[Ashasx]

In an attempt to get this thread somewhat back on topic...

Wilfrid Laurier professor withdraws from free speech task force in protest

Liberal arts associate professor David Haskell stepped aside Thursday after learning that the university is demanding $5,473 for unspecified “security costs” for a Lindsay Shepherd-organized free-speech event.

She of course is the teaching assistant who was subjected to a disgraceful browbeating last fall by two of her professors and a bureaucrat for daring to show an excerpt of Jordan Peterson debating gender identity.

The three labelled her “transphobic” because she didn’t first denounce Peterson’s views before showing the clip.

In the wake of that experience, Shepherd formed The Laurier Society for Open Inquiry (LSOI), with the goal of bringing controversial speakers and events to campus.

With at least one event thwarted by the pulling of a fire alarm and another put on hold because of exorbitant security cost demands from another university, LSOI is now planning to bring Dr. Frances Widdowson, associate professor of political science at Calgary’s Mount Royal University, next week.

“I’m removing myself until Wilfrid Laurier rescinds this policy. I’m willing to keep working on this (the task force business), but not now.”

What concerns Haskell and McNally – and others – is that because most campus protests and “disruptions” as they are sometimes called, come from left-leaning faculty and students, charging costs back to speakers and organizers means right-leaning organizations are essentially being taxed.

As Haskell put it, “The policy is clearly prejudicial to clubs, faculty and associations that want to bring right-leaning speakers on campus. Now there’s a fee, but it’s not a fee left-leaning groups will ever pay.”

There is a growing body of evidence which shows that where once, right and left-leaning groups protested equally (and that off-campus right-wing groups are sometimes violent and threatening), recently, most of the disinvitations (where pressure mounts to un-invite a speaker) and serious disruptions come from the left.

As the economics professor McNally told the Post, the policy “is massively biased.”

“Academic rightwingers don’t threaten violence, so this is like taxing people who want to hear these points of view.”

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/chri...rce-in-protest