Alerting society to the politicization of the classroom should be seen as a public service.
The University of Toronto Faculty Association is upset because one professor, Jordan Peterson, is threatening to show the public what students are really learning in Canada’s own public universities.
Peterson has spoken of creating a website where students can enter the name of a course or a professor and find out to what extent said course or professor is addled with “postmodern” and “social justice” ideology. The Faculty Association has taken action and complained to the administration despite the fact that the proposed website has not been launched, and Peterson himself has indicated that the project is “in stasis” as he considers whether such an initiative will “add to the polarization” of the present moment.
We can question how effective a website like this would be in gauging apparent political bias of a course or professor. For example, would it hinder academic freedom, presume political indoctrination where none is happening, and open academics to harassment? Yet beyond these questions, the project of scrutinizing what exactly constitutes today’s undergraduate education is entirely legitimate. Why should students and parents be prevented from knowing what their thousands of dollars and several years of their lives are actually paying for? And is the ethical propriety of a website that might unmask the modern university really why Jordan Peterson is attracting the wrath of the hive?
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