Laurier HxA: New Local Higher Ed Group & Upcoming Events!

Heterodox Academy aims to re-establish norms of open inquiry and constructive disagreement.

While EMPOWR readers may be here for various reasons, issues of K-12 education are almost certainly among them. But what about post-secondary education?

You are mistaken if you think your child – if he or she can get through high school without being indoctrinated – will enter university to find an intellectually stimulating environment of bold exploration. In fact, many of our K-12 woes can be traced to our universities – especially (as pointed out by Kevin Flatt) our education schools.

Public support for universities rests to a large extent on the assumption that students will be intellectually challenged. We expect that students will develop a capacity for critical thinking by grappling with the ideas of great thinkers from across the ideological spectrum.

The reality, of course, is very different. Progressive ideological pledges are now required simply to fund basic scientific research.

But how much does the public know of what goes on? Are the university faculty pushing back at all?

The Founding of Laurier HxA

Thanks to a US-based organization called Heterodox Academy (HxA) – co-founded in 2015 by the well-known social psychologist Jonathan Haidt – pushback is beginning to happen at scale. Over the past couple of years, HxA has established a network of fifty “Campus Communities” across the USA and Canada (plus one in the UK). There are currently only six in Canada, but one of them is right here in Waterloo Region!

At Wilfrid Laurier University, the Laurier HxA Campus Community was started in 2023 as a group “of faculty and other members of the community devoted to the principles of open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement.” Their first public event in early March was a lecture by Lisa Bildy, who is perhaps best known as the lawyer representing BC nurse Amy Hamm. That was followed by another lecture by Bruce Pardy, a classically liberal law professor providing insights regarding constitutional missteps.

Revealingly, the first lecture by Lisa Bildy resulted in masked social justice activists organizing a protest and behaving rather rudely at the lecture. And of great concern, media reports suggested not only that unions were involved, but that the university administration itself co-organized the protest. Eight faculty members have signed an open letter to the university president seeking clarification of the administration’s role in the protests and urging the university to adopt a policy of institutional neutrality.

Upcoming Events

There are several events coming up in May that may be of interest to EMPOWR readers, and more information can be found at the Laurier HxA substack.

On Thursday, May 9th at 4 PM, Laurier HxA will host a “Heterodox Conversation” on DEI versus merit. The event is free and open to the public, with no registration required. It will be held on the Laurier Campus at Lazaridis Hall room LH3094. Our readers may recognize one of the speakers, Professor Eric Kaufmann, as the author of a recent report showing that Canadians are about 2:1 opposed to the DEI worldview.

Earlier that same day, the San Jose State University anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss will be speaking at Morty’s Pub about identity politics in the academy. Please RSVP to laurierhxa@gmail.com if you’d like to attend.

Laurier HxA is also hosting a screening of the movie The Coddling of the American Mind at Princess Twin Cinema in Waterloo. It is free for UW and WLU faculty, staff, and students, while members of the general public can secure tickets with a $5 donation through the Princess Cinema box office.

Please try to come to these events if possible!