Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - Jordan Peterson Was Right

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Nov. 23, 2017 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

41:22

Jordan Peterson Was Right

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	In October 2016, a tenured professor of psychology at Toronto University called Jordan Pietson posted a video to YouTube that was critical of social justice activists and what he perceived to be the imposition of political correctness and gender ideology through the force of law in the proposed bill C-16.
	After posting his video, Pietson appeared on a Canadian TV program called The Agenda to debate his views with social justice activists.
	I said that gender identity, gender expression and biological sex do not vary independently, which they don't.
	And so this issue is in some sense only peripherally about transsexual issues.
	It's more essentially about gender issues.
	And then on top of that, and I think it's the biggest issue, is that it's a free speech issue.
	This debate was illuminating for many reasons.
	Pietson calmly and reasonably explained his concerns regarding compelled speech and the imposition of social justice ideology on the public, while his opponent said this.
	It's not correct that there is such a thing as biological sex, and I'm a historian of medicine.
	I can unpack that for you at great length if you want, but in the interest of time, I won't.
	So that's a very popular misconception.
	During the interview, Pietson made the seemingly outlandish claim that a cabal of radical social justice activists were attempting to seize control of universities for their own purposes.
	Is it a cabal of radical left-wingers?
	Yes, it's a cabal of radical left-wingers, and they've been active behind and in front of the scenes increasingly over the last 30 years.
	And my estimation is that departments like Women's Studies have trained between 300,000 and 3 million radical left-wing activists, and they're making...
	And they're all underpaid, so don't worry.
	On the 17th of November 2017, leaked audio was published by Global News of a meeting between Lindsay Shepard, a teaching assistant, and the faculty of Ontario's Wilfrid Laurier University.
	Shepard had secretly recorded the conversation, and her recording demonstrates that Jordan Pietson was right.
	The recording of the meeting reveals it to be something of a social justice tribunal against Shepard for playing a clip of Jordan Pietson from his debate on the agenda in her class.
	The faculty are arguing from a social justice standpoint against her presenting Pietson's arguments uncritically in class.
	What followed was a descent into pure ideology.
	The meeting had the atmosphere of an inquisition, with Shepard being reduced to tears from the pressure from faculty members.
	They lacked any compassion for her emotional well-being and ignored her reasonable arguments, consistently pushing their social justice agenda upon her.
	This is in spite of the fact that Shepard disagrees with Peterson.
	This is basically debating whether or not a trans student should have rights within one of their classes.
	And that's not something that is really acceptable in the context of the kind of learning environment that we're trying to create.
	It would be the equivalent of debating whether or not a student of color should have rights or should be allowed to be married.
	Do you see how this is not something that's intellectually neutral that is kind of up for debate?
	I mean, this is the Charter of Rights of the United States.
	But it is up for debate.
	But, I mean, you're perfectly welcome to your own opinions, but when you're bringing it into the context of the classroom, that can become problematic.
	And that can become something that creates an unsafe learning environment for students.
	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.
	It's so wrong.
	The reason for the Diversity Inquisition was their opinion on Jordan Pietson.
	Pietson warned that Bill C-16 would give social justice orthodoxy the force of law, and that is precisely how the social justice inquisition at Lauria are using it.
	The thing is, 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.
	So the thing is 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 ever since.
	And I know that you talked about C-16.
	Ever since this passed, it is discriminatory to be targeting someone due to their gender identity or gender expression.
	Sorry, what was the policy, the gendered and sexual violence policy, like do you understand how...
	But sorry, what did I violate in that policy?
	So gender-based violence, transphobia in that policy.
	Causing harm to trans students by bringing their identity as invalid or their pronouns as invalid or something else.
	Potentially invalid.
	So I caused harm, which is under the Ontario Human Rights Code, a protected thing, and also something that Laurier holds as a value.
	Okay.
	So by proxy, me showing you the video, I'm transphobic and I caused harm and violence.
	So be it.
	I can't do anything to control that.
	Okay, so that's not something that you have an issue with?
	In spite of their own allegations, the faculty engaged in gaslighting towards Shepard by claiming that there was no force of law, and Peterson was wrong that someone could be jailed over pronouns.
	Opinion minus evidence, I know it's a bit simplistic, opinion minus evidence equals prejudice.
	In the case of Jordan Peterson, and I'm not super well-versed, but I have done reading and looking at none of his contentions about the Human Rights Code, the fact that people can be jailed for, I mean, you've probably believed, if you follow him, you would know that he claims you could be jailed when Bill C-16 was being discussed.
	He was claiming that you could be jailed if you misgendered, like you used the wrong pronoun for someone.
	What struck me is that none of what he proclaims, and sometimes the way he proclaims it, I think he tries to defend or act like he doesn't yet know, is done in ways which are academically suspect, to say the least.
	Pietson had already addressed this in his debate on the agenda.
	Pronoun misuse may become actionable through the human rights tribunals and the courts, and the remedies, monetary damages, non-financial remedies, for example, ceasing the discriminatory practice or reinstatement to the job, and public interest remedies, for example, changing hiring practices or developing non-discriminatory policies and procedures.
	Jail time is not one of them.
	Jordan, you're not going to go to jail if you keep this up.
	Do you find that reassuring?
	What if I don't pay the fine?
	Then what?
	Then what?
	And let's talk about the legalities for a minute.
	As you know, the University of Toronto sent me two warning letters, right?
	And the second one basically asked me to stop talking about this.
	Who sent the letters?
	The first, it's the administration, fundamentally, the higher-up people in the administration.
	The last one was the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science.
	But, you know, it's coming from the top end of the university.
	And the letters said essentially, you must call people by the pronouns they want.
	The letters basically said that, and this is paraphrasing, obviously, that I'm required to abide by the university policies and the Ontario Human Rights Code.
	And there's a strong implication in the letter by having this discussion that I wasn't doing so.
	And so they're asking me to stop.
	And I can tell you also why they're asking me to stop apart from that.
	The codes as written make the university just as liable for my speech as I am.
	So not only is there a reasonable possibility that what I'm doing is uttering hate speech now under our law, but the university is legally responsible for that.
	And so I think they consulted with their lawyers and decided that maybe the claim that I was making in my video was correct.
	Bill C-16 seems to put hate speech against trans people in murky legal territory, with nobody being too sure whether or not Petson's allegations, supported by the interpretation by the lawyer faculty, would be correct or not.
	University of Toronto law professor Brenda Cosman believes, quote, it is hard to imagine that a court would make such a finding.
	The point of showing the video was to discuss the content of the ideas, and a court would have to balance the rights to non-discrimination with the values of academic freedom and freedom of expression.
	Shepard defended herself by pointing out that she had been both objective and critical in her presentation of the clip, which one of the interrogators identified as the problem.
	We have to teach about grammar.
	And in the Pearson book, there was a section about pronouns and using gendered language.
	So I wanted to make it more engaging.
	So what I did is we were talking about in papers using they as like a singular.
	And then we were also talking about like his and hers and like how to construct sentences with that.
	And then to contextualize it, I brought up like a YouTube debate.
	So a debate with both sides, Jordan Peterson's sides, and this fellow named Nicholas Matt, who's also a prophet UPT.
	Do you have the name of the video?
	It was from the agenda with Steve Pakin.
	It was like a YouTube debate.
	It was one hour long, but I showed about five minutes.
	And then some, I mean, the students were very interested, I could tell.
	All of their eyes were on the screen.
	And after, when we had a debate, there were people of all opinions.
	And like, from what I could see, it was a very friendly debate.
	Obviously, this person who had an issue did not express it to me.
	They just went straight to whoever.
	I don't really know what happened.
	So bringing something like that up in class, not critically, and I understand that you're trying to like.
	It was critical.
	I introduced it critically.
	How so?
	Like I said, it was in the spirit of debate.
	Okay, and the spirit of the debate is slightly different than being like, okay, this is like a problematic idea that we might want to unpack.
	But that's taking sides.
	Like it's taking sides for me to be like, oh, look at this guy.
	Like everything that comes out of his mouth is BS, but we're going to watch anyway.
	So I understand the position that you're coming from and your positionality, but the reality is that it has created a toxic climate for some of the students.
	How many?
	It's great that.
	Like how many?
	One?
	May I speak?
	I have no concept of how many people complain, like what their complaint was.
	You haven't shown me the complaint.
	Yes, I understand that this is upsetting, but there's also confidential confidentiality matters.
	The number of people is confidential?
	Yes.
	But I made my, I don't think I gave away any kind of political position of mine.
	I remain very neutral.
	That's kind of the problem.
	The social justice advocates unironically compared Jordan Peterson to Adolf Hitler and falsely claimed that he is heavily involved with the alt-right and rebel media.
	And that Peterson was a charlatan who doxes and harasses his own students.
	Just for some additional context, so you come, you came from U of T, is that right?
	No.
	Oh, you are from SFU.
	Oh, from SFU.
	Okay, so you weren't like one of Jordan Peterson's students.
	No.
	So just to give you some context about Jordan Peterson, he is a figure that's basically highly involved with the alt-right.
	Yes, the website Rebel Media, which is an alt-right website, has been involved in raising multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars for his research.
	That's close to a week and a half ago, he gave a lecture in which he identified student protesters by posting their social media accounts so that people would bully and threaten them online.
	He lectures about basically critiquing feminism, critiquing trans rights.
	I mean, I'm familiar.
	White supremacy are not critiquing.
	Also, within all of this that is happening, Laurier is being blanketed with white supremacist posters currently.
	There's another debate in society, which is whether or not North America should be a set of white nationalist states and that it should be ethnically cleansed of other people.
	That is also a current debate in society.
	Would you show something in your tutorial that you had white supremacists and non-white supremacists debating whether or not other people should live in North America?
	Is that something that you would show?
	If that was related to the content of the week and we were talking about right-wing speech bubbles, maybe.
	It depends on the content.
	Like, I mean, if there's really ideas that are existing out there like that, then, I mean, look, the thing is, like, I don't see what's transphobic about showing a video of Jordan Peterson.
	He's a real person.
	He's out there.
	He is a real person, but he is a real person who has engaged in targeted behavior that or targeting of trans students in a particular, like, like basically doxing them, if you know the term, like giving out their personal information so that they will be attacked, harassed, so that death threats will find them.
	This is something that he has done to his own students.
	He has done to other students.
	And this is also something that the students are aware of.
	So this is basically like playing, not to kind of do the thing where everything is kind of compared to Hitler, but this is like neutrally playing a speech by Hitler or Milo Yiannopoulos from Gamergate.
	This is the kind of thing that departmentally, in terms of critical communication studies and in terms of the course of what we're trying to do, is diametrically opposed to everything that we've been talking about in the lectures.
	Was this one of the reasons that you wanted to do this?
	Because it was like a reaction to the lecture content?
	No, we were talking about gendered language.
	And I was asking them to structure sentences using say or using his or her.
	Like the world that Jordan Peterson, Ezra Levant, Rebel Media, and that have constructed, I find quite quite amusing in a way, or bemusing.
	Because it's almost like the left has won and controls everything, and you're going to be imprisoned if you don't adopt cultural Marxist politically correct, the new term cultural Marxism.
	I mean, I find it practically ludicrous that this is the case, given the political economic realities of Canada, Ontario, Kitchener-Waterloo, this institution, precarious work, etc.
	We have a duty as educators, as scholars, as academics, even as public intellectuals, to make sure that we're not furthering the kind of, I would call it charlatanism.
	I think Jordan Peterson, you know, and I know you're not a fan, but I think he actually shows a form of charlatanism when it comes to the academy.
	And he's playing this whole idea about free speech and of public debate, which is not substantiated by the fact that he has nothing really that is credible in terms of the research, including his stuff on pronouns.
	The faculty referenced alt-right figurehead Richard Spencer and the Nazis multiple times, despite them having no relevance to the subject at hand.
	They claimed the cliff of Petson was threatening, but refused to show Shepard the complaint or even the number of people who had lodged complaints.
	The concerns of the faculty stemmed from a lack of faith in the student's own critical thinking abilities.
	This is why it becomes, like, do you understand how it could become an issue?
	Like, I understand why you made the choice, like, that you wanted to kind of present this as an issue and to talk about and to bring it out there, etc.
	It's more about trying to understand what the impact of that choice was and why it might not have been the best choice for this context.
	To just present information like this neutrally, it can help cultivate an environment where these kinds of opinions,
	like alt-right opinions, white supremacist opinions, anti-trends opinions, anti-gay opinions, anti-women, misogynist opinions, where those can feel like it's a space where those kinds of opinions can be nurtured and created.
	And that's the kind of the frame on why some kinds of content we would use in class and some we wouldn't use, or we would only use those for upper-year classes or grad students.
	Like, for example, in one of your classes, it might be appropriate to watch a white supremacist recruitment video, something that Richard Spencer has done, because there are students with more critical faculties that have been exposed to more things, that have had more time to kind of process.
	These are very young students, and something of that nature is not appropriate to that age of student, because they don't have...
	Yes.
	They're adults.
	Yes, but they're very young adults.
	They don't have the critical toolkit to be able to take it apart yet.
	This is one of the things that we're teaching them.
	And so this is why it becomes something that has to be done with a bit more care.
	The faculty also do not believe that evolutionary psychology is a valid field and has no academic backing.
	This seems to be connected to the faculty's repeated raising of the concern of academic legitimacy.
	It's a very high number, higher in Alberta than perhaps Ontario, higher in certain parts of the United States like Texas, who believe that fossil fuels do not contribute to global warming.
	But that is not a credible academic, scholarly, scientific position.
	And I think to present as if there's two sides to a debate when it's substantially there is not an academic credible, that becomes problematic.
	And I'm just, I'm approaching this from the point of view of the institution.
	We are legitimizing positions that don't have credible evidence, just like Charles Murray with his race claims of white superiority.
	When you're doing that, never mind the fact that there's also the issue of the fact that a certain grouping of students will be subject to having their rights subject to what the majority thinks without.
	So I just, I mean, just purely from the matter of, and what I'm doing is just operating from a different position here in saying that.
	I, as a scholar, as someone with tutorial leaders, I would find it problematic if my tutorial leaders were representing positions that didn't have any substantial academic credibility to that evidence.
	In an institution which prides itself on getting to grips and having peer-reviewed, academically, socially scientifically, you know, evidence-based research is going to work to confirm the kind of biases that are based on stuff that cannot be substantiated in an academic credible way.
	I find that problematic.
	You'll notice at 1722, the speaker said he didn't want to give academic credibility to that evidence.
	And at 3132, he claims they require evidence-based research to confirm biases that can't be substantiated in an academic credible way.
	He finds that problematic.
	He is not outright saying the evidence is false.
	He is using the word credibility to justify not considering the evidence at all and then complains that they have no evidence for their assertions.
	This slippery intellectual sleight of hand is clearly an attempt to strictly control and regulate the ideas which can be considered to be valid, which is further demonstrated as the faculty politely demand to closely monitor Shepard's work in future.
	So just kind of thinking forward, just because of what seems to have been like a little bit of a breakdown in communication, just about what the requirements for the class are, do you write out your lesson plans or just each two slides?
	I write them out.
	Could you send me your lesson plans before your classes, just so I can kind of have a quick look over them?
	I write them like on paper, pen, but I can take a picture.
	But sometimes I don't decide until I've like, because we get out of the lecture at 5.50.
	I have till 8 p.m. to decide what I'm going to do based on what you've done.
	So I mean, I can send it to you literally two minutes before I start maybe.
	Okay, well, if you can plan like what we're doing in lecture should be maybe 15 minutes tops of the tutorial.
	The tutorial should focus on the skill building.
	So I'm assuming that most of that was planned out more in advance.
	Like if you have a lesson on sentence structure or something.
	Today I got them to email me their grammar questions.
	I'm just going to answer them.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So, but going forward, if you can maybe try to plan a little further ahead, and then maybe being like, and then I'm going to talk about the lecture, that's fine.
	But send those to me in advance just so I can have a take a look at them.
	And if you have any PowerPoint slides, etc. I'll ask you not to play any more Jordan Peterson videos or anything of the like.
	If you did have something that you wanted to play in class, to kind of let me know ahead of time what it is so I can take a look.
	And then I'll also talk everything over with my colleagues and with Peter, who's the chair of the undergraduate department.
	And then we'll talk about how to move forward from this.
	Does that make sense?
	Sorry, that's a little bit vague.
	Could you like specify what you mean by moving forward?
	That's like really general.
	Okay.
	Well, we're going to have to talk about what you said.
	And then hopefully everything can continue and we can continue to have the working relationship that we do.
	But it's something I have to talk over with my colleagues because, frankly, some of the things that we talk about are a little bit problematic and we need to process them.
	This meeting seems to confirm many aspects of Jordan Peterson's evaluation of the problem of social justice activists in universities acting as a distinct political faction, organizing and promoting social justice.
	I've had three clients who I would say have been, we'll say, harassed, I suppose is the right way of putting it.
	On social media or otherwise?
	No, at work, at work, at work, by people who don't like their political opinions, essentially.
	In the past two years, we have seen teachers and professors who are heavily invested in social justice advocacy acting inappropriately by organizing their students into political gangs to bully and harass students, faculty, and speakers on campuses.
	In 2015, student protests erupted across the United States to protest a range of social justice issues.
	After given faulty statistics on the prevalence of rape on college campuses and numerous false reports of racism and the Ku Klux Klan, these students were incited by professors such as Melissa Click.
	to walk forward, isn't it?
	I believe it's my right to walk forward.
	I'm Media Connect.
	Can I talk to you?
	No, you need to get out.
	You need to get out.
	No, I don't.
	You need to get out.
	I actually don't.
	All right.
	Hey, you watch for helping get this reporter out of here.
	My name's Rebussel over here.
	During the protests, Click bullied a student journalist called Mark Schreierbecker, now Kayla Schreierbecker, because Schreierbecker had the audacity to film her activities during the protest.
	The video of Click calling for Muscle to physically remove Schreierbecker went viral, and the student protests expanded across the country in the Stand With Mazzoo demonstrations.
	The students at Smith College even had a vow of loyalty to social justice that journalists were required to take if they wanted to be allowed to cover the events.
	Click was suspended for her actions, and her student followers described her as a civil rights martyr, protesting against the university in sport.
	Melissa Click.
	I stand with Melissa Click because she found the protection of the students more important than a paycheck.
	I stand with Melissa Click because she knows that just because the media has to make a deadline doesn't mean that they can disrespect stories, narratives, and communities.
	And human beings.
	I stand with Melissa Click because she tried to deal with our human right to privacy when it was violated.
	I stand with Melissa Click because she understands how the First Amendment works.
	I stand with Melissa Click because, unlike that reporter, she has respect for us.
	This culminated in the president of Missouri University being forced to step down.
	Shortly after this, a new protest erupted at Yale after Nicholas Christakis, the master of Silliman College, refused to prohibit students from wearing Halloween costumes that the social justice advocates deemed as problematic.
	the students surrounded and berated Christakis for his commitment to freedom of expression in another video that went viral.
	As your position and master, it is your job to create a place of comfort and home for the students that live in Silliman.
	You have not done that.
	By sending out that email, that goes against your position as master.
	Do you understand that?
	No, I don't agree with that.
	Then why the fuck did you accept the position?
	Because I the fuck hired you.
	I have a different view.
	You should step down.
	If that is what you think about being a faster, you should step down.
	It is not about creating an intellectual space.
	It is not.
	Do you understand that?
	It's about creating a home here.
	You are not doing that.
	Because we are advocating.
	You should be at this lesson when you hear a progo say that she didn't know how to create a safe page for her freshman in Silliman.
	How do you explain that?
	These freshmen coming in think this is what Yale is?
	You hear that?
	You're going to leave.
	They're going to transfer because you are a poor student.
	You should not sleep at night.
	We're out.
	We out.
	You are disgusting.
	Christakis later resigned as master of Silliman due to the protests.
	The outrage of social justice activists was inflamed when Milo Ioannopoulos announced a campus speaking tour throughout 2016, in which he was regularly interrupted by militant activists accusing him of harboring all manner of bigotries.
	These activists repeatedly tried to prevent Ioonopoulos from exercising his right to freedom of speech and the students' right to hear what he had to say.
	The audience could please remain sitting and quiet.
	That would be great.
	This is a very low standard of protest.
	At Rutgers, they at least brought paint.
	You know, I worked out why there's so many black girls here.
	I think that's because I fucked their brothers.
	Audience, please remain sitting.
	Audience, please remain sitting.
	He's an idiot.
	Audience, please, Brennan Sandemaker, please sit down.
	When Milo was scheduled to speak in February 2016 at UC Berkeley, the home of the free speech movement in the 1960s, a massive crowd of thousands of black bloc anti-far protesters caused the event to be cancelled through violence.
	The riots
	caused tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage to the university campus.
	After they had attempted to storm the building, Milo was evacuated by the police.
	Protesters said, We won't put up with the violent rhetoric of Milo, Trump, or the fascistic alt-right, and that they were willing to resist by any means necessary.
	Again at Berkeley, in April 2017, at a violent confrontation between left-wing protesters and pro-Trump protesters, a young man was assaulted by an anti-Farm member with a bike lock.
	By tracking the attacker using video footage taken from multiple angles, the black clad antifa protester was identified by users of the infamous website 4chan.
	The attacker was a man called Eric Clanton, an ethics professor at Diablo Valley College.
	Clanton was arrested and charged on four counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of wearing a mask.
	In June of 2017, another incident went viral as Professor Brett Weinstein of Evergreen State College refused the demands of social justice activists to be removed from the campus for their planned day of absence, where white people would be required to leave the college campus.
	The students protested against Weinstein directly.
	Are any of you willing to have a discussion?
	We're trying to right now!
	I have to go!
	You're not living with me!
	There is a difference between debatable and dialectic.
	Debate wait a second.
	No, it is.
	Debatable means you are trying to win.
	Dialectic means you are using disagreement to decide on what is the truth.
	I am not interested in debating only a dialectic.
	It does mean I listen to you and you listen to me.
	I am talking about terms that serve the truth.
	We come here as students against campus racism and against anti-blackness on campus.
	And we would like to reach out to the students of colour, the humanities, as well as the scientists that we are here to support.
	And we want to dismantle anti-blackness and this mind.
	We want to get some sense of solidarity and provide safety in our lives.
	Will you listen to me?
	Yeah.
	Hey.
	No, not me.
	No, I'm not.
	We lived racism.
	We don't have to study it to understand it.
	We live it.
	And the issue is you think scientific proves everything.
	What about all the racial scientific people?
	Explain that.
	No.
	It is not your race.
	If you ask me a question, I would like to hear you.
	Hey, hey!
	Ho, ho!
	This led to a siege at Evergreen, in which the student protesters took the president of the college hostage until their demands were met, even regulating when the president, George Bridges, was able to use the bathroom.
	Black power!
	Black power!
	For doing.
	What's your hand now?
	That's my door to keep doing these.
	Protection right!
	This is the most violent fucking system to ever breathe!
	Can you listen to your shirt?
	Take and chill, you need to go You talk so fucking much No, you shut the fuck up No, for now I think it's smart is not to like the fucking people.
	I think what's smart is not to take people to the bottom.
	And so I'm telling you, you're speaking to your ancestor.
	Alright?
	We've been here before you.
	We built these cities.
	You've had civilization way before you ever had.
	Right.
	Coming out your caves.
	Hey, let's get away from it now!
	Watch it!
	That's not appropriate!
	You gotta put your hands down!
	You know you gotta put your hands out!
	Yes, I!
	Instead of opposing these acts of aggression, Bridges was permissive and servile towards the demands of the students, allowing them to bully and harass him.
	Brett Weinstein described the situation as anarchy.
	Do you know that the college descended into literal anarchy?
	It was under the control of protesters.
	There were assaults, there were batteries, people were kidnapped and imprisoned.
	Others were hunted.
	Lawless bands roamed the campus unimpeded.
	Students that held different opinions were, by the protesters' own analysis, stalked, harassed, and doxed.
	And after being forced to resign, was paid a settlement of $500,000 by the college for the way the students had treated him.
	Needless to say, this has not gone unnoticed in academia by professors who do not subscribe lock, stock, and barrel to social justice.
	In June 2015, Vox magazine published an article called, I'm a Liberal Professor and My Liberal Students Terrify Me, written by a professor under the pseudonym Edward Schlosser.
	In the article, Schlosser detailed how he was afraid of the students' overwhelming emotional response to any controversial course material, and that he personally knew many professors who lived with the same fear.
	He identified the source of the problem as, quote, a simplistic, unworkable, and ultimately stifling conception of social justice.
	Schlosser argues that feelings have become more important than issues, and that this has been taken advantage of by social justice activists to hijack campuses and create a culture of fear that is silencing anyone who resists political correctness.
	In September 2015, The Atlantic published an article called The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukanioff and Jonathan Haidt.
	In the article, they identified that the social justice movement was attempting to, quote, scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense.
	They believe this movement was largely driven by students, which is true, but it is being orchestrated by the network of social justice academics, as identified by Jordan Peterson.
	The actions of these professors and students seem to be a result of their worldview that justifies breaking the rules to further their political goals, which is what Professor Nathan Rambuchana, one of the faculty members involved in the social justice inquisition against Lindsay Shepard, outright admitted in his apology letter to her.
	Quote, Maybe we ought to strive to reach across all of our multiple divisions to find points where we can discuss such issues, air multiple perspectives and embrace the diversity of thought.
	And maybe I have to get out of an us versus them habit of thought to do this myself, and to think of the goal as more than simply advancing social justice, but social betterment and progress as a whole.
	The president of Lauria also published an apology on the university's website.
	It is important to remember that none of this would have been possible if Shepard had not had the foresight to secretly record the meeting.
	If you are in a university and you are being reprimanded by what you perceive to be social justice activists for transgressions against social justice or political correctness, you too should protect yourself by secretly recording the meeting and releasing it to the public.
	It is manifestly observable that the ideology of social justice is a threat to free speech.
	It's so quantifiable we even have the dollar value.
	When traditional conservative commentator Ben Shapiro was scheduled to speak at Berkeley in September 2017, the campus was forced to pay $600,000 for security costs to ensure that far-left violence would not cause the event to be shut down.
	Social justice as a concept has become weaponized for the purposes of a specific kind of politically correct campus activist to erase ideas and the people that present them from college campuses.
	Its activists wish to create a tightly policed environment in which thought and behaviour are strictly controlled, which is why Lindsay Shepard was persecuted in a closed meeting with social justice advocates.
	We find ourselves as a fork in the road.
	We shall either allow our universities to be tyrannized by a minority of the faculty under the indefinable rubric of social justice and allow students to suppress the human rights of others, or we shall allow them to be free.
	Justice is an attribute of individual action.
	I can be just or unjust towards my fellow men.
	But the conception of a social justice, to expect from an impersonal process which nobody can control, to bring about a just result, is not only an meaningless conception, it's completely impossible.
	See, everybody talks about social justice, but if you press people to explain to you what they mean by social justice, what they would accept is just, nobody knows.

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