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On its website page on Values, Vision, and Mission, Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, prides itself on a commitment to several aspects of critical thinking, debate, scholarly exploration of new ideas and so on.

Wilfrid Laurier University recognizes that intellectual inquiry, critical reflection and scholarly integrity are the cornerstones of all universities including our exceptional institution…Our commitment is to justice and sustainability now and in the future, so we strive to ignite the minds, spirits and hearts of our communities through excellence in teaching and learning, in the discovery, scholarly exploration, and application of new ideas, and in instilling the courage to engage and challenge the world in all its complexity.

That mission statement is being questioned by some editorialists after an incident involving a teaching assistant. University student Lindsay Shepherd, 22, leads tutorials on language use for first year communications students in a class called “Canadian Communication in Context”.

Wilfred Laurier University is embroiled in an issue of suppression of free speech on campus © WLU

In it she showed a short, three to five minute clip of a publicly broadcast TV Ontario show in which award-winning psychology professor Jordan Peterson who is against forced use of genderless and “made-up” pronouns, like “ze, and zir” amongst others, debated the issue with Nicholas Matte, a lecturer at the University of Toronto’s Sexual Diversity Studies programme.

Dr Peterson has become the centre of politically motivated controversy for his stance.

2016: Award winning University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson attempts to explain his position to a crowd outside the university before being disrupted by an unruly group of protesters. © youtube screen grab

In an email to RCI, Peterson wrote, “It was Nicholas Matte who claimed during that debate that ‘there is no biological difference between men and women.’ Apparently believing that to be patently untrue makes me Hitler, in the eyes of certain WLU professors”.

Shepherd said following the airing of the clip a lively but friendly debate ensued. “I thought it went really well”, she said.

But then a person or persons, the university refuses to say, complained.

The university called Shepherd to a meeting with her supervisor, the communications programme coordinator, and the acting manager of the “Gendered Violence Prevention and Support” programme.

She was accused of creating a “toxic climate” and that by airing the clip without condemning Dr Peterson’s position outright that she was “legitimizing” his views and that it was equivalent to “neutrally playing a speech by Hitler”.

According to one report the meeting left her in tears. She was told her lesson plans must be submitted in advance and she fears the job which helps pay for her Master’s studies might be taken away.

Quoted by the Waterloo Record she says, “”if this trend continues of radical leftist indoctrination, I’m not really interested in being a part of that. Universities are no longer places where ideas may freely circulate (…) where one can engage with controversial ideas. They are echo chambers for left-wing ideology”,

The university has said it has now engaged a neutral third party to investigate and gather facts.

Additional information- sources