Jordan Peterson, a long time professor at the University of Toronto, announced on Wednesday that he will surrender his full time status, largely due to social justice initiatives of the university and higher education in general.
However, Peterson will remain at the school. He will receive the title of professor emeritus, a title normally awarded to a retired professor who wishes to remain involved in academia.
“I recently resigned from my position as full tenured professor at the University of Toronto. I am now professor emeritus, and before I turned sixty. Emeritus is generally a designation reserved for superannuated faculty, albeit those who had served their term with some distinction. I had envisioned teaching and researching at the U of T, full time, until they had to haul my skeleton out of my office,” the professor wrote in an article for The National Post.
After explaining his transition, the academic cited his reasons for the decision, describing the dangers of certain Diversity, Inclusivity and Equity (DEI) initiatives.
“These have been imposed universally in academia, despite the fact that university hiring committees had already done everything reasonable for all the years of my career, and then some, to ensure that no qualified “minority” candidates were ever overlooked. My students are also partly unacceptable precisely because they are my students. I am academic persona non grata, because of my unacceptable philosophical positions,” he continued.
According to Peterson, grants to conduct research or scholarship often require an appeal to these principles, whether the individual believes them or not.
He contends the practice will lead to unqualified individuals serving in valuable positions, ending the piece with a warning:
“Stop censoring your thought. Stop saying you will hire for your orchestral and theatrical productions for any reason other than talent and excellence. That’s all you have. That’s all any of us have. He who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind. And the wind is rising.”
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Cooper Moran is a reporter for The Star News Network. Follow Cooper on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Jordan Peterson” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
