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It was when I was having a look at the candidates for Wilfrid Laurier University’s task force on free expression that my heart really sank.

The task force is one part of the university’s two-pronged response to the disgraceful browbeating of Lindsay Shepherd by two of her professors and a bureaucrat last month.

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The young teaching assistant and grad student was hauled in and hectored by the trio for her incorrect thinking and identified as “transphobic” for having shown a brief video clip of University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson debating the use of gender-neutral pronouns on TVO.

In on the struggle session were Nathan Rambukkana, Shepherd’s supervising professor; Herbert Pimlott, the head of her program; and Adria Joel, the acting manager of the school’s Gendered Violence Prevention and Support Program.

The other piece of the Laurier response fell into place Monday, when president Deborah MacLatchy released some of the independent fact-finder’s investigation of the incident, which exonerated Shepherd of any wrongdoing and criticized the professors and the bureaucrat.