Help LSOI pay excess security fees
Donation protected
In January 2018, following the controversy over being disciplined for showing a clip from TVO (public television) in class featuring Jordan Peterson discussing gender neutral pronouns, Lindsay Shepherd founded the Laurier Society for Open Inquiry (LSOI) with four other students from both Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) and the University of Waterloo. LSOI, which currently boasts 180 members, is a collective of students, faculty, and community folk working to promote intellectual curiosity, open inquiry, and freedom of expression in the Waterloo region.
www.facebook.com/lauriersocietyforopeninquiry
LSOI is not an official student club for a finicky bureaucratic reason — our executive team is composed of both graduate and undergraduate students, and WLU does not allow graduate and undergraduate students to be in the same clubs. However, a lack of official club status means access to room bookings and funding is extremely difficult.
On March 20, an LSOI event featuring Faith Goldy was shut down by a protestor pulling the fire alarm. http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/why-i-invited-faith-goldy-to-laurier/
In late April, an event once again featuring Faith Goldy, as well as Dr. Ricardo Duchesne, was forced to be cancelled after the University of Waterloo raised security & police costs from approx. $1,500 to $28,500 in light of planned protests. http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/02/bureaucrats-help-antifa-censor-speech-with-threats-of-violence/
These trends of no-platforming and the heckler’s veto are too common on our campuses.
Now, LSOI has invited Dr. Frances Widdowson, Associate Professor in the Department of Economics, Justice, and Policy Studies at Mount Royal University, to present a public lecture at WLU entitled "Does University Indigenization Threaten Open Inquiry?" on May 9.
Here is the abstract for her talk:
Over the last three years, “strategic plans” for “Indigenizing the University” have become prominent. These university indigenization policies have a number of components, including proposals to increase the number of courses on indigenous subjects, the symbolic recognition of indigenous cultures, and incentives for promoting and incorporating indigenous “knowledge systems”. While some of these developments promise to enhance the university environment, others are a threat to the open and honest exchange of ideas. This is because some forms of symbolic recognition attempt to compel faculty and students to embrace a particular political and philosophical perspective, and dictates that “Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing” be “respected and valued” discourage critical thinking. It is expected, in fact, that “Indigenous knowledge”, “research traditions”, and “new epistemologies” be welcomed uncritically, and indigenization advocates try to intimidate intellectual challengers with accusations of “racism” and “colonialism.” There are even arguments that the refutation of any indigenous idea constitutes “epistemological racism” or, more astonishingly, “epistemicide”. This pressure has a negative impact on open inquiry; it creates an emotional “no-go zone” that is hostile to examining indigenous-non-indigenous relations rationally. While this will increase the power of indigenization advocates and the resources made available to them, it will not improve indigenous education. Educational achievement can only be improved if people are better able to understand the world around them, and this is not facilitated by many indigenization initiatives.
On May 2 2018 at 4:32pm, WLU announced a new policy: security fees must be paid by the event organizer. At 4:45pm, they emailed us letting us know security will cost $5,473 for Dr. Widdowson’s talk. While LSOI believes some security fees can be justified, for a student group to pay $5,473 to bring a Canadian university professor to another Canadian university campus, in order to share knowledge and research, seems preposterous.
Two Antifa groups in the Kitchener-Waterloo region have planned a protest for Dr. Widdowson’s talk, “Racists Aren’t Welcome Here" (https://www.facebook.com/events/1974640209518316/). We completely respect their plans to protest, so long as Dr. Widdowson’s talk is not overly disrupted or shut down. However, the name of the protest unfortunately indicates that open inquiry is indeed threatened on our campuses — some people deem the topic of indigenization simply too touchy and taboo, and anyone who dares to address this topic is “racist.” While some were quick to label Dr. Widdowson as a racist right-winger, and LSOI President Lindsay Shepherd as a white supremacist sympathizer and LSOI as an alt-right apologist club, we will kindly point out that Dr. Widdowson is a Marxist socialist. Labels like “racist” and “white supremacist” too often needlessly stifle open inquiry and perpetuate misinformation.
LSOI does not receive any university funds, as we are not a student union-sanctioned club. We receive our funds through individual donations and our annual $10 membership cards. We are asking the help of the community — anyone who supports free speech and open inquiry and appreciates the role of the university in society— to help us cover the excessive security fee for Dr. Widdowson’s talk. We cannot allow political correctness to stop us from talking about today’s important issues.
Your donation would be of great service to free speech and open inquiry in Canada, as we see it as a problem that only certain speakers who are deemed too controversial by radical leftist activists will cost extra security fees, which means anyone who wants to hear someone with a non-politically correct view will likely have to pay a ticket price, whereas politically correct events can be free. We want to make Dr. Widdowson’s talk free for anyone who wants to attend.
Dr. Widdowson’s talk and the open floor Q&A session that will follow will be filmed and posted online. Media is welcome to attend. If you want to attend the event, please reserve a ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/does-university-indigenization-threaten-open-inquiry-tickets-45572632972?aff=es2
Please note WLU has stipulated that attendees must have their bags searched and show ID matching the name on their ticket.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
The LSOI executive team
Lindsay, Nathaniel, Anton, Adriane, and Alex
"...free speech is bred into the bones of a modern university, and any institution that sets those principles aside can no longer be meaningfully regarded as a proper institution of higher education."
- Keith E. Whittington, Speak Freely
www.facebook.com/lauriersocietyforopeninquiry
LSOI is not an official student club for a finicky bureaucratic reason — our executive team is composed of both graduate and undergraduate students, and WLU does not allow graduate and undergraduate students to be in the same clubs. However, a lack of official club status means access to room bookings and funding is extremely difficult.
On March 20, an LSOI event featuring Faith Goldy was shut down by a protestor pulling the fire alarm. http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/why-i-invited-faith-goldy-to-laurier/
In late April, an event once again featuring Faith Goldy, as well as Dr. Ricardo Duchesne, was forced to be cancelled after the University of Waterloo raised security & police costs from approx. $1,500 to $28,500 in light of planned protests. http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/02/bureaucrats-help-antifa-censor-speech-with-threats-of-violence/
These trends of no-platforming and the heckler’s veto are too common on our campuses.
Now, LSOI has invited Dr. Frances Widdowson, Associate Professor in the Department of Economics, Justice, and Policy Studies at Mount Royal University, to present a public lecture at WLU entitled "Does University Indigenization Threaten Open Inquiry?" on May 9.
Here is the abstract for her talk:
Over the last three years, “strategic plans” for “Indigenizing the University” have become prominent. These university indigenization policies have a number of components, including proposals to increase the number of courses on indigenous subjects, the symbolic recognition of indigenous cultures, and incentives for promoting and incorporating indigenous “knowledge systems”. While some of these developments promise to enhance the university environment, others are a threat to the open and honest exchange of ideas. This is because some forms of symbolic recognition attempt to compel faculty and students to embrace a particular political and philosophical perspective, and dictates that “Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing” be “respected and valued” discourage critical thinking. It is expected, in fact, that “Indigenous knowledge”, “research traditions”, and “new epistemologies” be welcomed uncritically, and indigenization advocates try to intimidate intellectual challengers with accusations of “racism” and “colonialism.” There are even arguments that the refutation of any indigenous idea constitutes “epistemological racism” or, more astonishingly, “epistemicide”. This pressure has a negative impact on open inquiry; it creates an emotional “no-go zone” that is hostile to examining indigenous-non-indigenous relations rationally. While this will increase the power of indigenization advocates and the resources made available to them, it will not improve indigenous education. Educational achievement can only be improved if people are better able to understand the world around them, and this is not facilitated by many indigenization initiatives.
On May 2 2018 at 4:32pm, WLU announced a new policy: security fees must be paid by the event organizer. At 4:45pm, they emailed us letting us know security will cost $5,473 for Dr. Widdowson’s talk. While LSOI believes some security fees can be justified, for a student group to pay $5,473 to bring a Canadian university professor to another Canadian university campus, in order to share knowledge and research, seems preposterous.
Two Antifa groups in the Kitchener-Waterloo region have planned a protest for Dr. Widdowson’s talk, “Racists Aren’t Welcome Here" (https://www.facebook.com/events/1974640209518316/). We completely respect their plans to protest, so long as Dr. Widdowson’s talk is not overly disrupted or shut down. However, the name of the protest unfortunately indicates that open inquiry is indeed threatened on our campuses — some people deem the topic of indigenization simply too touchy and taboo, and anyone who dares to address this topic is “racist.” While some were quick to label Dr. Widdowson as a racist right-winger, and LSOI President Lindsay Shepherd as a white supremacist sympathizer and LSOI as an alt-right apologist club, we will kindly point out that Dr. Widdowson is a Marxist socialist. Labels like “racist” and “white supremacist” too often needlessly stifle open inquiry and perpetuate misinformation.
LSOI does not receive any university funds, as we are not a student union-sanctioned club. We receive our funds through individual donations and our annual $10 membership cards. We are asking the help of the community — anyone who supports free speech and open inquiry and appreciates the role of the university in society— to help us cover the excessive security fee for Dr. Widdowson’s talk. We cannot allow political correctness to stop us from talking about today’s important issues.
Your donation would be of great service to free speech and open inquiry in Canada, as we see it as a problem that only certain speakers who are deemed too controversial by radical leftist activists will cost extra security fees, which means anyone who wants to hear someone with a non-politically correct view will likely have to pay a ticket price, whereas politically correct events can be free. We want to make Dr. Widdowson’s talk free for anyone who wants to attend.
Dr. Widdowson’s talk and the open floor Q&A session that will follow will be filmed and posted online. Media is welcome to attend. If you want to attend the event, please reserve a ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/does-university-indigenization-threaten-open-inquiry-tickets-45572632972?aff=es2
Please note WLU has stipulated that attendees must have their bags searched and show ID matching the name on their ticket.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
The LSOI executive team
Lindsay, Nathaniel, Anton, Adriane, and Alex
"...free speech is bred into the bones of a modern university, and any institution that sets those principles aside can no longer be meaningfully regarded as a proper institution of higher education."
- Keith E. Whittington, Speak Freely
Organizer
Lindsay Shepherd
Organizer
Waterloo, ON
