EDMONTON—Lindsay Shepherd, the teaching assistant who landed in the middle of an internationally-watched campus debate about gender-neutral pronouns in 2017, has joined a Calgary-based institute to help “promote free speech” on campuses.

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, a legal advocacy group run by John Carpay, who has drawn fire for comparing a Pride flag to the swastika, has recruited Shepherd as a new campus free speech fellow, according to a news release sent out Thursday. She’ll be speaking at campuses across Canada, helping students organize free speech events and partnering the JCCF with students who are interested, she told the Star Edmonton during an interview over the phone.

Carpay told the Star Edmonton that Shepherd will help the group get more “public attention” focused on how he claims universities are failing taxpayers and employers with respect to free speech.

“And of course what happened to Lindsay, being reprimanded for showing two to three different viewpoints in a classroom, is a pretty sad comment on the state of universities.”

However, the appointment is not without controversy, with one LGBTQ advocate calling the move a “publicity stunt” by the JCCF to help propel right wing initiatives.

In 2017, Shepherd was at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., as a teaching assistant and showed a clip in class of professor Jordan Peterson discussing his stance on using gender-neutral pronouns.

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After showing students the clip, she secretly recorded a disciplinary meeting between herself, two professors and a staff member about her seemingly ill-advised use of the clip, then released the recording to the media.

Kristopher Wells, a professor at McEwan University and an expert on LGBTQ issues, said the move to bring in Shepherd was part of the Calgary group’s anti-LGBTQ “agenda.” He points to the JCCF’s legal case against the government’s gay-straight alliance legislation and Carpay’s comments at a recent Rebel Media event last November, where he compared the Pride flag to the Nazi swastika.

“A young white female face — that draws a lot of attention, has a lot of privilege that many other people don’t have, to continue to spout particularly this anti-trans ideology that does great harm and damage to some of the most vulnerable members of our society,” Wells said.

But Shepherd said she won’t agree with everything the organization does, and as a Vancouver resident, says she isn’t overly familiar with the organization’s legal case against GSA legislation.

In her new role, Shepherd said she’ll be able to write reports and analyze controversies at universities like the one she went through.

When asked about Wells’ classifying the move as a publicity stunt, Carpay called it “disappointing.”

“It’s disappointing that he’s disregarding who she is and her talents by using that kind of language.”

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But Wells counters that Alberta campuses are not open to the kind of values Shepherd would bring to the table.

“One of the great strengths of Canada is our democracy, but you have to remember, in Canada there’s no such thing as unregulated free speech and we do put limits,” Wells said.

“Part of that concern is when it starts to violate our human rights legislation and place minority communities at great risk.”

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