In the name of “inclusiveness”, Prof. Jordan Peterson was dis-invited and then basically banned by outraged radical feminists at Cambridge University. He was originally invited there on a “fellowship” in the Divinity Program to study religion as he had proudly announced prior to his planned visit:

“In October I am going to Cambridge University in the UK for two months and I will be a visiting fellow there at the divinity school and should give me the opportunity to talk to religious experts of all types for a couple of months, as well as students,” he said. “It’s a thrill for someone academically minded … to be invited there, to sit in and participate for a few months.”

Jordan Peterson is a well known Canadian professor of psychology and social sciences. He protested his university’s full fledged support for Canadian laws that would criminalize and impose civil penalties for “mis-gendering” an individual with the wrong pronouns. Like many of us, he has ardently questioned the radical-left’s imposition of socialist agendas that require “equality of outcome” instead of “equality of opportunity”. He has explained why there are biological and evolutionary differences between the sexes and why everyone is not the same.

However, his political views, largely conservative and non-controversial are too much for the “diversity and inclusion” proponents. So in the name of “inclusion” he was dis-invited in a bizarre statement which first appeared online (and was apparently not sent to Peterson himself):

“[Cambridge] is an inclusive environment and we expect all our staff and visitors to uphold our principles. There is no place here for anyone who cannot,” a spokesperson for the university said.

The Cambridge Student Union statement also joins in:

“We are relieved to hear that Jordan Peterson’s request for a visiting fellowship to Cambridge’s faculty of divinity has been rescinded following further review. It is a political act to associate the University with an academic’s work through offers which legitimise figures such as Peterson.

Then he was mocked on twitter by female professors as a run of the mill “authoritative white man”:

@PriyamvadaGopal “The truth is Cambridge just doesn’t have enough sage authoritative white men who believe they know better than everyone else and can tell the world how to run itself. We need to ship them in from outside.”

Prof. Peterson responded to the banning on his webpage:

“It seems to me that the packed Cambridge Union auditorium, the intelligent questioning associated with the lecture, and the overwhelming number of views the subsequently posted video accrued, indicates that there a number of Cambridge students are very interested in what I have to say, and might well regard my visit “as a valuable contribution to the University.

I also have to say, as a university professor concerned with literacy, that the CUSU statement offered to The Guardian borders on the unintelligible, perhaps even crossing the line (as so much ideological-puppet-babble tends to): what in the world does it mean that “it is a political act to associate the University with an academic’s work through offers which legitimise figures such as Peterson”? And who could write or say something of that rhetorical nature without a deep sense of betraying their personal conscience?

Prof. Peterson then explained the talks and lectures he was working on:

In the fall, I am planning to produce a series of lectures on the Exodus stories. I presume they will have equal drawing power. I thought that I could extend my knowledge of the relevant stories by spending time in Cambridge, and that doing so would be useful for me, for faculty members who might be interested in speaking with me, and to the students. I also regarded it as a privilege and an opportunity. I believed (and still believe) that collaborating with the Faculty of Divinity on such a project would constitute an opportunity of clear mutual benefit. Finally, I thought that making myself more knowledgeable about relevant Biblical matters by working with the experts there would be of substantive benefit to the public audience who would eventually receive the resultant lectures.

Prof. Peterson then goes on to lambast the Divinity Program from falling beholden to the “diversity and inclusion” mobs and publicizing the rescinded offer through social media before having the courtesy to notify him first:

“Now the Divinity school has decided that signaling their solidarity with the diversity-inclusivity-equity mob trumps that opportunity–or so I presume. You see, I don’t yet know, because (and this is particularly appalling) I was not formally notified of this decision by any representative of the Divinity school. I heard about the rescinded offer through the grapevine, via a colleague and friend, and gathered what I could about the reasons from social media and press coverage (assuming that CUSU has at least something to do with it).”

Universities have historically been bastions of free speech where even the most controversial views are given a voice. It appears that is no longer the case at most prestigious universities such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Cambridge. Now, free speech and political discussion of conservative (or male) viewpoints is swiftly met with condemnation and lifetime bans. Great work Cambridge.

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