Daily Archive

“When talking to people about the state of universities in Canada, many deny the negative impact of “woke-ism.” My current “lived experience” in a province with a reputation for supporting free speech, however, indicates otherwise. It was challenging sacred cows associated with the “woke” character of Indigenization, trans activism and “anti-racist” initiatives, in fact, that led to my firing from my tenured position at Mount Royal University in December 2021.

For those unfamiliar with the word, “woke-ism” (spelled wokism in this publication) is the colloquial term for the postmodern tactic of reducing scientific objectivity to subjective authoritarianism, imposing its arbitrary interpretation of what is acceptable. Also referred to as “reified postmodernism” by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, the authors of the hilarious but revealing “grievance studies hoax,” this reactionary response to the intellectual progress driven by the Enlightenment tries to prevent certain ideas from being discussed under the auspices that the identities of oppressed groups must be “made real.”

If, for example, a trans activist believes that they are completely debilitated as a result of “misgendering fatigue,” or if an Indigenous person is convinced that 215 students were murdered and dumped in a mass grave in a Kamloops Indian Residential School apple orchard, these views must not be contradicted because it is argued that such disagreement will “deny the humanity” of those who are oppressed, and disempower them. This, we are told, constitutes “hate speech” and “discrimination.”

Despite my costly collision with wokism at Mount Royal University in Calgary, I was still not prepared for what was to transpire at the University of Lethbridge earlier this month. I had been invited by philosophy professor Paul Viminitz to give a talk, to be entitled “How ‘Woke-ism’ Threatens Academic Freedom.” I was about to experience the fury of current wokism. UofL President Mike Mahon originally stated that the talk would be allowed to proceed because of the institution’s policy on freedom of expression. Woke faculty and students responded with intensifying pressure, leading Mahon to cancel my appearance a few days later.

I remained adamant that I should go to the university to challenge Mahon’s assault on academic values (and repudiation of his institution’s freedom of expression policy). So on February 1 I arrived at the university to give my talk in a “Speakers’ Corner” type of format. But as I walked out of the elevator of University Hall and into The Atrium – a large public space on campus – I was amazed to see a crowd of about 700 people filling the main floor and upper level. While some in the audience had come to hear me speak, and a number were just curious onlookers, many were openly hostile to my presence, some brandishing signs declaring “RACISM IS NOT FREE SPEECH.”