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Inside today’s law schools, expressing dissent on politically correct initiatives can earn you scorn and contempt

Kelly and Kerr rightly reject legal formalism — teaching rules without reasoning — which is of little value. But instead of thinking critically and taking nothing for granted, they do what they condemn: they treat certain values as self-evident and pretend that their political interpretation is neutral and true. For example, they insist that it is the responsibility of law schools to implement the recommendations of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), itself a political body that produced a political set of recommendations. They take as given that different sentencing considerations should apply to Aboriginal offenders. These are positions borne of political belief. Should law schools obediently endorse them? Or should they facilitate transparent and probing debate from a diversity of legal perspectives on their legitimacy and value? Inside today’s law schools, expressing dissent on politically correct initiatives can earn you scorn and contempt.

While Professor Kelly agrees that law is political, she does not appear to believe in open inquiry on that topic. In March I invited Jordan Peterson, Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, to give the inaugural Queen’s University Liberty Lecture, sponsored by Queen’s law alumni Greg Piasetzki. Some faculty and students strenuously objected to the invitation. To his credit, Queen’s Principal Daniel Woolf defended the importance of academic freedom and informed respectful debate. Professor Kelly was one of several Queen’s professors to sign an open letter to Woolf criticizing his refusal to condemn the talk. The letter said, “The problem created by this lecture is not “free speech.” The problem is that Queen’s is providing a platform to someone who already has extensive access to a range of venues for circulating his odious and ill-informed views. … you fail to recognize that these ‘debates’ take place within the context of, and indeed contribute to, a rising tide of white supremacy and hate.”