Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Liberals "Study" Zombies, Then Surgically Create Them!

From here and here:

Now liberals are surgically MAKING people into literal zombies, and then studying them! (OK, well, because leftopaths always reverse cause and effect, they are studying them and THEN making them, because as masochists, they always pretend to control their fears, BY causing those very same, worst-case scenario problems which cause the pains they fear most)!

"Turning down the sadness..."



It was a gloomy, rainy October day in 2007 when Kathryn began to see in colour again. This day marked the moment she started to recover — from a 19-year battle with a profoundly disabling treatment-resistant depression.
Kathryn had gone shopping early that morning. When she left the mall and walked outside, all she saw were the colours of the leaves on the trees.
“Seeing these blazing reds, intense yellows and oranges in a way that I hadn’t seen in years,” said Kathryn. “I started to sob right in that parking lot.”
Severe depression is insidious. Kathryn describes it not as an intense sadness, but as a numbness — the inability to feel anything at all. According to the World Health Organization, depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. And research on treatment-resistant depression shows that one third of people don’t respond to trials of multiple medications and treatment, such as psychotherapy and electroconvulsive therapy.
The day Kathryn’s senses came “back online” was two years, two months and five days after undergoing an experimental brain surgery — known as deep brain stimulation (DBS).
But before the Food and Drug Administration can approve DBS, clinical trials must show that it is safe and can effectively fight chronic cases of treatment-resistant depression.
Turning down the sadness
Physicians started experimenting with DBS for chronic, treatment-resistant depression in 2003. In this procedure, a surgeon drills a small hole into the skull and directs an electrode down into a region called Brodmann area 25 (BA25) — what Dr. Andres Lozano, a neurosurgeon at Toronto Western Hospital and leader in the field of DBS, has referred to as the “sadness centre of the brain.”



In this Oct. 7, 2003, file photo, a section of a human brain with Alzheimer’s disease is on display at the Museum of Neuroanatomy at the University at Buffalo, in Buffalo, N.Y. David Duprey/AP Photo David Duprey/AP Photo

The other end of the electrode is tunnelled down under the skin to a battery, or pacemaker-like device, in the chest. Doctors then use a remote control to turn up or down — like the volume on a speaker — the amount of electricity delivered to that area of the brain.
While DBS refers to “stimulation,” it is actually an inhibitory effect that is at work. The current from the electrodes are turning down sadness, pumping the brakes. In people with treatment-resistant depression this area of the brain is very active and medication or psychotherapy can’t quieten it down.
Like most surgeries, DBS still carries risks, but it is now an approved treatment for Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor.
Failed trial, successful treatment?
DBS is not a cure. If stimulation stops, the depression will return. It’s also not a quick-fix. DBS puts the brakes on sadness and, over time, sets other areas of the brain in drive, but the real work happens afterwards.
In October, the journal Lancet Psychiatry published new data on the largest, prospective study of DBS for any psychiatric disorder.
The summary of the study confirmed the safety of the procedure but did not show significant success in reducing depression at the six- and 12-month period. A closer look at the research’s long-term data tells a different story.
St. Jude Medical, the company that sponsored the trial estimated that the study had a low likelihood (17 per cent chance) of success if it continued, and so it stopped recruiting new participants. (St. Jude Medical was acquired by Abbott earlier this year.) “It wasn’t going as they expected. It’s very expensive. And they made a business decision to stop the trial,” said neurologist Dr. Helen Mayberg of Emory University in Atlanta.
Ninety participants initially took part in the study and were randomly assigned to two groups — 60 of them receiving active stimulation, the other 30 receiving no stimulation. Patients did not know which group they belonged to.
It wasn't going as they expected. It's very expensive. And they made a business decision to stop the trial
Initially the BROADEN trial found no significant difference in efficacy between the group receiving stimulation and the group in which the device was implanted but not turned on. But, as Dr. Mayberg said, “a failed trial is not a failed treatment.”
There was a second phase of the research, where 77 of the initial 90 patients entered into a four-year follow-up. In this part of the study all patients received treatment. After two years, nearly half of all patients had responded to the therapy — 48 per cent (25 patients) achieved an antidepressant response and 25 per cent (13 patients) achieved remission.



A human brain is scanned. Getty Images

This seems to suggest that “it may take longer to get better the more chronically ill you are,” said Dr. Mayberg. In her own research, Dr. Mayberg said that unless the DBS system breaks, or has to be removed because of infection, “we actually don’t have people ever going back to their pre-surgical state.”
That being said, more compelling evidence is needed to make any real case for DBS. That will require additional studies — which means more patients.
‘This is not a pill’
In the BROADEN trial, 28 patients experienced 40 serious adverse events during the first year of the study; eight of these (in seven patients) were related to the device or surgery. Complications included infection, skin erosion and one postoperative seizure. Other serious adverse events were related to the treatment-resistant depression itself. There were two deaths by suicide.
Patients in the BROADEN trial had the most severe cases of treatment-resistant depression, being already 12 years into their depressive episode when they joined. This may explain the slowed response shown in the trial. The placement of the electrodes in DBS is also important to the surgery’s success. Thirteen surgical centres participated in the trial, so there were differences in how the surgery was performed from centre to centre.
This is not a pill, it's a surgical procedure, so there's much more variability in the surgical procedure than there is in taking a simple medicine
“This is not a pill, it’s a surgical procedure,” said Dr. Lozano, “so there’s much more variability in the surgical procedure than there is in taking a simple medicine.” Following this study, more targeted approaches to the placement of DBS electrodes have since been developed.
The real story is the one that comes after surgery. When the hype of a new treatment — or failed treatment — subsides, life continues on for the patients.
Of those patients enrolled in the BROADEN trial, 44 are still being treated today and getting their DBS batteries changed, on average, every three to five years.

When I reached out to Abbott (the sponsors of the trial) they informed me that they continue to provide device support to the trial patients that kept their DBS implants in, and have agreed to supply them with rechargeable batteries. If a patient wants the system removed, Abbott has said it will pay.
Rebuilding a life
Kathryn, one of Dr. Mayberg’s first patients (and not part of the BROADEN trial), is one of those for whom DBS has worked. Her road to recovery hasn’t been easy. Prior to her DBS surgery, she had tried over 40 different medications, electroconvulsive therapy and psychotherapy. Kathryn had very real plans of suicide throughout the years before her surgery.
“Recovery is actually a very long process. It’s not like you just wake up one morning and your depression is gone and your life is wonderful,” said Kathryn. It’s been 10 years now since that momentous October morning when the grey lifted. Today, Kathryn doesn’t take medication and has no residual symptoms of depression. She so far has had no adverse effects to DBS.
Her case is unusual. Most patients need some form of medication. Kathryn wants others considering this road to have realistic expectations.
Recovery is actually a very long process. It's not like you just wake up one morning and your depression is gone and your life is wonderful
Just as after any surgery, there is rehabilitation after DBS. When someone has their hip replaced they must learn to walk again, said Dr. Peter Giacobbe, a Toronto psychiatrist at the University Health Network who works with DBS patients and worked closely with Kathryn.
It’s the same with surgery for depression, “these people need to learn how to rebuild their lives and undo past ways of connecting with others,” he said. “The people who successfully do that, you can see that they’re able to go back to work. Their remission rates creep up over one to three years.”
As for Kathryn, today she lives a very full life. She works, volunteers, sits on a number of committees and is involved with patient-engagement work related to mental health. It’s quite a change for someone who once struggled to leave her bed.
We work with these people for 15 years 1/8or more3/8. You get married to them in some ways u00e2u0080u00a6 it's 'til device or death do you part
‘Til device or death do you part’
“DBS is a long-term prospect,” said Dr. Giacobbe.“We work with these people for 15 years [or more]. You get married to them in some ways … it’s ‘til device or death do you part.”
For now, DBS remains an experimental surgery. While it is reserved for the most severe cases of depression, Kathryn refers to the power that comes from just knowing that something like DBS is out there, and that other potential new solutions are emerging, such as genetic testing and new medications inspired by the drug ketamine.
DBS, because it’s a surgery, also has the opportunity to further destigmatize mental illness, said Dr. Giacobbe, “by showing people that a physical intervention can help an emotional disorder.”
In the meantime, while we wait, we have hope. And for those struggling, hope remains a most powerful medicine.
— This article was originally published on The Conversation. Disclosure information is available on the original site
AND...
INSANITY: Colleges now offering "Zombie Studies!"



Zombie Attack
The zombie-like behavior of college kids already makes them hard enough to distinguish from the real thing!
The Young Americans Foundation (YAF) just released their report “Comedy & Tragedy Survey” of higher education, detailing the mind-blowing levels of absurdity on today’s college campuses. They found numerous courses teaching impressionable students about Social Justice, feminism – and also zombies.

Having gone through the course offerings of more than top 50 schools, the Young America’s Foundation to its surprise found that the politics of correct identity has caused the creation of various courses, which are “comical in their titles and descriptions.”

Within YAF’s report, was a class offered by DePaul University – “Zombies: Modern Myths, Race, And Capitalism.” In this class, it seems by the description, students will watch zombie horror movies and learn to interpret them through the lenses of race grievance, gender grievance, and other neo-Marxist lenses. But the zombie virus isn’t the only thing spreading around college campuses these days.

YAF reports that Social Justice has, in a way, ‘infected’ the courses at nearly all the top universities. The results are as strange as they could be, with special religious classes teaching ‘Queering God’, and economics lessons on how capitalism is racist. The report notes, “Beyond the inane topics, these classes advance a liberal agenda, malign conservatives, and shut out ideological diversity,” wrote YAF.
YAF in its report goes on to write that the queer, feminist, and trans readings of Bible and the God are flourishing in the department of religion in Harvard University, Mississippi University, Carleton College and Swarthmore College. In its class description of ‘Queering Religion’, the Poona College states that “religion is often queerer than one might imagine,” and that the course invites the student to “defy the usual assumption that religions insist on binary gender divisions and hetero-patriarchal kinship models.”

Similar to this more topics on the ‘queering treatment’ include the colonialism at the Washington and Lee University, Middlebury is adamant to make food queer, whereas, Michigan University teaches “heterosexual white, rural, working-class, southern, and Midwestern people.”

Furthermore at Williams College, “Racial Capitalism” is being taught to the students. Similarly, the Amherst College teaches its students the “unconventional history of capitalism” where they get to know about “our present day reality of deeply rooted, and racialized, economic inequality.”

The report by YAF clearly identified the strong link between animating the curriculum to be the intersectionality of the world we live in today, some of the schools are already coming up and looking for newer ideas for the next divisive and absurd identity debate. The Middleburg College’s “Beyond Intersectionality,” and the course’s considerations on the “limits of the original theory” and is finding more ways of “developing anti-racist and anti-capitalist feminisms.” The class will teach students how “female-identifying subjects position themselves (and their bodies) rhetorically in a male-dominated society.”

As per an estimate by the College Fix, almost 100 different American Universities and colleges offer a minor or a major program in the ‘social justice’, while the trend of such subjects is gaining more popularity.
Just a friendly reminder – your taxpayer dollars (through government student loans) are directly supporting the spread of this insanity.

;-)



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Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Breaking: Feminists Still Offended By Reality

From here and here:

  1. INDYLOVE

Scientists analysed photos we take on the tube and found a disturbing trend

Researchers collected data from photos uploaded to TubeCrush

Academics at Coventry and Aberystwyth University analysed data from the TubeCrush website, on which commuters upload covertly-taken photographs of attractive men on the London Underground.
Visitors to the site can then rate the images, either with an indicative thumbs up or a “cute but not my type” thumbs down.

This is the hairstyle women find most attractive on men

After studying the kinds of images featured on the site and the corresponding comments, researchers quickly concluded that both straight female and homosexual male users were attracted to very particular types of men.

There was a distinct lack of diversity in the entries, with scientists noting that the majority of men on TubeCrush were white, despite London’s multi-cultural population.

They also found that the photos placed an emphasis on muscular body parts, suggesting that many deem physical strength a particularly attractive quality.

Finally, they noticed that the images tended to focus on and celebrate symbols of wealth, such as high-end phones, expensive-looking suits and smart watches.

The study, which was published in Feminist Media Studies, concluded that very few users were drawn to more meaningful representations of masculinity - such as fatherhood.

"From smart-suited City workers to toned gym-goers flashing their flesh, the men featured in the photographs on TubeCrush show that as a culture we still celebrate masculinity in the form of money and muscle,” said lead author Adrienne Evans, senior lecturer at Coventry University.
"They are marking the middle-class, wealthy, mobile and sexually powerful male body, not as a political one as feminists intend it to be, but one that should be actively desired."
Evans added that these kinds of ideologies are “a problem” because they demonstrate a social regression in terms of how we perceive masculinity, as her findings show that male desire, in terms of TubeCrush, is mostly rooted in “money and strength."

"HMMMMMMM......!"

Gender isn't a "social construct" - in general terms, it's biologically mandated by evolution in ALL animals.

There's a real and evolutionary reason women are better than men at speech, and worse at spatial orientation:

Women have to be able to talk their way out of things, and yet cannot become adept at fighting (off men).

Most women admit they engage in static gossip simply talk out their feelings about things while not actually doing anything to solve problems. Men, on the other hand, don't talk about problems, but simply solve them.

This is why women excel in the arts but not the sciences, while more men are prone to be engineering scientists.

Many if not most women admit they engage in "rape fantasies" because Submissive masochism is how their brains are wired - there are such things as separate-function specific "male brains" and "female brains," and this whole new slanderous "gender-is-only-a-social-construct-of-the-evil-(white) male-patriarchy" nonsense denies basic reality.

;-)

'Muscles and money': What photos of men taken on the Tube say about modern day attraction

November 14, 2017, Coventry University
People still desire the traditional masculine values of muscles and money in the men they find attractive and have not moved on from long-established gender roles, according to new research.
The study by academics at Coventry and Aberystwyth universities challenges current thinking about feminism and how masculinity is portrayed, and instead suggests that white, male privilege is still an attractive quality in men for many straight women and gay men.
The researchers used the TubeCrush website as the focus of their study, collecting data about the types of images of men posted on it over a three year period from 2014.
TubeCrush is a site in which commuters upload photographs, taken covertly, of attractive men travelling on the London Underground. Other website visitors then rate the men, who don't know their picture has been taken or uploaded to the site.
The researchers say their study of the entries on the site quickly revealed that both straight women's and gay men's desired particular types of men.
Despite London being a multicultural city, there was little diversity in the men featured, with most of them being white.
In the photographs there was often an emphasis on men's muscular biceps, pecs and chest; the body parts which suggest physical strength.
There were also many references to this - and the men's estimated sexual prowess - in the comments posted alongside the images.
As well as indicators of physical and sexual power, many symbols of disposable income and wealth were often focused on, such as smart suits, watches and phones.
There were fewer images showing other representations of masculinity, such as fatherhood, and more emotional and awkward characters typical of so-called lad-lit.
The academics said that public transport - in this case the Tube - has now become the space where gender politics is decided.
Private desires are now being made public as social media is being used to reflect who people fancy, they add.
The researchers say the site represents a form of reversal of gender roles by suggesting that taking pictures of unsuspecting men on the London Underground could be understood as a powerful act in a society where men have historically held ownership over women's bodies.
The study was published in the journal Feminist Media Studies.
Lead researcher Adrienne Evans, from Coventry University's Centre for Postdigital Cultures, said:
"From smart-suited City workers to toned gym-goers flashing their flesh, the men featured in the photographs on TubeCrush show that as a culture we still celebrate masculinity in the form of money and muscle.
"They are marking the middle-class, wealthy, mobile and sexually powerful male body, not as a political one as feminists intend it to be, but one that should be actively desired.
"This celebration of masculine capital is achieved through humour and the knowing wink, but the outcome is a reaffirmation of men's position in society.
"It's a problem as because although it appears as though we have moved forward, our desires are still mostly about money and strength."
Explore further: Does birth control impact women's choice of sexual partners?
More information: Adrienne Evans et al, "He's a total TubeCrush": post-feminist sensibility as intimate publics, Feminist Media Studies (2017). DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2017.1367701


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-11-muscles-money-photos-men-tube.html#jCp

'Muscles and money': What photos of men taken on the Tube say about modern day attraction

November 14, 2017, Coventry University
People still desire the traditional masculine values of muscles and money in the men they find attractive and have not moved on from long-established gender roles, according to new research.
The study by academics at Coventry and Aberystwyth universities challenges current thinking about feminism and how masculinity is portrayed, and instead suggests that white, male privilege is still an attractive quality in men for many straight women and gay men.
The researchers used the TubeCrush website as the focus of their study, collecting data about the types of images of men posted on it over a three year period from 2014.
TubeCrush is a site in which commuters upload photographs, taken covertly, of attractive men travelling on the London Underground. Other website visitors then rate the men, who don't know their picture has been taken or uploaded to the site.
The researchers say their study of the entries on the site quickly revealed that both straight women's and gay men's desired particular types of men.
Despite London being a multicultural city, there was little diversity in the men featured, with most of them being white.
In the photographs there was often an emphasis on men's muscular biceps, pecs and chest; the body parts which suggest physical strength.
There were also many references to this - and the men's estimated sexual prowess - in the comments posted alongside the images.
As well as indicators of physical and sexual power, many symbols of disposable income and wealth were often focused on, such as smart suits, watches and phones.
There were fewer images showing other representations of masculinity, such as fatherhood, and more emotional and awkward characters typical of so-called lad-lit.
The academics said that public transport - in this case the Tube - has now become the space where gender politics is decided.
Private desires are now being made public as social media is being used to reflect who people fancy, they add.
The researchers say the site represents a form of reversal of gender roles by suggesting that taking pictures of unsuspecting men on the London Underground could be understood as a powerful act in a society where men have historically held ownership over women's bodies.
The study was published in the journal Feminist Media Studies.
Lead researcher Adrienne Evans, from Coventry University's Centre for Postdigital Cultures, said:
"From smart-suited City workers to toned gym-goers flashing their flesh, the men featured in the photographs on TubeCrush show that as a culture we still celebrate masculinity in the form of money and muscle.
"They are marking the middle-class, wealthy, mobile and sexually powerful male body, not as a political one as feminists intend it to be, but one that should be actively desired.
"This celebration of masculine capital is achieved through humour and the knowing wink, but the outcome is a reaffirmation of men's position in society.
"It's a problem as because although it appears as though we have moved forward, our desires are still mostly about money and strength."
Explore further: Does birth control impact women's choice of sexual partners?
More information: Adrienne Evans et al, "He's a total TubeCrush": post-feminist sensibility as intimate publics, Feminist Media Studies (2017). DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2017.1367701


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-11-muscles-money-photos-men-tube.html#jCp

'Muscles and money': What photos of men taken on the Tube say about modern day attraction

November 14, 2017, Coventry University
People still desire the traditional masculine values of muscles and money in the men they find attractive and have not moved on from long-established gender roles, according to new research.
The study by academics at Coventry and Aberystwyth universities challenges current thinking about feminism and how masculinity is portrayed, and instead suggests that white, male privilege is still an attractive quality in men for many straight women and gay men.
The researchers used the TubeCrush website as the focus of their study, collecting data about the types of images of men posted on it over a three year period from 2014.
TubeCrush is a site in which commuters upload photographs, taken covertly, of attractive men travelling on the London Underground. Other website visitors then rate the men, who don't know their picture has been taken or uploaded to the site.
The researchers say their study of the entries on the site quickly revealed that both straight women's and gay men's desired particular types of men.
Despite London being a multicultural city, there was little diversity in the men featured, with most of them being white.
In the photographs there was often an emphasis on men's muscular biceps, pecs and chest; the body parts which suggest physical strength.
There were also many references to this - and the men's estimated sexual prowess - in the comments posted alongside the images.
As well as indicators of physical and sexual power, many symbols of disposable income and wealth were often focused on, such as smart suits, watches and phones.
There were fewer images showing other representations of masculinity, such as fatherhood, and more emotional and awkward characters typical of so-called lad-lit.
The academics said that public transport - in this case the Tube - has now become the space where gender politics is decided.
Private desires are now being made public as social media is being used to reflect who people fancy, they add.
The researchers say the site represents a form of reversal of gender roles by suggesting that taking pictures of unsuspecting men on the London Underground could be understood as a powerful act in a society where men have historically held ownership over women's bodies.
The study was published in the journal Feminist Media Studies.
Lead researcher Adrienne Evans, from Coventry University's Centre for Postdigital Cultures, said:
"From smart-suited City workers to toned gym-goers flashing their flesh, the men featured in the photographs on TubeCrush show that as a culture we still celebrate masculinity in the form of money and muscle.
"They are marking the middle-class, wealthy, mobile and sexually powerful male body, not as a political one as feminists intend it to be, but one that should be actively desired.
"This celebration of masculine capital is achieved through humour and the knowing wink, but the outcome is a reaffirmation of men's position in society.
"It's a problem as because although it appears as though we have moved forward, our desires are still mostly about money and strength."
Explore further: Does birth control impact women's choice of sexual partners?
More information: Adrienne Evans et al, "He's a total TubeCrush": post-feminist sensibility as intimate publics, Feminist Media Studies (2017). DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2017.1367701


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-11-muscles-money-photos-men-tube.html#jCp
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Monday, December 25, 2017

Lefty University Admins Commit Criminal Harassment, Avoid Consequences

As it turns out, those coercive, brow-beating shitbags were actually committing fraud and lying to her - there were NO complaints!

So they crossed the line into criminal harassment and the cucked University administration still hasn't fired or charged them for it!
http://nationalpost.com/opinion/christie-blatchford-investigators-report-into-wilfrid-laurier-universit-vindicates-lindsay-shepherd

Christie Blatchford: Investigator's report into Wilfrid Laurier University vindicates Lindsay Shepherd 'No formal complaint, nor informal concern relative to a Laurier policy, was registered about the screening of the video'



From here:



Christie Blatchford: Investigator's report into Wilfrid Laurier University vindicates Lindsay Shepherd

'No formal complaint, nor informal concern relative to a Laurier policy, was registered about the screening of the video'




Lindsay Shepherd at a free speech rally in late November 2017.Tyler Anderson/National Post


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Wilfrid Laurier University teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd has been vindicated, her interrogators sharply criticized, by the independent investigator who reviewed the bizarre incident last month that saw Shepherd called on the carpet for daring to show her class a video clip from a televised debate featuring Jordan Peterson.
In early November, the 22-year-old Shepherd, a graduate student, showed a short excerpt from the debate between Peterson, the controversial University of Toronto psychology professor, and Nicholas Matte, a lecturer at the U of T’s Sexual Diversity Studies program, about the use of gender-neutral pronouns.
The full debate, moderated by Steve Paikin, had aired months earlier on TVO, Ontario’s public service broadcaster.
Shepherd was hauled into a meeting with her supervising professor, Nathan Rambukkana, the head of her program, Herbert Pimlott, and bureaucrat Adria Joel from the Gendered Violence Prevention and Support Program.
During the meeting, Shepherd was accused of the equivalent of “neutrally playing a speech by Hitler” by not first denouncing Peterson and his views, was identified as “transphobic” and told she was not to show any such videos again and that “one student/many students” had complained about her.
The news clearing Shepherd of wrongdoing – and revealing there never was a complaining student — came in an announcement posted Monday on the Wilfrid Laurier University website by university president Deborah MacLatchy.
MacLatchy, who is the only person who will see the full report from Toronto lawyer and investigator Rob Centa, was unequivocal.
The meeting at which Shepherd was browbeaten “never should have happened at all,” MacLatchy said in the statement.
“No formal complaint, nor informal concern relative to a Laurier policy, was registered about the screening of the video,” she said.
“This was confirmed in the fact-finding report.”
MacLatchy didn’t say how, in the absence of a complaint, the interrogation of Shepherd came to be in the first place.
But the logical inference is that if there was no complainant, one or another of the professors may have taken the matter into his own hands, and invited Joel to sit in on the meeting to lend it an air of bureaucratic formality.
While Shepherd said Monday in a telephone interview “I was happy when I saw” the announcement, “I could never have imagined there was no complaint at all.”
That would mean, as she put it, “It (the meeting) was total abuse.”
Howard Levitt, the Toronto lawyer who represents Shepherd pro bono, was concerned by the lack of specificity in MacLatchy’s promised corrections.
The university president, for instance, said the incident highlights “the need to enhance our faculty and TA (teaching assistant) training,” and pledged to make such training mandatory in the future for “both TA supervisors and teaching assistants.”
That leaves open, Levitt said, the suggestion  that “Lindsay’s behaviour was not as they would like and that she should have been supervised better.
“If this is not intended as an implicit criticism, then why would they not say that she did precisely what she should have done in showing both sides of the debate…?”
MacLatchy did say clearly “There was no wrongdoing on the part of Ms. Shepherd in showing the clip from TVO in her tutorial.
“Showing a TVO clip for the purposes of an academic discussion is a reasonable classroom teaching tool.”
But she added that all instructional material “needs to be grounded in the appropriate academic underpinnings to put it in context” and noted “the entire discussion also needs to be handled properly.
“We have no reason to believe this discussion was not handled well in the tutorial in question.”
But, Levitt said, if MacLatchy believes, as she said, that the conduct of Rambukkana, Pimlott and Joel “does not meet the high standards I set for staff and faculty,” why didn’t she make a clear finding of wrongdoing on their parts?
MacLatchy also said “the interviews conducted by the fact-finder confirmed that the rationale for invoking” the new Gendered and Sexual Violence Policy “did not exist.”
“It was misapplied and was a significant overreach.”
As a result, the policy will be reviewed, its oversight tightened.
The fact-finding process was but one of the university’s two-pronged response to the Shepherd incident.
The other is to strike a task force on freedom of expression that is to develop a statement for the university.
Membership is to be decided by the end of December.
Seven seats in total, or the majority of members, are to go to the university’s faculty association, five of whom are to be directly elected.
Twenty-three nominees are running for those seats, the National Post has learned, and only three of them appear, from the statements they were asked to submit, to be overt defenders of free speech.
A half dozen others appear neutral on the issue, but the majority have either signed petitions of support for the school’s “transgendered community” or expressed support for the non-existent complainant in the Shepherd matter.
The task force is to report back by March.
HOWEVER .....


Christie Blatchford: Wilfrid Laurier investigation into Lindsay Shepherd affair complete, but public won't see report

Shepherd’s sin was to show her class a short clip of a televised debate involving the controversial Jordan Peterson without first denouncing his stance against gender neutral pronouns






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The lawyer appointed to “gather the facts” of the Lindsay Shepherd controversy at Wilfrid Laurier University has finished his investigation and is preparing his final report.
Rob Centa made the comments in a note Friday to Howard Levitt, the Toronto lawyer who is representing the 22-year-old Shepherd pro bono.
She is the graduate student and teaching assistant whose browbeating last month at the hands of two Laurier professors and the acting manager of the school’s “Gendered Violence Prevention and Support” program prompted a firestorm of reaction.
According to the professors, Nathan Rambukkana and Herbert Pimlott, and manager Adria Joel, Shepherd’s sin was to show her class a short clip of a televised debate involving the controversial University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson without first denouncing his stance against gender neutral pronouns such as “zie” and “zher.”


Lindsay Shepherd speaks during a rally in support of freedom of expression at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo on Nov. 24, 2017. Dave Abel/Postmedia Network

Shepherd was identified as “transphobic” at the meeting and sanctioned by having to submit her lesson plans in advance.
Rambukkana has since issued a lengthy apology to Shephard, as has university president Deborah MacLatchy.
Levitt had written demanding Centa resign in the wake of tweets he made, before he accepted the Laurier appointment, in which he appeared to be an ardent supporter of diversity, arguably even at the expense of limits on free speech.
For instance, in the recent Law Society of Upper Canada debate over whether forcing lawyers to submit a “statement of principles” confirming their obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion was a form of “compelled speech,” Centa praised a colleague who spoke in favour of “advancing diversity.”
“Your tweets were, in my view, broadly supportive of compelling support for diversity over free speech,” Levitt wrote Centa on Dec. 4. Centa replied that “I have never taken a position on this case” and pledged to approach it “with an open mind.”


Wilfrid Laurier University professors Nathan Rambukkana, left, and Herbert Pimlott, right, reprimanded teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd for showing a video featuring controversial U of T professor Jordan Peterson without denouncing his views. Wilfrid Laurier University

When The College Fix, a U.S. conservative, student-run website, ran a story this week about Centa’s earlier tweets, Levitt renewed his concerns.
“I am asking, on behalf of my client, that you recuse yourself and step down immediately,” he wrote Centa on Thursday. “If you choose not to step down, I am asking Dr. MacLatchy, who we understand appointed you, to replace you with someone who all parties would find acceptable.”
It was that letter Centra replied to Friday, saying, “I see no reason to recuse myself and will not be doing so. I addressed your concerns about a reasonable apprehension of bias in my previous letter.
“I have completed my investigation and will be finalizing and submitting my report to the president.”
His report will remain private, though bizarrely, MacLatchy has pledged to act “on the recommendations that come out of the report.” Since it will stay secret, no member of the university or public will ever know if Laurier follows through.


Lindsay Shepherd speaks during a rally in support of freedom of expression at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo on Friday November 24, 2017. Dave Abel/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

The university, via spokesman Kevin Crowley, has denied suggestions that Shepherd’s employment was at risk in Centa’s probe.
“There is no assumption on the part of the university that Ms. Shepherd did anything wrong,” Crowley told the National Post in a Dec. 8 email.
“All of the people at the meeting were and are employees of the university. Consequently, the review relates to employment and personnel matters.”
On another front, another spokesperson for Laurier, Lori Chalmers Morrison, says that the membership of the Task Force on Freedom of Expression, another of the school’s formal responses to the Shepherd situation, should “be finalized and announced next week.”
This task force is to focus on freedom of expression and academic freedom, she said, whereas Centa was to “gather and report on the facts of the recent situation … the task force and the fact-finding are not related” and the university “will not be removing Rob Centa from the fact-finding exercise.”
Shepherd herself was nominated to the task force, as a representative of graduate students, but the Graduate Students Union then decided its president would take that seat, about the same time she said that “transgender and non-binary students” have been discounted in the Shepherd story.
And just this week, the university’s faculty association president, Michele Kramer, issued a statement condemning “the violent speech and actions that have, unfortunately, become a daily occurrence on our campuses (Laurier has one in Waterloo and one in Brantford, Ont.)” and proclaiming it “stands in solidarity with our LGBTQ2 community as they continue to battle their way through walls of ignorance and oppression…”
Given that the association, according to Kramer, has a role “in helping to draft the composition for the Task Force,” it has been necessary for it to “refrain from certain public statements.”
Kramer said in the statement that the association has been beleaguered with requests from members with “diametrically opposing points of view” for the union to “intercede or to make public statements along various, diametrically opposed, lines of support.”
Not once in the Dec. 12 statement did Kramer mention freedom of speech.
The association’s priorities, she said, are the protection for members, particularly Rambukkana and Pimlott; support for faculty who were interviewed by Centa, and working with the university administration to repair “campus relations and university reputation.”
• Email: cblatchford@postmedia.com | Twitter: 
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