I Signed Up to Study Journalism. What They Taught Me Was Activism
Jonathan Bradley
05 Mar 2022
Even by the hyper-progressive standards of the Canadian education sector, Ryerson University in Toronto has distinguished itself as being unusually energetic in its social justice messaging. Last spring, Indigenous activists destroyed the statue of the university’s namesake, Egerton Ryerson, on the basis that he helped design Canada’s system of residential schools. By way of response, the school’s president could not even bring himself to criticize the vandals, but rather expressed his relief that none of them were injured during the course of their crime. He also pledged that “the statue will not be restored or replaced,” and asserted that these events only showcased the importance of the work being conducted by a task force looking into the renaming of the university. To no one’s surprise, that task force not only concluded that Ryerson should be renamed, but also that the school should make amends for its previous association with the Ryerson name, as well as implement the usual litany of new Indigenous- and black-themed consciousness-raising courses and programs. (While no new name has yet been chosen for the school, numerous Ryerson scholars now have taken to referring to their school as “X University.”)
As I learned, the Ryerson School of Journalism (RSJ), from which I graduated last year (and which is now grouped under Ryerson’s “Creative School”), was ahead of the rest of the university when it came to social-justice puritanism. Back in early 2020, my affiliation with school publications came under attack after I wrote a column for a third-party outlet arguing for the disbanding of equity, diversity, and inclusion offices at Canadian universities. I was then banned from writing for the Eyeopener, one of Ryerson’s student newspapers, on the basis that my Christian viewpoint on LGBT issues would make “members of our community, especially queer, trans and non-binary folks … no longer feel safe.”
https://quillette.com/2022/03/05/i-signed-up-to-study-journalism-what-they-taught-me-was-activism/
