Speaking out against how university has become a hotbed for far-left activism at a University of Toronto public event is like walking into a lion’s den. That’s just what University of Ottawa English professor Janice Fiamengo will be doing Thursday evening.

“What’s Wrong With Women’s Studies: Academic Feminism, Censorship and Men” is hosted by the Canadian Association for Equality (CAFE). Fiamengo will offer her thoughts on women’s studies programs, affirmative action on campus and more.

“What began as a legitimate scholarly enterprise — to study the experiences of women, the history of women, etc. — has become something quite other than that,” Fiamengo told me. “It has become the academic arm of the radical feminist movement. It’s become an advocacy group masquerading as an academic discipline ... And, really, scholarly work is secondary.”

Fiamengo used to be a devout feminist. “I was immersed in feminist theory and the point of view,” she recalls. “I wrote a feminist PhD thesis.”

But after working at University of Saskatchewan and watching gender-based affirmative action at play — which Fiamengo says she benefited from — she began to change. “Any fool can see you don’t right a past injustice by engaging in blatant discrimination.”

She then began to see this mentality infecting much of the university experience. “The whole victim ideology had just so permeated the way that discipline was being conceived of,” she says.

“I was just appalled. I thought I was coming to a place where people just loved literature. But literature was secondary. It was more about indoctrinating people into this leftist worldview ... That was what changed me.”

For many years Fiamengo kept her thoughts to herself, but she’s recently started publishing her views in outlets like FrontPageMag.com. Those of us who also once kept quiet amidst growing hysteria during our university years can certainly relate to her journey. The walls of what the politically correct define to be polite conversation continue to close in on you until you push back.

What brought Fiamengo to contact CAFE was their last major U of T event. Warren Farrell was a feminist academic in the 1970s until he began writing about men’s issues.

His speech at U of T last November was disturbed by around 100 protesters. Activists barricaded the doors for a while and chanted “no hate speech on campus” and “f--- Warren Farrell” throughout. Labelling an opponent a purveyor of hate speech is the cheap trick now used to give moral authority to shut down certain conversations.

“It did seem to me to sum up the sort of skewed perspective, the misguidedness of these students, who are indoctrinated into believing there is some vast injustice and they must oppose it and shut it down,” Fiamengo says. “We now live in a society where we have been convinced by the hard-left that many conversations simply shouldn’t be allowed or penalized.”

There are already rumours of planned protests for Fiamengo’s speech.

It’s mind-boggling that anyone would block people from hearing polite and soft-spoken Fiamengo, who is more than happy to take challenging questions from the audience.

While Fiamengo continues to teach Canadian and women’s literature, she’s also working on a book about her experiences in academia and its politically charged atmosphere.

If you’re in Toronto on Thursday, the event is at 7 p.m. at the George Ignatieff Theatre, 15 Devonshire Place.