Jordan Peterson Files Application for Judicial Review of College’s Disciplinary Training Requirement

Jordan Peterson speaks at the 2018 Student Action Summit hosted by Turning Point USA at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Dec. 20, 2018. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Jordan Peterson has filed an application for judicial review of the request made by the College of Psychologists of Ontario (CPO) that he take a disciplinary training course for his social media posts or run the risk of having his clinical licence suspended.

“Dr. Peterson has filed a Notice of Application for Judicial Review with the Ontario Divisional Court,” says a section of his profile on the CPO’s website.

Peterson announced the court challenge on Jan. 4 in an interview with Toronto Sun columnist Brian Lilley, during which he also echoed remarks made earlier this week saying that the complaints being levied against him and CPO’s disciplinary measures are politically motivated.

“I practiced for 20 years without being investigated, this only started when I became a prominent public figure,” Peterson said on Jan. 4, adding, “All I want to do is tell people what is happening.”

Peterson also said yesterday in an op-ed in the National Post that he would not be complying with the CPO’s “Specified Continuing Education or Remedial Program” (SCERP), which CPO says is a training course regarding Peterson’s “professionalism in public statements.”

Peterson wrote his critics have “weaponized” the CPO’s disciplinary process for “political reasons” and said the complaints made against him were for his “retweeting of Pierre Poilievre” on Twitter and his criticism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the same platform, among other things.

“I’m not submitting to re-education,” he wrote. “The next step is a mandatory public disciplinary session/inquiry and the possible suspension of my clinical licence.”

Complaints

Peterson said in a Twitter post today that a total of 12 complaints were levied against him, adding that he will make everything on his end of the case “fully public” at some point on Jan. 5.

“I will make all the concrete allegations 100% public (except identifying the complainants) tomorrow,” he wrote, adding in a separate post that none of the complainants involved in the current case are or ever have been his clients.

Peterson added that the complainants are from “all over the world” and that they took issues with public statements he made both on Twitter and during his appearances on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

“I have been accused of harming people,” he wrote, adding, “Many of them falsely claimed that they were or had been clients of mine and were allowed by [the CPO] to have their complaints investigated despite this falsehood.”

The Epoch Times previously asked the CPO for details on the case, but the college declined, citing confidentiality provisions.

The College made its disciplinary decision against Peterson publicly available in his profile on its website under a subheading titled “Discipline & Other Proceedings.”

“I didn’t know that [the CPO] had already made their sentencing demands public,” Peterson wrote in a Twitter post on Jan. 4, adding that it could’ve caused “maximal reputational damage” if he was still trying to attract clients.