Tuesday, November 21, 2017



Canada: Laurier university accused of censorship after TA reprimanded for playing gender pronoun debate clip

Lindsay Shepherd, a graduate student at Wilfrid Laurier University, is speaking out after the school accused her of violating their policies of trans-phobia for playing a TVO segment featuring polarizing University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson.

Are all perspectives valid in a debate? At Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, there are some viewpoints which aren’t.

The question came up after a Lindsay Shepherd, a T.A. and a master’s student, played a controversial YouTube clip during a debate about gender-neutral pronouns in her tutorial.

The clip in question featured University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson, who has famously refused to use gender pronouns other than “he” or “she,” defending his position against a professor who argued it was necessary to use the pronouns that a person prefers to be called.

She was called into a meeting in which Laurier faculty and administration told her that playing the clip without condemnation legitimizes the viewpoint, which they don’t support.

“In a university, all perspectives are valid,” she said in the meeting, which took place at the beginning of November.

“That’s not necessarily true,” a staff member responded.

The meeting, which Shepherd secretly recorded, left her in tears after staff said playing the clip created a toxic environment for transgender students and called her transphobic.

Shepherd defended her position saying she wanted to expose her students to opinions which are in the real world. “I don’t get how exposing people to the idea makes me transphobic,” Shepherd said in the meeting.

Shepherd said the clip of Peterson debating another U of T professor, Nicholas Matte, was meant to demonstrate ways in which the existence of gender-specific pronouns has caused controversy.

Shepherd said she presented the clip of the debate neutrally and without bias, but she was told her approach to the clip was tantamount to remaining neutral on other objectionable views such as those of Adolf Hitler. She was told that she should have provided more background on Peterson’s views, including his connections to the alt-right and Canada’s Rebel Media, and condemned him.

“The thing is, when you start off saying ‘This guy sucks don’t listen to anything he says,’ there’s people right there who are not going to say anything, you’ve silenced them,” Shepherd explained. “I just wanted to open with ‘Any ideas are welcome here.’”

While the university said the meeting took place, they didn’t comment on it or respond to a request for interview from Global News. In a statement released by the president and vice-chancellor, Deborah MacLatchy, she said that the university champions “The civil debate of competing ideas, free speech, and freedom of expression.”

“The real question, however, is how do we encourage and implement these fundamental ideals in a world that’s more aware of the importance of inclusivity and yet, at the same time, is growing more polarized?” she wrote in the statement.

Support for Shepherd is growing, with people saying the issue is close to censorship.

“If we as a university really believed in free speech, and if we’d been underlining that all the way along, this wouldn’t have been an issue, but increasingly here at Laurier and at other universities, we are censoring students,” Sociology professor David Haskell told Global News.

He also took exception to the comparison to Hitler, saying people use the argument to “silence others.”

“I see increasingly many of my colleagues using those kind of dramatic comparisons to Hitler, to other totalitarian regimes, but they do it in order to silence others,” he said.

Katherine Fierlbeck, a political science professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, told the Canadian Press that she encourages genuine debate in the classroom.

She said failure to do so not only shortchanges students by leaving them without the skills to think critically in real-life debates, but may also drive those who feel their views are not welcome to seek out more receptive audiences, such as communities of online agitators or active proponents of hate.

Shepherd’s approach of neutrally presenting a debate to prompt further discussion was exemplary, she said, adding it was in keeping with the true spirit of academic freedom.

“Some … understand academic freedom to mean that they can say anything about anybody at any time, but that’s certainly not the case,” she said. “It has to be germane to your area, and there has to be a good reason offered for what you are doing.”

Shepherd now has to put forth her lesson plans to her supervisor before her tutorials, and faculty members will be monitoring her lesson plans going forward.

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13 Baltimore Public High Schools Have ZERO Students Proficient in Math

Big city public schools are notoriously bad. There's a reason why people move out of the cities and into the suburbs, and it's not just so they can cut the grass. Suburban schools tend to be better schools, as a general rule.

Of course, considering the performance of high schools in Baltimore, the bar isn't all that high.

A recent study by Project Baltimore found that in 13 public high schools in the city there were zero students proficient in math. Zero. None. Nada. Zilch. Goose egg. Nyet.

With a city the size of Baltimore and the number of schools examined, you'd expect a couple of bright kids in these schools to be proficient in math despite the crappy schools, but you don't even get that.

Further, according to Jack Pannel, who is the founder of the Baltimore Collegiate School for Boys, a charter school in the city, reading isn't exactly a strong suit in Baltimore either. "Nine out of ten black boys in Baltimore City are not reading at grade level," he noted.

Panell's school, however, is different. It's also one of the bright points in the city. In 2015, only nine percent of its students were proficient in math. In 2016, that number jumped to 14.4, a 60 percent increase.

To be sure, 14.4 percent isn't anything in and of itself to get excited about. Yes, it was a nice jump, but it's still fewer than 15 percent.

Pannell acknowledges that fact when asked if he's happy with the result. "No," he answered. "I mean, we can do better."

Yet Pannell's approach to education does seem to be working, and it's an approach that makes some sense.

As the school's name implies, it's an all-male school that also has a 60 percent male staff. It has a school day that's one hour longer, and class periods that are shorter.

All of this is structured around the way boys learn, as opposed to more traditional schools. Those systems tend to favor girls, which has resulted in men lagging behind women educationally. Further, the lack of girls in the school allows the boys to focus on their education rather than impressing the opposite sex. As a one-time high school student, I can't help but suspect that reducing clowning around in class as well as other behaviors that can be a huge distraction can only help.

It'll take more time to see if Pannell's school continues to improve, but it's looking promising. If it succeeds, then perhaps it can serve as a model for more schools throughout the nation.

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Princeton issues guidelines for ‘Consent on the Dance Floor’

Princeton University recently issued instructions for obtaining “consent on the dance floor" in anticipation of its annual Orange and Black Ball.

Beyond merely asking "Do you wanna dance?" and waiting for an affirmative response, the infographic also instructs students to "frequently" ask whether their partner is "still into this" throughout the dance.

The guidelines came in the form of a Facebook post shared by Princeton’s Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Resources, & Education (SHARE) office and created by the school’s UMatter initiative in anticipation of the annual Orange and Black Ball (OBB) that took place last Friday.

“Going to OBB this Friday? Planning to have a great time tearing up the dance floor with your friends?” the post asks. “Great! Check out some tips about what consent on the dance floor looks like!! #OBB #RespectMatters #ConsentIsCool #DoYouWannaDance?”

The post indicates that “Do you wanna dance?” is an appropriate opening, and that responses such as “Absolutely!,” “Yeah! Let’s do it!,” and “I’d love to!” are all ways of consenting to the question.

Beyond simply “asking & waiting for an answer,” the post also asserts that “frequently checking in with your dance partner” is required in order to maintain consent until the music stops, suggesting that the person who extended the invite periodically ask “Hey, are you still into this?” and volunteer that “We can stop if you aren’t.”



Asked for clarification, a university spokesperson told Campus Reform that the infographic, which was “created by a student in the U-Matter program, is one in a series of reminders and opportunities for discussion on respectful behavior, be it on the dance floor or anywhere on campus or off.

“The infographic isn’t in response to any type of problem related to dances or dancing,” the spokesperson added.

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