I understand your positionality… but the reality is it has created a toxic climate… an unsafe learning environment for students… It’s like neutrally playing a speech by Hitler.

That feeling when you’re a teaching assistant and in your communications class you play a Jordan Peterson clip about pronouns and freedom of speech, hoping to spur discussion, and you then get reported and hauled in front of faculty and the manager of the university’s Gendered and Sexual Violence Prevention and Support Office for a ritual scolding, during which you’re accused of remaining politically neutral, which is deemed both a “problem” and in itself “threatening,” before being accused of “gender-based violence.”

The teaching assistant in question, Lindsay Shepherd, has, at the time of writing, been allowed to keep her teaching position at Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario, but must now file copies of her lesson plans in advance for vetting and must allow faculty members to sit in on her sessions as and when they wish. Presumably, to head off any further political neutrality. 

Readers can watch the Peterson clip here and are invited to report back on any “gender-based violence” they incur simply by watching it.

Update, via the comments: 

Tariq Khan is a PhD candidate at the University [of Illinois] and has taught courses such as “Constructing Race in America” and “U.S. Gender History since 1877.” He is also involved with various anarchist and communist organisations including Black Rose Anarchist Federation and Antifa, in addition to working with the undergraduate socialist students.

And this graduate instructor’s mental state is not at all in question.

モッツァレラ の 歌  Via Elephants Gerald.

Interrupted house. (h/t, Captain Nemo) || Continue the research. (h/t, Damian) || Re:scam is a service to irritate scammers. || She mingles and hobnobs like you wouldn’t believe. (h/t, Simen) || On H Tracy Hall and the invention of the synthetic diamond. || Deadpool 2. || Shoreditch. (h/t, Holborn) || Crabs of note. (h/t, dicentra) || When you need a fancier axe. || 1939 New York World’s Fair. || Because being a student is so terribly fatiguing. || What to do if your parachute fails. || Iron powder. || Translucent pumpkin pie. || “I travelled across the whole entire world for this.” || One for the ladies. Note the subtle change of title. || So does this count as “social justice”? || And finally, intimately, “Tatiana can see out of both of Krista’s eyes, while Krista can only see out of one of Tatiana’s.”

Law professor Adam MacLeod on undoing the ‘progressive’ miseducation of his students: 

Slapping a label on the box without first opening the box and examining its contents is a form of cheating. Worse, it prevents you from discovering the treasures hidden inside the box. For example, when we discussed the Code of Hammurabi, some of you wanted to slap labels on what you read [“classist,” “racist,”] which enabled you to convince yourself that you had nothing to learn from ancient Babylonians. But when we peeled off the labels and looked carefully inside the box, we discovered several surprising truths.

Related: “Who is this Mozart?”  

Michael Walsh on the real-world destination of “social justice” activism: 

In the aftermath of the Ferguson riots in Missouri and the Freddie Gray fiasco in Baltimore, the decriminalisation of crime in the name of “social justice” – long a goal of the cultural-Marxist Left – got fully underway. The result was exactly what anyone not fully invested in Critical Theory would have expected… Baltimore is a prime example of what happens when citizens are categorised by skin colour or cultural background, and then have differing standards of behaviour applied to them by what should be an impartial justice system. Instead of “social justice,” the outcome is social disruption, mistrust, resentment and lawlessness.

If violent and predatory behaviour has consequences only for the victim, then the situation is unlikely to improve. 

And David Cole on gentrification, its opponents, and the kind of nakedly racial animus that’s apparently okay: 

Activists [in Pilsen, Chicago] protested the opening of a new restaurant in the neighbourhood. The owners of the eatery, named S.K.Y., are accused of “gentrifying” the neighbourhood with their presence. So of course the activists responded by defacing the building, threatening the staff, and blocking people from entering… But the chef-owner of S.K.Y., Stephen Gillanders, is baffled. His meals start at $7, hardly the stuff of billionaire foodies. So why the resistance from the locals? Well, it turns out that Gillanders is Filipino and his wife is Korean.

Media reports that have mentioned Gillanders’ race have suggested that it’s somehow odd that the activists are attacking a fellow minority… [But] the activists speak again and again of keeping Pilsen “Mexican.” Not “diverse,” not “rainbow,” but Mexican. In fact, CBS Chicago reported that it isn’t just Gillanders’ business that’s being targeted. The protesters are “demanding that non-Mexican owners here [at S.K.Y.] and across the street get out of Pilsen.” Viva la Raza! There’s your identity politics, leftists. This is the logical conclusion of the race-centred worldview that the left encourages non-whites to embrace.

Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.