On January 7th, The Post Millennial reported that a Professor at the University of Calgary tweeted about failing students if they cited Jordan Peterson. Ted McCoy, chair of the Law and Society program at the UoC, apologized shortly after his tweet went viral, asserting that the flippant comment was “a joke” and insisting that he did “take seriously … students’ right to free expression.”
In wake of the social media fallout, sources from within the University of Calgary have come forward to The Post Millennial to assert that McCoy’s comments were anything but a joke. The identities of those who spoke out are being protected for their safety due to their proximity to McCoy.
“He absolutely was not kidding. He absolutely does penalize students for holding divergent views.” Said one source, a former professor at the University of Calgary and current professor at another institution.
“He literally tells students to not read Quillette,” the source revealed, drawing from discussions had with McCoy’s students, “He’s walked into class and expressed how disappointed he was in the amount of conservative ideas being expressed.”
The source noted that students often came to her with complaints about McCoy’s in-class political proselytizing, fearing poor grades because of their ideological differences.
“Students have just learned to shut-up and parrot whatever he wants to hear.” The source revealed that McCoy was the only professor teaching a mandatory capstone exit course required for some students’ successful degree completion in the Law and Society program.
Being the coordinator for the Law and Society program, McCoy is also responsible for hiring new faculty members. Noting that a great deal of faculty has abruptly ceased teaching in the program, the source claimed that all of the new hires have been people who “share [McCoy’s] ideological perspective” and “have no qualifications whatsoever to teach Law and Society.”
A student who took McCoy’s class corroborated the faculty member’s comments.
“I have actually told other students to not enroll in the Law and Society program because of McCoy,” he said, noting a number of distressing interactions with his former Professor.
“The first day of class, within the first fifteen minutes, he explicitly states ‘the goal of this course is to radicalize you. Before you leave University, I want to radicalize you.’” The former student, who identifies as “left-wing” politically, says McCoy immediately introduced the class to a bizarre coding system by which participation was noted for grades.
“[McCoy told students] that he will make a mark beside your name when you contribute to the class discussion. He told us he has a symbol system for if a student made an insightful comment, all the way up to ‘what you said was batshit crazy.’” The former student says the class was “immediately politicized,” with students fearing to vocalize their opinions if it contradicted McCoy’s ideological perspective.
The former student also revealed that McCoy assigned his own writings as well as books written by his Ph.D. supervisor as mandatory readings for the class, leaving students fearful to express criticism. When one student did, noting the lack of objectivity in one of the readings, McCoy berated him.
Recalling another class, the former student says that McCoy blasted Jordan Peterson to the class.
“He came into class with his head in his hands and looked upset. He was shaking his head and sighing.” When a student asked what was bothering the Professor, McCoy went on to complain about Jordan Peterson. “He said he had been reading a lot of Jordan Peterson, and said he ‘cannot believe’ how Peterson ‘thinks he knows everything.’”
After a student defended Peterson, McCoy reportedly went on a tangent.
“He said Peterson is basically espousing hate speech and he ought to be deplatformed in the strongest sense.” the former student said.
“I was distressed that a Professor would take such an obvious political stance in his teaching,” the former student said, going on to reveal he felt “unsafe” with McCoy’s control over his grade. Because of this student’s concerns about entering graduate school, he said he learned to stop challenging McCoy.
“I basically kowtowed in my papers. I would just tell him what he wanted to hear.” Going on to note that conservative students never spoke in class out of fear of angering McCoy.
Since graduating, the former student says his friends who have entered McCoy’s class have texted him for help navigating the Professor’s extreme ideology.
“[McCoy] was unequivocally one of the worst professors I’ve ever had, and it was because the class was more about politics than it was critical thinking.”
On January 9th, McCoy tweeted and quickly deleted a post suggesting he had only apologized at the advice of administration.
The Post Millennial has reached out to Dr. Ted McCoy, the Law and Society program, and Sociology department head Dr. Fiona Nelson at the University of Calgary, but have not received a response by the time of publication.
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