TORONTO

Outspoken University of Toronto Prof. Jordan Peterson says his latest mission is to try to “stop (university) indoctrination in its tracks” by advising freshman students to avoid certain disciplines “like the plague.”

Those university disciplines which have been “corrupted” by what he calls the Post-Modernist (neo-Marxist) academics include Women’s Studies, Racial Studies, Sociology, Anthropology and English Literature — with the very “worst offenders” based in the faculties of education.

“(The neo-Marxist) professors are playing these insane bordering on murderous intellectual games (with their students), he told a crowd of nearly 700 at the first free speech summit in downtown Toronto Wednesday evening.

“It’s a cult and a war of ideas and freshmen coming in from high school should be encouraged to stay away from them (these disciplines).”

Peterson told the crowd, which gave him a standing ovation before and after he spoke, he’s putting together a website on the content of the disciplines he feels are “corrupted” that students can view to help them “make a more informed decision about which courses they want to take.”

The controversial psychology professor — characterized as the inspiration for the Students for Free Speech (SSFS) movement which is gaining ground at universities across Canada — says he hopes to have the website up and running before the fall.

The evening, organized by the SSFS groups from York and University of Toronto, was punctuated with much discourse about the new focus on university campuses on victimization and oppression — both of which have stifled free speech.

Conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro, who is based in California, says in the 13 years since he wrote about indoctrination on campus in his first book, Brainwashed, things have gotten more “radical” and there’s a lot more violence on campus.

He said now he sees a “whole new level” from college administrators and professors that if you are of a certain identity group, your opinion doesn’t matter anymore.

“The intersectional (groups that have oppression in common) hierarchy is the key now,” he said. “You are judged by your race, your ethnicity, your sexual orientation rather than by the ideas you espouse.

“Victimhood is currency on campus,” he added, calling it “absurd” and “Orwellian” to paint those who oppose the ideas of a particular ethnic group as racist.

He said he feels Black Lives Matter will end up getting black people killed because the group keeps advocating for fewer cops in high crime areas and “slandering police officers who do their best to protect people in high-crime areas.”

Shapiro said while there are bad and racist cops, the “overwhelming majority” are not so.

“Pretending there is some broad-based effort to wipe out or target black people under the law is not only slanderous to cops but leads to withdrawal of cops from areas where they desperately need more law enforcement,” he said.

Earlier, Josephine Mathias, a fourth-year political science student at U of T and the subject of a Toronto Sun story this spring about political correctness on campus, told the crowd she’s seeing evidence of the “Oppression Olympics” — that is, which race or ethnic group is the most oppressed, and usually the “white man” is to blame.

“It’s so ridiculous,” she says. “When these students get into the real world their intersectionality will not get them a job.”

Amanda Ellen Gibbs, a McMaster University student and another member of the student panel with Mathias, said there’s a “profitability in victimization” and university professors and administrators are to blame for constantly “acquiescing to these children who throw temper tantrums” and shut down debate or even become violent.

slevy@postmedia.com