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Photo by Wilfrid Laurier University

Peterson would not agree with one opinion Hitler expressed in his adult life

Shepherd let it be known that she had recorded the session, where she was grilled by two faculty members, in the presence of an official devoted to assistance for those of minority sexual orientation or in a state of sexual transition or ambiguity. There was no official response from the administration or the academic gender police until Shepherd’s release of the tape to the media after about a week, which gave it wide and sympathetic play. (It must be said that almost the entire Canadian media, across the political spectrum, handled the issue intelligently, and generally took the side of Shepherd.) Once the rock was lifted on this process and the force of public opinion could be detected, the WLU leadership wobbled and crumpled in a familiar display of instant capitulation by university administrations at the first indication of headwinds. It appears to be the modus operandi of that university in particular to surrender at once to any adversity, but it is satisfying that the university at least caved in the right direction this time, to a justly aggrieved complainant and not to the totalitarian spirit of those who arraigned her. There was great agitation among the university’s alumni and financial benefactors, and tepid apologies were issued, which contained some self-serving flimflam about protecting sensibilities.

But if Shepherd had not recorded the session and circulated it, she would have been consigned to the doghouse of the politically incorrect. The cowardice of the regime limped to the aid of the winner of the media and public relations contest, as the University of Toronto did last year when transgender groups tried to force Peterson to address them in a special vocabulary, the words “he, she, and you” being somehow disrespectful. That it took a week to elicit a climb-down from them, and that they were no paragons of contrition, makes it clear how little principle, as opposed to tactical manoeuvre, was involved. Nothing in this case, as the well-spoken and brave Shepherd told the inquiry, is what universities are supposed to be or how they should act.