U of T psychology professor Jordan Peterson took to Twitter on October 26 to broadcast the Facebook profiles of two students who helped organize a protest of a Ryerson free speech event where Peterson was scheduled to speak; it was cancelled in August.
The event, “The Stifling of Free Speech on University Campuses,” would have featured prominent conservative speakers. The planned protest rally posed a potential threat if the two groups were to clash, and Ryerson University felt that it did not have proper security for the event. In one of his tweets, Peterson called the protest’s student organizers “communists (really).”
One of the students’ profiles is no longer publicly available on Facebook. The other student, Christeen Elizabeth, has chosen to keep hers available. She feels Peterson’s action should not be taken as a threat, but rather as validation. “When he doxxed me, he validated me,” she said. “He validated everything that I was saying.”
Elizabeth has received extensive hate mail and harassment via Facebook, some of which have bordered on death threats. “These are his fans,” said Elizabeth. “These are the people he’s pandering to. This is why I take issue.”
The free speech event has been rescheduled for November 11, now at Canada Christian College, which Elizabeth said her group still plans on protesting.
Peterson did not respond to The Varsity’s request for comment.
One of the communists (really) who celebrated the shutdown of our Ryerson talk: studying business… https://t.co/WjqzCGNEq5
— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) October 26, 2017
Agitator for Ryerson U shutdown of our Aug free speech event featured the neighborhood poster on her Facebook page: https://t.co/jtip6Rchyc
— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) October 26, 2017