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American social scientist Jonathan Haidt concludes that a major change has occurred. Many universities no longer view the pursuit of truth as their primary goal; instead, the social justice goal of protecting victim groups has become the priority. He argues that the two goals are incompatible. There is no compromise: Universities must choose one or the other.

The senior university leadership has clearly indicated their allegiance. When announcing the formation of the task force, the WLU president purposely tempered her support by warning that commitments to free speech must be balanced against “our institutional values of diversity and inclusion.”

Notwithstanding this institutional bias, the premise of the task force is flawed. You cannot combine free speech and social justice advocates on a task force and expect a compromise. As Mark Steyn likes to say, if you combine ice cream and feces, the mixture is apt to taste more like the latter than the former.

And to be clear, the free speech position is already a compromise. The Chicago Statement prohibits speech that “violates the law, is threatening, harassing, or defamatory, or invades substantial privacy or confidentiality interests” and acknowledges that the university may regulate speech so that it is not disruptive. Any further qualification just restricts what can be said.

The social justice perspective will not compromise because it isn’t interested in free speech as a means of discovering truth. This is clear from the public statements of the justice advocates. In the leaked Shepherd audio, her professor is heard to say that some ideas are “not up for debate” and the neutral airing of both sides of an argument “is kind of the problem.” The Rainbow Centre at Laurier went straight to ad hominems and accused free speech advocates of being transphobic. A Laurier sociologist wrote that he wants to know who is abusing free speech — as if it is a tool of the oppressor.