Peterson posts response video to cancellation of talk at Linfield
April 21, 2017
Dr. Jordan Peterson released his response on YouTube today to having his talk at Linfield canceled, criticizing college administration and stating that his honorarium would be used to pay for the off-campus event space that his talk has been moved to.
Peterson’s 15 minute video posted on his YouTube account used photos of individuals quoted or referenced to in the articles and emails he read from in the video.
The first half of the video is a recap of the events that contributed to his cancellation. Peterson stated that “three days were taken out of my schedule, at my expense” and that the plane ticket and accommodations had been made.
Peterson will speak at 7 p.m. on Monday at the Falls Event Center at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville.
The video’s thumbnail is of Dolores Umbridge, a fictional character from the “Harry Potter” series. Peterson used the image of the fictional character after showing an image of Dean of faculty and vice president for academic affairs Susan Agre-Kippenhan.
Peterson had some choice words for Linfield. “I think you are treating me and the student group that invited me in a manner that is absolutely reprehensible, as well as cowardly, and underhanded,” Peterson said.
As for the controversial tweet, Peterson did not see any issues with it. “Now you cancel it with a plethora of specious reasons, including: your anti-harassment policy, although I have harassed no one nor intimidated, exploited, or threatened force. Had I not previously received notice of the controversy around my arrival, which, in my opinion unwarranted, I would not have tweeted my intent to ‘violate safe spaces’ which is a satirical comment in case it needs to be said. Obviously, you were looking for any excuse no matter how trivial to cancel this event,” Peterson said.
Peterson added, “you might also note that a guest invited to your college might expect to be treated with a modicum of consideration and respect,” Peterson said.
Peterson said the he received nothing in response to his email sent to college administration. He further stated that he thought he was “treated unprofessionally.”
At ASLC’s weekly senate meeting, Susan Hopp, vice president of Student Affairs and Athletics and Dean of Students, provided her opinion on the matter. “The issue was you can’t unring the bell once an event is made open to the public. It was designed to be a conversation, an educational conversation about free speech for our students, faculty, and Linfield people,” Hopp said.
Parker Wells, a member of YAL and organizer of Peterson’s talk, understood where some of the outcry was coming from. “We understand some of the problems that arose. It sort of blew up bigger than we expected. It was really hard to contain the amount of people who were talking about it and the amount who wanted to come. So moving it to a different venue seems like a wise thing. We open it up to the public and we hope that it will be peaceful and a useful exchange of ideas for the wider community,” Wells said.
Peterson’s final remarks let the viewer speculate on his feelings toward Linfield. “The organizing students didn’t have enough money to rent a suitable theater or lecture hall. I told them that they could use my honorarium to pay for the space which they did. You can figure out what I think of the Linfield administrators who pulled this stunt on your own,” Peterson said.
Mark Johnson • May 15, 2017 at 7:12 pm
May be a while before I feel safe enough to donate to my alma mater
Maxx • May 3, 2017 at 7:11 am
“where the campus is a de facto “home” for students ”
If a university is going to be a “home” for students then what is the point in going. Just stay home. It is a lot cheaper. A university should prepare students for what is outside the home. You go there to get a career which is a job that is outside the home.
Chris B • Apr 27, 2017 at 3:26 am
I have to say, anyone who thinks that Doctor Peterson enjoys his so-called celebrity with the alt-Right clearly has not followed him for long or listened to any of his actual lectures. Just because a group decides to align with a portion of someone’s overall message (which the group often misrepresents) does not make that person guilty by association. Please take the time to educate yourselves about his research before making quick and false generalizations.
This is very much Linfield’s loss.
NA • Apr 26, 2017 at 9:39 am
This is an embarrassment for Linfield. The US university/college in general has become a money hole, almost all of them, partially at taxpayer expense. The only solution is to put pressure on them or let them die. US taxpayers and students pay the most money, purchasing power adjusted, for degrees that are not earning jobs. This is a crying shame, and it has nothing to do with the typical excuse of “we need more money.”
Clayton • Apr 25, 2017 at 6:33 pm
Dear Ms Keesey,
Kudos for taking the time and stating your views publicly, thus enabling debate. I agree with how you have framed the issue:
“…colleges [ ]have a combination of important obligations, including to promote both freedom of speech and political activity AND the physical security of the campus and its residents.”
There is a potential conflict of legitimate interests.
What you then go on to do, however, is stray into issues that are not in truth issues of “the physical security of the campus and its residents”. There is little if anything in what you have written that evidences a likelihood of actual property damage and/or violence occurring if Dr Peterson were allowed to talk. There is an unfortunate lack of clarity in thinking and adherence to the issue as you have framed it, which I think has opened you up to fair criticism.
If you are going to be an arbiter, balancing important interests of the students of your college then surely you want to approach that role carefully and properly. The role requires impartiality towards the proposed speaker and their views. Your comments about Dr Peterson reveal you failed to be impartial and as has been pointed out above, where you attempted to criticize his views, intentions, or professionalism, you have done so from a position of being woefully uniformed.
When considering free speech there is arguably a certain responsibility to work out who is responsible for threatening property or safety. The College might be ethically safer in denying free speech to a speaker who is themselves threatening violence or damage. Similarly if the followers of that speaker are likely to be the bad actors. But where the opponents of a speaker are the ones who threaten the violence or damage to property, then the responsibility turns the other direction, to stand up to those people.
There is nothing in your comment that suggests you addressed the question: Who places our other interests in jeopardy if we allow this person to speak? The evidence thus far suggests that it is the opponents of Dr Peterson, not his supporters.
I suspect the truth of the matter is that the College, being quite a small college, simply did not feel up to the challenge of hosting someone as nationally (and internationally) controversial as Dr Peterson. There are a lot of unknowns that come with that and the College might simply have felt it did not have the resources to stand up to people whose interest it is to disrupt and/or hijack such an event. If that is the case, it is regrettable the College could not have just been honest about that.
Carole Lynn • Apr 23, 2017 at 8:08 am
Dearest Anna:
Patterson a spokesman for the alt right? A safety risk to the Linfield population…….”Just rapey.”
Oh, please spare us
Kelly Jones • Apr 23, 2017 at 7:30 am
For “an English Professor passionately interested in language”, you sure seem to have troubles differentiating contractions from possessive pronouns. Kudos for finding one of your mistakes. Now can you find the other?
Anna Keesey • Apr 22, 2017 at 12:29 pm
I’m reposting here my response to the earlier announcement of the cancellation, in case its useful to anyone wanting a perspective from a faculty member at Linfield:
Though we Linfield college faculty have been engaging in vigorous discussion of the Peterson issue with one another, I don’t think many of us have commented in public discussions like this one. I’d like to say that colleges–particularly residential colleges of a small size, where the campus is a de facto “home” for students of all stripes–have a combination of important obligations, including to promote both freedom of speech and political activity AND the physical security of the campus and its residents. That’s a tough line to walk, especially in the current climate. If it had been clear that the campus community alone would be hearing a thoughtful, grounded argument by Dr. Peterson, and would be able to ask questions that he would welcome, I suspect the college would have made a different call. But Peterson did not explain what he meant to discuss (as all other speakers do easily and as a matter of course), and (according to members of student government) did not intend to allow questions and answers, which is not congruent with our policies for speakers on campus.
Moreover, though obviously a gifted scholar, Dr. Peterson has become a minor celebrity of the alternative right, and has clearly enjoyed his status and stoked his cult of personality in ways that serious academic thinkers usually do not. When the prospect of his talk came under discussion, and legitimate concern about its content was reported here in the Linfield Review, Peterson took a cavalier attitude toward the seriousness of the college’s obligations and tweeted out what he later called a joke: “Violating some more safe spaces soon.” Sure, it’s a joke–but it’s a mean joke. As one male student of mine said, “It’s just rapey.” Legitimate scholars who are interested in the vitality of discussion about speech and politics and social boundaries and language don’t see themselves as “violators” but contributors. Given that Peterson’s talk at Linfield had been advertised and promoted by his supporters far outside our campus community, and given that a few followers of what bills itself as a ‘free speech’ movement are more interested in havoc than ideas, the college’s decision wasn’t cowardly, or coddling, or somehow doctrinaire. It was simply prudent.
I, for one, am sorry not to hear Dr. Peterson speak, because as an English professor, I’m passionately interested in language and its uses and its limits. It’s truly a shame that Dr. Peterson hasn’t conducted himself in the professional manner that would earn him the respect and welcome his background and achievements might otherwise deserve.
Anna Keesey • Apr 22, 2017 at 12:31 pm
Before I get a raft of advice–yes, I see the typo in the first sentence 🙂
James • Apr 23, 2017 at 7:22 am
This reply is really indicative of the problem facing some colleges today: leftists have moved to denounce opposing views as not just wrong, but fundamentally violent. Anyone who has been observing these clashes knows that the vast majority of violence committed has come from leftist/anarchist thugs, not Pepe-drawing “alt-right” members (and especially not the vast majority of students who simply wanted to hear what Dr. Peterson has to say). Yet these modern leftists, who this professor appears to at least sympathize with, view their own repugnant actions as self-defense against “fascism” while frequently mirroring it themselves.
Instead of making petty slights against Dr. Peterson’s personality or style, I’d encourage this professor to attend his rescheduled lecture and respond to it with reasoned criticism instead of feeding the intellectual disease of safe space culture.
Derek • Apr 23, 2017 at 9:31 pm
>’Legitimate scholars who are interested in the vitality of discussion about speech and politics and social boundaries and language don’t see themselves as “violators” but contributors.’
Indeed, and as you established earlier in this letter, Dr. Peterson referred to himself as a “violator” as a joke. It’s a joke, and I think what the professor found funny about it is that a “violator” is the last thing he is.
And you say he didn’t explain what he was going to talk about? Have you watched any of his online videos, of which there are hundreds of hours, and from which he rarely deviates in terms of the abrasiveness of speech or the careful choice of word.
You say you want to protect your students, but one of Jordan Peterson’s salient sentiments is that excessive protection is as harmful as too little protection: that without learning the capacity to face adversity calmly and armed with skills against it, a person is gravely handicapped. Whether or not you agree with this sentiment, I think that the abundance of material you have failed to take into account shows that Jordan does not want to lead people down a bad path, and that he is only truly inimical towards those whom he sees as doing just that.
Obviously, Dr. Peterson would have done well to be more professional, but he is a highly accredited speaker with, as I keep emphasizing, weeks’ worth of footage of himself speaking his mind on the internet. For a team of academics to feign ignorance of Peterson’s intentions with such ready-made resources available is ridiculous.
ann marie • Apr 23, 2017 at 5:06 pm
The college must be receiving threats or bribes.
Stu • Apr 27, 2017 at 8:41 am
“As one of my male students said, ‘it’s just rapey'” – What serious professor posts an anonymous student’s interpretation of Dr. Peterson’s tweet? It’s a precarious situation when a statement like “Violating more safe spaces” is considered “rapey” and actively promoted as a reason someone was uninvited to speak.
At what point have we raped the minds of students? It appears your male student is bereft of thought with such a shallow reply.
More importantly, calling Dr. Peterson alt-right assures me this college is alt-left.
And since you claim his supporters are more interested in havoc than discussion, I’m sure you have sources where Dr. Peterson’s supporters committed a crime. Please post them. Being fairly certain you have no such proof, I assume you have a different interpretation of havoc? One that allows you to couch everything you dislike under the term?
So now his offer to speak was rescinded because:
1. Too many people were expected (and these people wreak havoc*)
2. People were scared
3. He didn’t send you a syllabus for the discussion
4. Someone said he wouldn’t do Q&A
5. He promised to ‘violate’ something and that means he’s not a true scholar.
6. He’s unprofessional because all of the above
*source needed
Specious claims indeed.
Alicia Andrus • Apr 22, 2017 at 10:11 am
When Linfield administrators cannot tolerate discourse with alternative perspectives, it is showing its students this is how it’s done. Why would an employer want to hire a Linfield graduate who’s only skill when meeting a conflicting perspective is to shut the other person down? Students need more skills than to just tell someone to shut up. I’ve found that the ability to able to hold my own beliefs while listening to completely different beliefs has been the key to learning.
American Student • Apr 22, 2017 at 8:13 am
The Linfield administration should be absolutely ashamed of themselves!
Matt Vail • Apr 22, 2017 at 6:58 am
Systematic oppression and discrimination are such major issues on college campuses. It’s a shame to see the degree with which conservative voices are systematically oppressed and silenced by the hegemonic university culture at schools like Linfield.
It’s good to see marginalized voices such as Dr. Peterson so effectively practicing Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. What a hero for social justice!
Kevin • Apr 22, 2017 at 6:10 am
Enlightened spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. Jordon Peterson should have wings.