The University of Toronto says a psychology professor is entitled to his own opinion when asked about where the school stands on a pair of online lectures that have ignited controversy with some individuals in the school community.

"His views are his own and universities are places where people can express opinions that are controversial. This happens all the time at universities," U of T spokesperson Elizabeth Church said in reference to the backlash around YouTube lectures by Professor Jordan Peterson.

The videos, posted on Sept. 27 and Oct. 3, have Peterson questioning political correctness around Bill C-16, which proposes changes to Canadian law around gender identity and gender expression as well as mandatory training for U of T human resources staff that focuses on racial discrimination.

Peterson's comments in the videos prompted groups at U of T's Mississauga campus (UTM) to send a letter to university administration, alleging that he's racist and transphobic.

"Peterson has abused his position of power as a tenured professor and has tried to use academic freedom to disguise his bigotry and prejudice as an intellectual disagreement," the Oct. 6 letter, signed by a number of UTM student groups, including Denio Lourenco, the UTM student union's LGBTQ co-ordinator, and Marise Hopkins, UTM student union's Black Liberation Collective organizer.

A list of demands in the Oct. 6 letter call for the videos to be removed and an apology from Peterson.

Church said U of T has received complaints about the videos, including the Oct. 6 letter.

"They're in the process of looking at what we've received and determining how to proceed with them," she said.

Peterson's comments in the Sept. 27 video, entitled, "Professor Against Political Correctness," question the "messy terminology" when describing proposed changes to the Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code.

"The changes of the law scare me because they put into the legal substructure of the culture certain assumptions about basic human nature that, not only I believe to be untrue, but they're also dangerous and ideologically motivated," Peterson said in the video.