsay is now surrounded in an intimidating environment that is not supposed to be this way...If someone claims they feel threatened because of something that happened in class, they need to investigate, and that includes interviewing the person who presented those ideas.... the big problem I think that happened is that the people interviewing Lindsay already had preconceived notions about what actually happened before they got her side of the story - and had already made their judgements

 

In the end, they obviously handled it poorly, and said a lot of really bad things, but again, the line is difficult to draw - you can never just dismiss these allegations out of hand because that also leads to a host of problems as well. Legitimate complaints need to be addressed, and in an open manner... but who makes that decision ?

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5 hours ago, Dral said:

It's a difficult line to draw, the problem is (as explained in the open letter apology from the professor to Lindsay) that when you have a complaint like this from one student, the university and people involved have to take it seriously... and then you get more people who feel they should be involved in the process to investigate the complaint which leads to a situation where someone like Lindsay is now surrounded in an intimidating environment that is not supposed to be this way...If someone claims they feel threatened because of something that happened in class, they need to investigate, and that includes interviewing the person who presented those ideas.... the big problem I think that happened is that the people interviewing Lindsay already had preconceived notions about what actually happened before they got her side of the story - and had already made their judgements

 

In the end, they obviously handled it poorly, and said a lot of really bad things, but again, the line is difficult to draw - you can never just dismiss these allegations out of hand because that also leads to a host of problems as well. Legitimate complaints need to be addressed, and in an open manner... but who makes that decision ?

Very good points you brought up and I have to agree completely. I understand the university's need to investigate the matter because of legal reasons.

 

What I don't understand is the need to lodge a complaint in the first place. From what I gather, Dr. Peterson's issue was with the legal issues surrounding the use of pronouns, and the potential threat to free speech because of it. He doesn't sound anti-trans or even alt-right at all. Even if what he said could be interpreted critical of trans people, his remarks would be mildly critical at worst. To top it all off, there were opinions from people supporting this bill so this wasn't a one-sided clip that was shown.

 

What worries me is this notion where some people are feeling threatened or upset if they come across speech that is critical of certain of certain groups or religions, and the need by some to suppress or censor this kind of speech. These kids have to get used to speech that'll offend or otherwise upset them. If they don't get used to it now, they'll be in for a very rude awakening when they leave school and join the real world, where most people won't care for their feelings and will be a lot more blunt. 

 

The universities (and governments and the media) catering to this whole political correctness nonsense is not doing these students any favours.

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48 minutes ago, Sweathog said:

Very good points you brought up and I have to agree completely. I understand the university's need to investigate the matter because of legal reasons.

 

What I don't understand is the need to lodge a complaint in the first place. From what I gather, Dr. Peterson's issue was with the legal issues surrounding the use of pronouns, and the potential threat to free speech because of it. He doesn't sound anti-trans or even alt-right at all. Even if what he said could be interpreted critical of trans people, his remarks would be mildly critical at worst. To top it all off, there were opinions from people supporting this bill so this wasn't a one-sided clip that was shown.

 

What worries me is this notion where some people are feeling threatened or upset if they come across speech that is critical of certain of certain groups or religions, and the need by some to suppress or censor this kind of speech. These kids have to get used to speech that'll offend or otherwise upset them. If they don't get used to it now, they'll be in for a very rude awakening when they leave school and join the real world, where most people won't care for their feelings and will be a lot more blunt. 

 

The universities (and governments and the media) catering to this whole political correctness nonsense is not doing these students any favours.

I think your assessment of Peterson is spot on, and he's very very far from being alt-right.

 

In an environment where it pays great social dividends to be offended, we can't even begin to guess at why someone thought they had to lodge a complaint... maybe they won't even offended and were just trolling, maybe they weren't offended and emailed the professor to warn him that people may be offended and they ran with that... only 1 person really knows...

 

 

My friend did a presentation in a higher level english class years ago on Samuel Beckett (I think) that ended up having the professor needing to deal with a similar complaint. The theme was about "the absurd", and being put in a situation that is uncomfortable. My friend was at a loss on how he should do the presentation and was a bit uncomfortable with the subject matter himself (but still liked the idea of being exposed to new and uncomfortable ideas and having to deal with them). We ended up grabbing a few drinks before hand at the campus pub (partly to give him some courage before his presentation) and a few drinks quickly turned into a few too many drinks.

 

He ended up giving the most awkward, uncomfortable and totally awesome presentation I've ever seen, without speaking a word... but he did do some inappropriate things including sitting on the professors lap and leaning in very close to some of the female students.

 

One student ended up writing an email to the professor, telling him she was uncomfortable with the presentation. He sat my friend down, they talked it out, my friend apologized to the class and explained what happened - they all understood, forgave him and moved on.

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18 hours ago, Lancaster said:

Always with those liberal arts studies.  

You rarely ever hear of issues with gender, SJW, or whatever the latest fad conflict when it comes to studies relating to business, economics, comp-sci, engineering, physics, etc.  

 

My uncle is a prof at UBC (stats) and when I ask him about all the PC culture going on on university campuses, he pretty much stated that he has no time for all that BS.  

I agree with the rest of what you said, but it is kind of inaccurate to say "always with those liberal arts students" when Lindsay Shepherd is a liberal arts student standing up for free speech. 

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10 hours ago, Sweathog said:

What I don't understand is the need to lodge a complaint in the first place. From what I gather, Dr. Peterson's issue was with the legal issues surrounding the use of pronouns, and the potential threat to free speech because of it. He doesn't sound anti-trans or even alt-right at all.

My opinion of Jordan Peterson is that he is a very intelligent scholar. You look at his publication history and he is a star. Over a year ago he decided to tackle the free speech issue of requiring the use of specific pronouns. In my opinion this was a very worthwhile topic to look into. However, it also rocketed Peterson to stardom and with this attention came a lot of interest from the alt-right. He now gets paid a boatload of money (good for him) to create crowd-funded lectures on a variety of topics. My concern is that he is now catering what he says to a group of alt-right individuals. He is certainly not one of these alt-right guys himself, but the topics he chooses to discuss are invariably ones that will make his audience happy. In that sense, I am skeptical of his objectivity.

 

He certainly needn't be objective, but if you want to present yourself as a scholar, this is something that I find important. As well, he is trying to produce content EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. In his original area of research (Social Psych/Clinical Psych), you are considered prolific if you are publishing in quality journals about ten times a year. If you try and produce content every day, it is going to be an extremely watered-down version of the work you are capable of completing. Basically, Peterson is not doing his own research anymore, his is just scouring the internet looking for things that will support the beliefs of the audience that is paying him to tell them what they want to hear.

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