By accusing her of creating a 'toxic' environment, the professors abused the school’s Prevention of Discrimination and Harassment policy, the suit claims

Lindsay Shepherd, the teaching assistant who rose to prominence after she was controversially disciplined for showing her class part of a TVOntario program on gender-neutral pronouns, is suing Wilfrid Laurier University, two professors, and a manager of the school’s Diversity and Equity Office.

She claims harassment, intentional infliction of nervous shock, negligence, and constructive dismissal. The “attacks” on her “have rendered her unemployable in academia,” she claims, and forced her to abandon her career plans for further graduate study and teaching.

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The statement of claim, which seeks $3.6 million, was filed Tuesday in Waterloo, Ont., and as yet no statements of defence have been filed.

In addition to Laurier, Shepherd’s suit names Nathan Rambukkana, the professor of the course for which Shepherd was a teaching assistant; Herbert Pimlott, Masters program coordinator; and Adria Joel, acting manager of gender violence prevention in the Diversity and Equity Office. It describes them as “predators” who were “bullying” Shepherd in a disciplinary meeting, a recording of which Shepherd and later released publicly

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The three respondents did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In an emailed statement, the Laurier said it received notice of her lawsuit on Tuesday, which is described as “one perspective of a legal matter issued in pursuit of a financial claim.”

Since Shepherd first raised her initial concerns, the university has taken numerous measures to address the matter, including issuing an apology to her, the statement said.

“That apology still stands.”

The university also initiated an independent review, which found no wrong-doing on the part of Shepherd and offered recommendations to the university for next steps.

“Many of those steps have already been taken, including training, a review and update of university policies, and the establishment of a task force that prepared a Statement on Freedom of Expression that was approved by the Senate of Wilfrid Laurier University and endorsed by the University’s Board of Governors.”

The dispute began last November when, as part of a communications studies class on grammar, Shepherd showed a clip of the show The Agenda in which host Steve Paikin moderated a debate between Jordan Peterson, the psychologist and author whose fame was launched by his opposition to compelled use of gender-neutral pronouns, and Nicholas Matte of the University of Toronto’s sexual diversity studies program.

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Until that day, Rambukkana had been an “indifferent mentor” to Shepherd who only met with her twice briefly, “barely acknowledged her existence,” and “provided her with very limited direction as to the content to provide to her students in his classes,” the suit claims.

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The day after she aired the clip, however, Shepherd was summoned to an “inquisition” at which the three respondents “lambasted” her, attacked her personally, and falsely claimed someone had filed a complaint, Shepherd alleges. She claims Rambukkana said that by airing the clip of Peterson she had violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Bill C-16, a federal statute that amended the Canadian Human Rights Act, which does not even apply to universities. As has previously been widely reported,Rambukkana said showing such a clip is like neutrally playing a speech by Adolf Hitler.

In her suit, Shepherd claims she had not even taken a side on the pronoun issue, “disagreed with what she understood to be Peterson’s perspective,” and presented the debate neutrally. Still, she was “attacked as a protegee and supporter of Peterson.”

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She claims this “attack” continued even after she started sobbing, and it ended with a series of restrictions on her future teaching, and a threat that her job might be in jeopardy.

Shepherd is represented in this action by employment lawyer Howard Levitt, who also writes a column for the Financial Post.

The statement of claim argues the school is vicariously liable for the “objectively outrageous and flagrant” conduct of the individual respondents because it created an environment that endorsed it.

By accusing her of creating a “toxic” environment, the professors and Joel were abusing the school’s Prevention of Discrimination and Harassment policy to “inhibit academic freedom,” the suit claims. It was them, not her, that created a “poisoned work environment,” she alleges. Another professor, for example, once called her out in front of a class, telling her to shut off her computer because the professor did not want to be recorded.

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Laurier’s president Deborah MacLatchy has previously apologized to Shepherd for how she was treated. Rambukkana did too, but the suit claims his apology was “forced” and that he “continued to lie” about there having been a student complaint against Shepherd over her use of the TVO clip. An independent investigator determined there had been no such complaint, formal or informal.

The suit also describes two separate issues as illustrations of the poisoned environment the school and professors created for her. One outlines a series of disputes with the next professor for whom Shepherd was a teaching assistant, Judith Nicholson. The other relates to Ethan Jackson, a student and activist who subsequently did file a harassment complaint against Shepherd. The statement of claim says the school summoned Shepherd for an investigation and threatened repercussions if she publicly disclosed the existence of Jackson’s complaint, which her claim describes as “frivolous.”

In an interview Tuesday, Shepherd said many lawyers reached out to offer counsel and many people urged her to file this suit, saying things like “You need to do this or else Laurier is not going to get the point,” she said.

But she thought the school was getting the point, so she resisted. It was only the more recent points of conflict that convinced her the environment was thoroughly poisoned and the lawsuit necessary.

“I don’t care if I win or not, it’s just to make a point that after months of this, you (the school) still don’t get it,” she said. “So what can I do other than this? People have been urging me to do this from the beginning and perhaps they were right.”