He was due to join Cambridge for two months
The University of Cambridge have rescinded their invitation to Jordan Peterson to join the institution for two months after it sparked backlash from both faculty and students.
Peterson, a Canadian psychologist who has come under scrutiny for his views on everything from race to the gender pay gap and trans rights, announced live on his YouTube channel that he would be spending two months at the end of this year at Cambridge as a ‘visiting fellow’.
However, the self-proclaimed ‘professor against political correctness’ (ooh, you’re hard) will no longer be making the trip after the university withdrew their offer.
“In October I am going to Cambridge University in the UK for two months and I will be a visiting fellow there at the divinity school and should give me the opportunity to talk to religious experts of all types for a couple of months, as well as students,” he said in his video.
“It’s a thrill for someone academically minded… to be invited there, to sit in and participate for a few months.”
Peterson had requested to be a visiting fellow and his request was initially granted by the university, but after further review, they decided to deny him his request.
“[Cambridge] is an inclusive environment and we expect all our staff and visitors to uphold our principles. There is no place here for anyone who cannot,” a spokesperson for the university said.
Peterson has over a million followers on Twitter and his book 12 Rules for Life: an antidote to chaos became a best seller in five different countries.
He is a divisive figure online, with most criticism aimed at his views on the gender pay gap, which he claimed existed because women are too ‘agreeable’ in an interview with Channel 4’s Cathy Newman, as well as his take on political correctness and trans rights.
He has argued that there exists a “crisis of masculinity” and a “backlash against masculinity” where the “masculine spirit is under assault,” and has also refused to use the preferred pronouns of some transgender students, claiming it falls under ‘compelled speech’. Those claims sparked outrage among students at Toronto University.
But wait, there’s more. He’s also skeptical about climate change and the science behind it.
“Most of the global warming posturing is a masquerade for anti-capitalists to have a go at the Western patriarchy. That’s partly why the climate change thing for me is a contentious issue, because you can’t trust the players. You can’t trust the data because there is too much ideology involved,” he said in an interview in 2018.
