Just to add to the ridiculousness - I saw this in the news yesterday:
Dr Jordan Peterson: Cambridge University fellowship rescinded
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...shire-47656933
Fucking ridiculous. Unless someone is advocating racial or gender-based (or any other brand of bigotry) violence or discrimination - or is known to be linked to a group or party that advocates this - or if they as an academic are perpetuating dangerous and outmoded pseudo-scientific theories (like eugenics or racial hierarchies) I do not understand why a university would rescind a fellowship.
In a university you want a multiplicity of views and academics. I could understand it if he was going to be lecturing in clinical psychology and was intent on teaching something that had been discredited or show to be harmful - at that point you absolutely shouldn't let that person become part of the faculty - but he is a) a highly respected psychology professor who, while currently operating at the fringes off his field in many ways, is nonetheless highly skilled and experienced - and b) was supposed to be collaborating on a theological course examining theological texts from a psychological perspective. If he goes in with something wild nobody gets hurt by that.
About the only rationale I could see for not allowing someone like Peterson to be a part of the university is that he has made himself too well known in the political sphere and that'snot the done thing for professors - it loses the sense of objectivity and potentially damages the balance of collegial respect between faculty and students. It'd ok to pop up in the news from time to time to discuss your field of expertise or comment on something affecting the university sector- but you don't want to be known for that as an academic.
I don't think that is what this is though. I think they have bowed to pressure from a small bunch of students who have labeled him enemy of trans-rights and poster boy for the alt right and then whipped a bunch more less informed students into a frenzy of outrage.
When I was younger the people we wanted to prevent having a public platform were actual fascists - known members of white supremacist groups (one of them had been secretly recorded at a meeting exhorting his followers - 'muslims are cockroaches - and what do we do with cockroaches?') or academics still trying to push damaging 'gay cure' ideas long after it had proven to be devastatingly harmful to most of the people who were persuaded to follow that route- that was about it ... that shit is dangerous -
Peterson isn't advocating a refusal to recognise the basic humanity of trans people, or agitating for them to be segragated off from the rest of society or anything bad - imo about LGBTQ people. He didn;t even refuse to use neutral pronouns - he refused to use a cumbersome and unintuitive list of made up pronouns that can change at any moment and carry the force of law. That doesn't make him an enemy of trans people. They should save their ire for the people who are actually advocating harmful policies and views (go picket the politician that defunds groups supporting LGBTQ at risk youth for instance)
[eta[
I think Peterson's greatest 'crime' is his unwillingness to condemn and give up on the alt-right people. Out and out fascists he has condemned thoroughly and often - but he does that thing that winds people up where he actually tries to understand the people in that milieu - who are they, why are they attracted to that philosophy, how can they be reached and drawn back towards a healthier balance? He isn't looking at them and seeing them only as their political or cultural stance - he is seeing them as human beings with complex psychologies and characters.
To quote Oprah ( I know, right?) 'both things can be true'. Someone can have good qualities (kindness, humour, bravery) and still perform terrible acts or hold deeply distasteful views. The one doesn't negate the other.
Nobody wants to understand the other side. It's all battle lines and team loyalty. You have to fly a flag - so which flag are you flying?