Tipsheet

To the Left's Horror, Jordan Peterson Returns to Academia

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  May 09, 2022 2:35 PM

The Left is going to go ballistic. Dr. Jordan Peterson, the controversial clinical psychologist, podcaster, YouTuber, lecturer, and ex-professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, is back. He’s described as right-wing, though that label is applied to any person the Left doesn’t like. Bill Maher is now described as right-wing in some circles which is beyond laughable. Maher is as liberal as they come. Like Maher, Peterson is an expert at shredding liberal narratives around gender identity and pronoun use. He’s not for political correctness. He’s for freedom of speech. He speaks at length about the crisis in masculinity—all of which makes feminists seethe with rage. He uses facts, studies, and learned diction to destroy the cornerstones of woke political thought. It’s why he’s so hated. He resigned from the University of Toronto. He wrote at length about why he bolted in January, which unsurprisingly includes wokeness poisoning the world of academia (via National Post):

I recently resigned from my position as full tenured professor at the University of Toronto. I am now professor emeritus, and before I turned sixty. Emeritus is generally a designation reserved for superannuated faculty, albeit those who had served their term with some distinction. I had envisioned teaching and researching at the U of T, full time, until they had to haul my skeleton out of my office. I loved my job. And my students, undergraduates and graduates alike, were positively predisposed toward me. But that career path was not meant to be. There were many reasons, including the fact that I can now teach many more people and with less interference online. But here’s a few more…

First, my qualified and supremely trained heterosexual white male graduate students (and I’ve had many others, by the way) face a negligible chance of being offered university research positions, despite stellar scientific dossiers. This is partly because of Diversity, Inclusivity and Equity mandates (my preferred acronym: DIE). These have been imposed universally in academia, despite the fact that university hiring committees had already done everything reasonable for all the years of my career, and then some, to ensure that no qualified “minority” candidates were ever overlooked. My students are also partly unacceptable precisely because they are my students. I am academic persona non grata, because of my unacceptable philosophical positions. And this isn’t just some inconvenience. These facts rendered my job morally untenable. How can I accept prospective researchers and train them in good conscience knowing their employment prospects to be minimal?

Second reason: This is one of many issues of appalling ideology currently demolishing the universities and, downstream, the general culture. Not least because there simply is not enough qualified BIPOC people in the pipeline to meet diversity targets quickly enough…

All my craven colleagues must craft DIE statements to obtain a research grant. They all lie (excepting the minority of true believers) and they teach their students to do the same. And they do it constantly, with various rationalizations and justifications, further corrupting what is already a stunningly corrupt enterprise. Some of my colleagues even allow themselves to undergo so-called anti-bias training, conducted by supremely unqualified Human Resources personnel, lecturing inanely and blithely and in an accusatory manner about theoretically all-pervasive racist/sexist/heterosexist attitudes. Such training is now often a precondition to occupy a faculty position on a hiring committee.

[…]

Furthermore, the accrediting boards for graduate clinical psychology training programs in Canada are now planning to refuse to accredit university clinical programs unless they have a “social justice” orientation. That, combined with some recent legislative changes in Canada, claiming to outlaw so-called “conversion therapy” (but really making it exceedingly risky for clinicians to do anything ever but agree always and about everything with their clients) have likely doomed the practice of clinical psychology, which always depended entirely on trust and privacy. Similar moves are afoot in other professional disciplines, such as medicine and law. And if you don’t think that psychologists, lawyers and other professionals are anything but terrified of their now woke governing professional colleges, much to everyone’s extreme detriment, you simply don’t understand how far this has all gone.


Peterson suffered some serious health issues as well. It’s a dietary-based issue with him. In 2020, he had to travel to Russia and Serbia for treatment concerning his benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome. He also contracted COVID during this time. So, there’s been other issues at play here keeping him from his work. He’s back now. The newly-created Ralston College in Georgia has appointed him chancellor:


Ralston College is honored to announce the appointment of Dr Jordan B. Peterson as its Chancellor.

Dr Peterson is a tireless defender of free thought, free speech, and conscientious action; and a passionate advocate of the true and beautiful things that those free acts can attain. A brilliant interpreter of Western culture and a mentor to the millions of students whom the modern university has betrayed, Dr Peterson understands the transformative power of human civilization and the unique nourishment that its cultural treasures afford. 

Dr Peterson has been an eloquent advocate for and a fearless champion of the ideals that have, for centuries, been central to the enterprise of university education. At Ralston College, he joins a community dedicated to the revival and reinvention of the university and to the recovery of these ideals.

I’m sure lefties will be upset, though they’re more concerned about the Dobbs case before the Supreme Court. The draft of the opinion was leaked. Roe v. Wade is about to be trashed—so that’s taking up all the rage right now.