Jordan Peterson could lose psychologist license if he refuses social media ‘re-education’

Controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson has launched a legal challenge against the Ontario College of Psychologists after he said the governing body threatened to revoke his license to practice unless he completes social media reeducation over comments he made on Twitter and Joe Rogan. podcast.

Peterson, 60, filed for judicial review in Ontario Divisional Court, The Toronto Sun reported Wednesday, after the clinical psychologist said he would refuse to comply with the regulatory body’s demands.

The CPO, which oversees practicing psychologists in Ontario to protect patients from professional misconduct, ordered Peterson to complete a mandatory “Specified Continuing Education or Remedial Program” to “review, reflect and improve [his] professionalism in public statements,” according to a long list of requirements from the Peterson college shared on Twitter.

He must meet with a psychologist for training classes, which he must pay for, until a final report is issued by the trainer showing that their concerns have been “adequately improved”. The CPO made its decision on November 22 after an investigation.

“I am not compliant. I am not undergoing re-education. I am not accepting that my views — many of which, by the way, have been fully vindicated by the facts that have emerged since the complaints were filed — were either wrong or unprofessional,” he wrote in the National Post on Wednesday in evening.

Peterson, 60, has faced a number of controversies over the years.

“I’ll say what I have to say and let the chips fall where they may. I have done nothing to compromise those in my care; on the contrary – I have served all of my clients and the millions of people with whom I am communicating to the best of my ability and in good faith, and that’s it.”

“If it is necessary” for him to attend the classes, he vowed to make public all the details of what they are learning.

In June, Twitter suspended Peterson for a post about transgender actor Elliot Page that violated the platform’s rules “against hateful conduct.”

“Remember when pride was a sin? And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal doctor,” Peterson tweeted.

Actor Elliot Page was a target of one of Peterson’s posts in June 2022. Getty Images for LACMA

New Twitter CEO Elon Musk reinstated Peterson’s account in November after he took over the company.

A month ago, he announced he was leaving social media after he took heat for retweeting a New York Post article about Sports Illustrated plus-size model Yummi Nu, calling her “Not beautiful.” , adding that “no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that.”

In January, the former University of Toronto researcher claimed on Joe Rogan’s podcast that being transgender is the result of “social ascension” and akin to “satanic ritual abuse” and suggested that acceptance of the trans community is a sign of “collapse of civilizations”. .”

In response, critics again denounced Spotify’s “Joe Rogan Experience” for “displaying harmful anti-trans rhetoric.” The CPO mentioned the Jan. 25 podcast appearance in his notice to Peterson.

PAGE: The College of Psychologists of Ontario @CPOntario has requested that I undergo a mandatory retraining of social media communications with their experts for, among other crimes, reposting @PierrePoilievre and criticizing @JustinTrudeau and his allies politics.

— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) January 3, 2023

Peterson also claimed in the National Post that he was targeted for supporting Canadian opposition leader Pierre Poilievre’s criticism of the COVID-19 lockdowns, criticizing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his chief of staff Gerald Butts, criticizing a member of the council of Ottawa and making fun of New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

“Every single charge is not only independent of my clinical practice, but explicitly political — and not only that: explicitly political bias,” wrote Peterson, a free-speech advocate. “Everything I’ve been reprimanded for saying is insufficiently leftist, politically. I’m just very classically liberal – or, even more unapologetically – conservative.”

In May 2022, Peterson attacked Trudeau on Twitter for his travel ban.

“I’m at my daughter’s wedding in California. I will never forget [sic] @justintrudeau that my father is not here because of your completely unconscionable, unconstitutional and retaliatory travel ban,” he said at the time.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board defended Peterson for “speaking his mind” in an opinion piece published Wednesday evening.

“Professional bodies must ensure that practitioners are competent, do not adhere to political orthodoxies or act as language police outside the office,” the board wrote in a scathing column.

Peterson filed an application for judicial review in the Ontario Divisional Court.

Peterson, who boasts over 15 million followers on his social media platforms, told The Toronto Sun that he never had any complaints against him until he gained international attention in 2016. He said that since then he has had to hire attorneys to handle college complaints.

“I practiced for 20 years without being investigated, it only started when I became a prominent public figure,” Peterson said in a phone interview with the newspaper Wednesday morning.

He has suspended his private clinical practice since 2017, when he said his fame made it unethical to continue.

Peterson wrote a letter to Trudeau, which he published in the National Post, asking him to look into government regulatory bodies.

“I neither suggest nor assume that you or any of the people associated with you had anything to do with this,” he wrote. “However, the fact that it is happening (and that doctors and lawyers have become as terrified as psychologists are now of their regulatory bodies) is something that has obviously happened in your eyes, as a result of your behavior and forcing more and more . – ideologically based and pure policies that you have promoted and legislated.”