Canadian professor fired for gender critical views

[JustTurtlesAllTheWayDown]

cfe.ryerson.ca/blog/2020/06/academic-freedom-and-perceptions-harm

She was fired on the basis of one or more students complaining even though they did not actually submit any formal complaints.
She also asked for specific reasons in writing but does not appear to have received them other than general 'unsafe' views.
It seems from the article that she was open about her views, respectful of others views but that wasn't enough not to be accused of heresy for believing women are real.
I can't see if she's taking any legal action or has any option to appeal, but I hope so. This is appalling.

I read that earlier. She wasn't fired from her job. She lost part of her responsibilities, overseeing a degree programme or module, I think. Still bad, but not quite as you've put in your thread title.

This is really upsetting.

I mean it is Canada, so not surprising, seeing as it's own government stopped funding a rape relief crisis refuge over gender critical views, essentially sacking them from the public sector so they have had to become a charity dependent on the goodwill of others.

What's more upsetting is that this woman might have trouble getting another job at all in this sort of culture. I seriously hope she appeals.

Is there any way of helping her? Start a petition or something? Would that even assist in the case of appeal?

Gasp0de

Ah ok thanks for clearing that up.

This is awful. I can only think that these students who think it makes them somehow 'unsafe' to hear about beliefs or opinions they dislike or disagree with have never experienced any actual, material threat to their safety. It's a very Newspeak way to put it.

It's the inevitable consequence of making students into paying customers who think they call the shots.

It's the inevitable consequence of making students into paying customers who think they call the shots.

Pretty much this, yes! And, in all fairness, viewed through the lens of capitalism, they're not even fundamentally wrong.

And that's why education is realistically not a commodity. Because the moment we start treating it as such, it risks losing its inherent value to market pressure.

Canada. The only country so woke that Brits get to laugh at them.

It's the inevitable consequence of making students into paying customers who think they call the shots.

Canadians have always had to pay for university, however it hasn't always been like this. It's become much more expensive, of course, so that may make a difference. But I think it is mainly a cultural change.

Yes, @Goosefoot, I was thinking after I posted that that it's always been different on your side of the Atlantic, with higher participation in college-level education and correspondingly different finances.

When I was at university in the early 80s (in the UK) IIRC barely 10% of 18 year olds went on to higher education. Most teenagers left school at 16 with minimal qualifications. It was a huge privilege to get higher education and those of us who were the first in our families to get that privilege were very conscious of it. There was no sense in which we expected to be issued with our degrees just for turning up, and absolutely no sense that we had a right not to be upset or challenged. Quite the contrary, in most cases, I'd say.

It does of course make a difference that we didn't pay for our tuition, the local education authority did, and a large chunk of the maintenance costs came from them too in the form of a grant.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

We've certainly seen big changes here as well over the years. Far more people go to university and they pay a lot more, even accounting for inflation.

But the universities here have been captured in a way that seems very similar to what has gone on in the UK, and I think that may be the bigger issue. It makes sense to an extent, the university world is so international. The attitude that students have some sort of special insight, that they are there to show the teachers the way of the future, the obsession with certain types of diversity or grievance studies.

And there is a huge money problem for universities who are increasingly becoming dependent on attracting overseas students who pay more.

Somehow the Student Unions have really increased their power as well. When I was a student in the 90s they were a bit of a joke, everyone knew that a certain kind of person was attracted to those positions. Now they seem to be taken seriously by the administration.

As the shameful hounding of Lyndsay Shepard, a TA at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, over using a publicly broadcast clip of Jordan Peterson in a lesson plan showed us, Canadian academics are not beyond lying through their crooked teeth over and over to achieve the outcome they want.
Hopefully the professor in this case has treated everything they have said as a bald faced lie and demanded evidence.