Researching Lindsay Shepherd

In November 2017, Shepherd played her communications class two clips of a debate with psychologist Jordan Peterson on Bill C-16, which added "gender identity or expression" as a prohibited ground for discrimination to the Canadian Human Rights Act and as an identifiable group to the Criminal Code. Following the class, Shepherd was summoned to a meeting with her supervisor. Also present were the head of her academic program and an acting manager from the university's Diversity and Equity Office. Shepherd secretly recorded audio from the meeting, in which she was asked about the video clips and told that "at least one" complaint about her class had been raised. Shepherd was accused of having created a "toxic climate for some of the students" by playing the clips and told she would have to submit a lesson plan to Professor Nathan Rambukkana prior to each class.

After she released the recording, an independent fact-finder hired by the university reported that the meeting should not have taken place, that "no formal complaint, nor informal concern relative to a Laurier policy" had been registered, and that Shepherd had done nothing wrong by showing the clips.

After the tape's release, Shepherd became active online about issues of free speech and academic freedom. In 2018, she founded the Laurier Society for Open Inquiry at WLU, and in May that year received the 2018 Harry Weldon Canadian Values Award from Canadians for Accountability. The following month she filed a lawsuit against the university, the two professors, the third staff member and a student, alleging "harassment, intentional infliction of nervous shock, negligence, and constructive dismissal". Peterson also filed a lawsuit, for defamation, against the university and the staff members in the meeting.