Controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson has launched a legal challenge against the College of Psychologists of Ontario after he said the governing body threatened to pull his practicing license if he doesn’t complete social media re-education for comments he made on Twitter and the Joe Rogan podcast.
Peterson, 60, filed an application for judicial review with the Ontario Divisional Court, the Toronto Sun reported Wednesday, as the clinical psychologist has said he will refuse to comply with the regulatory body’s demands.
The CPO, which oversees practicing psychologists in Ontario in order to protect patients from professional misconduct, ordered Peterson to complete a mandatory “Specified Continuing Education or Remedial Program” to “review, reflect on and ameliorate [his] professionalism in public statements,” according to a lengthy list of requirements from the college that Peterson shared on Twitter.
He must meet with a psychologist for coaching classes, which he must pay for, until a final report is issued by the coach that shows their concerns have been “properly ameliorated.” The CPO reached its decision on Nov. 22 following an investigation.
“I’m not complying. I’m not submitting to re-education. I am not admitting that my viewpoints — many of which have, by the way, been entirely justified by the facts that have emerged since the complaints were levied — were either wrong or unprofessional,” he wrote in the National Post Wednesday evening.
“I’m going to say what I have to say, and let the chips fall where they will. I have done nothing to compromise those in my care; quite the contrary — I have served all my clients and the millions of people I am communicating with to the best of my ability and in good faith, and that’s that.”
“If it becomes necessary” for him to attend the classes, he pledged to make all of the details of what they’re teaching public.
In June, Twitter suspended Peterson for a post about trangender actor Elliot Page that broke the platform’s rules “against hateful conduct.”
Twitter’s new CEO Elon Musk reinstated Peterson’s account in November after Musk took over the company.
A month earlier, Peterson announced he would be stepping away from social media after he caught heat for retweeting a New York Post article about plus-size Sports Illustrated 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 “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast that being transgender is a result of a “social contagion” and similar to “satanic ritual abuse,” and suggested that acceptance of the trans community is a sign that “civilization’s collapsing.”
