2016 Villain: Dr. Jordan Peterson - 2016-12-31
2016 Villain: Dr. Jordan Peterson December 31, 2016,
Shortly after the start of the 2016–17 academic year, U of T professor and clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson uploaded to his YouTube channel the first of a three-part video series entitled "Professor Against Political Correctness." For nearly two-and-a-half hours, Peterson vented about everyone and everything even tangentially related to "political correctness," from the Ontario Human Rights Commission to the LGBTQ community, from the Black Liberation Collective to human-resources departments everywhere.
His cri de cœur was prompted by two developments: first, the introduction of Bill C-16, an amendment to federal law that would add gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination, and second, a new policy by the university's human-resources department mandating anti-discrimination training for all staff.
Peterson would not fare well in such a seminar. He refuses to call non-binary people by their preferred pronouns, a common courtesy that would soon become law. Bill C-16 would make his refusal to refer to a person by the personal pronoun of their choice a form of harassment, for which he could be held legally liable.