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Finally, there’s the slur that this grand blow just came about because she wept “white girl tears.” Emphasis on “white.” Being a white woman (not girl), it is not clear from what other shade of the spectrum some imagine her tears could have emerged. You cry with the skin you have, I guess. In any case, most people with a beating heart and a conscience do not, when they see a woman in tears, pause to first inquire what the colour of her skin is. This is called being human.

More serious and unsettled questions still remain.

The Shepherd-Laurier contest has been almost universally described as a free speech controversy. It is. But only as a secondary matter. It is really more about freedom of inquiry, the boundaries between zealous advocacy and the pursuit of knowledge, and the introduction of identity and sexual preference as an—or the—avenue to truth. It raises questions that most universities so far lack the nerve to face.

The controversy really turned on a challenge to the academic protectionist racket that rules in the SJW curriculum, the iron bars of political correctness that dictate what is “right” and what is “wrong,” which is determined not by academic inquiry, evidence or scholarship, but by the dogmas and shibboleths of the grievance studies wing that is now flourishing in nearly every first world university.

These studies have fixed the boundaries of what is permissible to say and what is the right attitude to have, and they have predetermined both the subject matter and range of reference. They “contest” every social value of the wider world, and forbid contestation of their own unassailable dogmas and prejudices. They licence themselves to censor everyone else, and all the values of every other system of thought except the doctrines of social justice and equity studies.