Universitory Censorship of Conservative Views

"As we all know, Canadian universities are supposed to be bastions of freedom of thought and critical thinking, where controversial ideas are explored and debated in a framework of civility."

"The reality today is that Canadian universities undermine academic freedom because they are dominated by group-think, left-wing academics who intimidate their conservative colleagues into silence, while university administrators do nothing."

Editorial, Toronto Sun

 

"In November 2017, Lindsay Shepherd, then a twenty-two-year-old graduate teaching assistant, made international headlines when she was censured for showing a clip of a public broadcaster’s current-affairs program in a Wilfrid Laurier University communication studies tutorial, in which University of Toronto psychology professor and bestselling self-help author Jordan Peterson expressed his opposition to Bill C-16: the (now passed) legislation adding gender identity and gender expression as protected categories in the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code. In the clip, Peterson said he would refuse to use gender-neutral pronouns if requested to do so by a nonbinary student and that any attempt to compel the use of gender-neutral pronouns amounted to curtailing free speech. As Shepherd explains ...  she 'wanted to make a larger societal point about how something innocuous, like grammar, can actually be politicized'."

John Semley, The Walrus

 

"As a professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts at Wilfrid Laurier University’s Brantford, Ontario campus for the past 15 years, I’ve witnessed what happens when liberal professors deem their conservative students an “enemy to be openly opposed.” My public writing and presentations in support of conservative ideas often lead like-minded students to reach out to me."

"Many are Christians, although not all. Before Covid-19, it was common for me to have students sobbing in my office. Now I hear their stories via email. Many who write have never taken one of my courses; some don’t even attend Laurier. But their stories are always similar."

David Millard Haskell, C2C Journal

A recently-released report -- whose findings were the result of an investigation by Christopher Dummitt, professor of Canadian history, Trent University, and Zachary Patterson, associate professor of geography at Concordia University -- has revealed some very telling statistics. Results not totally unexpected, since for years the prevailing situation at most universities and colleges in North America has been to ignore or condemn university professors and students who hold what is termed 'conservative' views of any dimension. In a prevailing atmosphere of liberal-left and now 'woke' views, conservative voices have been stifled.

In essence the report these academics steeped in the tradition of higher-education learning have  published, found more than enough proof that Canadian universities just as those in the U.S. and U.K. have become politically homogeneous, promoting a total lack of diversity in perspectives leading to diminished support for academic freedom and providing a hostile environment for those disagreeing with left-leaning values. All of which has contributed hugely to a miserable situation of self-censorship as a type of self-defence among academics.

Their survey indicated that 88 percent of professors self-identify as 'left-leaning'. That group voted for left-leaning political parties in the most recent federal election, whereas under 39 percent of the general population voted for conservative candidates, which fewer than 9 percent of academics voted for as well. Homogeneous decision-making, according to studies, ultimately lead to poor decisions, reflecting incomplete information when those with diverse viewpoints are silenced by the prevailing majority.

The study demonstrates that 47 percent of right-leaning professors tend to self-censor in avoidance of professional blowback from their peers. The report stated that even with left-leaning faculty, 37 percent tend to self-censor, while fifty percent of right-leaning faculty fear  social and professional consequences should it become known among their colleagues that their opinions of political affiliations are conservative. University departments are reported by forty percent of right-leaning faculty as hostile work environments.

A third of professors admit they would support cancelling a colleagues should that colleague's research conflict with contemporary social justice values. For a large proportion of the professoriate, the study points out, academic freedom matters but conditionally; as long as it does not conflict with their political views. Protection for part-time faculty and students are absent under collective agreements. While some professors may be in a protected position from their employers, collegial or online mobs practise discrimination. In recognition of such problems some jurisdictions have enabled laws to protect universities' academic freedom on campuses.

"At a time when political polarization and social media algorithms diminish trust in institutions, Canadian universities need to be part of the solution -- modelling intellectual humility and genuine acceptance of all forms of diversity, especially viewpoint diversity."

Christopher Dummitt, Zachary Patterson

A professor lectures to students. Getty Image

 

The Precious Reality of Woke Socialism: DIE

"We acknowledge that we are all living off the taken ancestral lands of Indigenous peoples for thousands of years. We acknowledge the extraction of brilliance, energy and life for labor forced upon people of African descent for more than 400 years. We celebrate the resilience and strength that all Indigenous people and descendants of Africa have shown in this country and worldwide."                        "We carry our ancestors in us, and we are continually called to be better as we lead this work…. We envision a nation in which…all physicians are equipped with the consciousness, tools and resources to confront inequities and dismantle white supremacy, racism, and other forms of exclusion…."                                       American Medical Association

"[The AMA’s proposed strategic plan] is rooted not in science and the medical ethics of the Hippocratic Oath but in a host of Marxist ideologies that devalue the lives of our most vulnerable patients and seek to undermine the nuclear family which is the single most critical institution to child well-being."

Dr. Michelle Cretella, executive director, American College of Pediatricians

Gender equity in medicine ... AAMC

It's simply yet another manifestation of the mammoth sway in society of its latest zeitgeist, an 'awakening' of conscience so burdened with guilt that the sins of the fathers have been visited upon their sons, their daughters, their grandsons, their granddaughters, their great-grandsons and great-granddaughters burdening all of society with collective guilt and responsibility for what humanity has embarked upon since time immemorial; taking advantage of others to advance one's own well-being.

 

The social-cultural miasma of collective guilt handed down through the generations, finding all those who have moved forward in life at the ostensible and frequently real manipulation and oppression of others who themselves have learned to bask in their victimhood, found guilty as charged. If anyone is an art lover, in Canada the National Art Gallery housing priceless art collections to be admired and enjoyed, now is meant to be viewed through the lens of a JEDI&A lens (Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accountability). Do not, under any circumstances, view art henceforth for its own authentic qualities in the search for aesthetic beauty and originality.

 

AAMC

According to the American Medical Association, doctors must now inform their patients with a preamble, elocuting in the instance of patients of Native American background, that they were historically "dispossessed by the government of their land and culture". As for people living in straitened economic circumstances presenting with illnesses, they too are to be addressed with the explicating admission that "people underpaid and forced into poverty as a result of banking policies, real estate developers gentrifying neighbourhoods, and corporations weakening the power of labour movements among others, have the highest level of coronary artery disease".

 

In the time-consuming process of earnestly convincing patients that the medical profession is on their side in indignant fury over the rough ride that life has given them thanks to the powerful selfishness of the entitled class and the colour-white tyrants, doctors might very well lose track of their obligation within the medical profession of addressing the patient's symptoms to find a medical diagnosis, in their brain-straining efforts at placing themselves at the service of diversity, inclusion and equity (DIE). In the process helping their patients to do just that.

 

University campuses give full throttle to 'woke' culture. Academia has embraced its politics, encouraging students and staff alike to take up the cause of underdogs everywhere, castigate the self-perceived vision of innocence, replacing it with communal guilt and cast those entities named as guilty-as-imagined to be beyond the pale, to be exorcised from polite society. The formidable icons of Western heroism, the principals behind the most meaningful measures of civilization's advance are now to be viewed as reprehensible white saviors who sacrificed the lives and cultures and heritage of indigenous peoples for white gain. 

Their crimes against society may be centuries old, but the current white-privileged are their spawn and as guilty of oppression and discrimination as their forbears, irrespective of their remedial actions and conscientious acts of present-day consciousness. The woke politicization of science, academia and government has soared in an evolutionary cultural volcanic eruption of caustic blame melting the rock-solid core of democratic civilization as we were fond of knowing it. 

In Canada, research scientists working on cutting-edge technological advances will be turned down for government funding research grants should their completed funding applications under assessment reek of insufficient dedication to equity, diversity and inclusion considerations. Consideration of criteria such as qualifications and skills and work ethic and experience are now irrelevant when faced off against minority rights and entitlements to equality treatment in all spheres of influence; qualifications recognized as secondary skills, shields behind which exclusion appallingly skulks.

In Canada recently, a Lakehead University professor was granted $1.2 million for her research studying the efficacy of Indigenous healing in the prevention of cancer. She proposed that the medical, scientific community should focus on matters from a different perspective altogether: "Think of cancer as a symptom of colonialism". Upon which a governing party Member of Parliament -- who before re-assignment to the Indigenous Services ministry was the Minister of Health -- congratulated the Lakehead professor and wrote: "I look forward to hearing and learning from  your work and findings".

 

 

Political Instability, High Crime Rates, Poverty and Dengue Fever

"In another country there would be many sick but not as many deaths."
"The cure for dengue is political."
Eduardo Ortiz, adviser, Pan American Health Organization, Honduras

"As a parent [of a child with dengue], I wasn't well prepared."
"And as doctors, they weren't well prepared [to diagnose her child's illness]."
Wendy Carcamo, resident, Choloma, Honduras

"People are thinking about other problems [in their daily lives]."
"If I'm a mother and I have three children, four children, I'm going to be thinking about what I'm going to feed them, whether my son is running with the gangs."
"They'll be thinking least of all about dengue."
Dr.Dinorah Nolasco, regional health director, Cortes, Honduras

Children being treated for dengue fever at a hospital in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.  Credit...Daniele Volpe for The New York Times

There are other epidemics roiling parts of the world we hear little of, aside from the novel coronavirus striking China, that has the rest of the world on alert over its spread and threat as a new, unknown health danger. The World Health Organization has pointed out that developed areas of the world with thriving economies are well able to absorb the scientific and economic shock of dealing with a new virus that is demonstrating its potential to spread panic and death. Its concerns are mostly focused on less developed, less stable, less well-equipped emerging economies and how they will manage.

While international news media focus on the coronavirus, not much has been published to alert the world over an old concern, dengue fever, which is ravaging Honduras where 107,000 cases emerged last year killing over 175, in one of the worst dengue epidemics on record sweeping Central America killing a total of 400 people. Precisely the type of outbreak that many scientists and public health authorities warn may become more frequent and widespread in coming years.

An MSF health promotion officer speaks to children at the school in the La Lopez neighbourhood in Choloma, about how to prevent the spread of dengue and eliminate sources of infection. Honduras, April 2019.

Over 40 percent of the dengue deaths in Central America occurred in Honduras last year. Where issues such as government dysfunction, political unrest and public apathy have all contributed to its spread. Last year's outbreak exceeded that of the year before, where in 2018 three people died from the disease and in 2019, 175 succumbed. Transmitted by the Aedes mosquito known to thrive in urban areas in the world's tropical and subtropical regions, tens of millions of cases occur yearly in over 100 countries.

Symptoms include fever, internal bleeding and shock. And given that this is such a familiar disease, the symptoms so clearly identified, it is inexplicable that seven-year-old Jostin Pineda, taken to three private clinics by his mother, Wendy Carcamo, was misdiagnosed by each, and when the last of the doctors referred her to the region's main public hospital, so much time had elapsed that medical intervention was too late, and her child died.

This is a nation that suffers from high murder rates and widespread poverty. The public health system has been gutted through budget cuts and endemic corruption. Medical facilities lack the capacity to handle normal demands, much less that of an epidemic which has been particularly acute in the north of the country, the province of Cortes, its industrial heartland. It has a large migratory population of factory workers, a circumstance helpful in spreading the disease to other regions.

A patient suspected of having contracted dengue receiving treatment at a hospital in San Pedro Sula.  Credit...Daniele Volpe for The New York Times

One of the major factors that contributed to the spread of the epidemic was the shortage of trained personnel, admitted Dr. Dinorah Nolasco who described her medical teams' difficulty in gaining access to gang-ridden neighbourhoods. In Choloma, one of the main cities of Cortes, medical teams secured access to those neighbourhoods only following a meeting with community leaders who then negotiated with gang leaders of the areas that had become dengue hot spots.

Meteorological conditions were also identified as contributing to the outbreak, when Honduras endured severe droughts alongside bouts of intense rainfall, reflecting a pattern of increased weather variability which scientists feel are related to climate change. Residents in neighbourhoods without reliable public water supplies during extreme drought tend to store water in their homes, making them potential mosquito breeding sites. Heavy rainfall with subsequent flooding also provides breeding environments.

On a visit to Lopez Arellano, Dr. Nolasco as the regional health director in Cortes, visited the home of a family that had lost a child to dengue. Inspecting a basin where water was stored, she discovered hordes of mosquito larvae swimming about in the basin. Moving to the next home, the very same situation prevailed.

Health promoters measure a water tank so they can apply the exact amount of larvicide necessary for it to be effective. Choloma, Cortes, Honduras. October 2019.  

MSF/Arlette Blanco

Selecting Statistics : Take Your Pick

"Red regions of the country have higher teen pregnancy rates, more shotgun marriages and lower average ages at marriage and first birth."
"Blue family values bristle at restrictions on sexuality, insistence on marriage or the stigmatization of single parents. Their secret, however, is that they encourage their children to simultaneously combine public tolerance with private discipline, and their children then overwhelmingly choose to raise their own children within two-parent families."
Naomi Cahn and June Carbone, "Red Families v.Blue Families", 2010

"Child marriage is happening at an alarming rate across the United States, but available marriage-license data show more parents, judges and clerks in red states than in blue states seem comfortable with this human-rights abuse."
Fraidy Reiss, founder, Unchained at Last nonprofit

"Individual religious conservatism is positively related to individual divorce risk."
American Journal of Sociology 50-state study

There are always statistics that can be handily selected that will advance preferred theories. It isn't that the statistics are not necessarily reliable in demonstrating the reality of issues, it's that there are often complicating issues within the subject that tend to tilt outcomes in one way or another. Which goes a long way to repeating that the devil is in the details.

Take, for example, political ideologies and how they differ, what their premises are and their values and how they're upheld and what the consequences are. Conservatives, for example can be relied upon to cite their foremost value as being one that upholds the status of the traditional, conventional family: "Family values" has sanctity status; a phrase very familiar to voters in particular, most especially during election times.

In the conventional sense, family values are fairly precise; no premarital sex, children only within the sacrament of marriage, and children raised in two-parent families for optimum outcomes. Despite which, conservative areas reflect high rates of teenage pregnancies, divorce and rates of prostitution, whereas liberal areas, while abstaining from insisting on "family values" because they pride themselves on being more "socially progressive", end up with fewer teen births, divorces and prostitution.

Mississippi, Delaware, West Virginia, Alabama and Arkansas high school students self-reported having had sex in responding to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey of 32 states. Delaware was the only state among them that voted Republican in the last presidential election. Whereas New York, California, Maryland, Nebraska and Connecticut all reported the lowest proportion of high school students who experienced sex encounters, with Nebraska among them having voted Democratic.



In 2015, nine of ten states surveyed with the highest teen birth rates had voted Republican, and nine of the ten states with the lowest teen birth rates had voted Democratic. Liberals boast they are relaxed about strict moral codes while in their personal lives they teach their children the inappropriateness of high school students engaging in sex. On the other hand evangelical students who have sex are unlikelier to use birth control and have a lower rate of abortions.

While averse to pre-marital sex, conservative positions sometimes lead to early marriages, even where the principals are considered to be children. Hundreds of thousands of child marriages take place in the United States. The dozen states ranking with the highest rates of child marriage had all voted Republican in 2015. Divorce too tends to be higher in red states as opposed to blue; Arkansas leading the pack.

A large international survey discovered that Ashley Madison's most numerous group of clients were evangelical Christians. According to a major study from 2013, men in the Houston and Kansas City metro areas were likelier to call on  sex advertisers, while men in San Francisco and Baltimore were less likely to indulge. And then there are Mormons, the ultra-conservative conservatives where Utah stands alone for low teen birthrates, low divorce and low abortion rates.

Utah also has the greatest number of teenagers living at home with their married, biological parents. Interestingly, when Mormonism was founded one of the guiding principles and beliefs was that men were ordained by god to have multiple wives. Due to Federal government pressure, the mainstream Mormon church dropped that major plank in its religion, and now it is the breakaway faction, the Church of Latter-Day Saints that pursues multiple wives in a single marriage with illegal gusto.

Statistical analysis indicates that religious conservatives more commonly divorce in response to early marriages where the partners come from disproportionately poor backgrounds and are poorly educated. It is not, therefore, conservative values themselves that inevitably lead to premarital sex or divorce.

Alfred Gescheidt/Getty Images