Peterson v. College of Psychologists of Ontario, 2023 ONSC 4685, Superior Court of Justice, Divisional Court. 

This blog post provides my analysis of the College’s order to Dr. Jordan Peterson to take compulsory media training, and the Divisional Court’s review of that order. The first part is a short summary, the second part is a fuller analysis of the issues, for those interested.

Summary

On November 22, 2022, the Ontario College of Psychologists imposed an unusual order on Dr. Jordan Peterson –  “remedial” media training to “ameliorate his professionalism”.  This was in response to complaints about certain arguably sarcastic and rude remarks that Peterson had made on Twitter and in other media. Peterson took the decision to an Ontario court for judicial review.  The Court upheld the College, deciding that the order was reasonable. A court is more likely to find a decision reasonable if the court has misunderstood what the regulator is really doing. That may have been the case here.

The order to Peterson raises a reasonableness issue: was the College’s order to complete training successfully really an order for “remedial” education, as the College described it? Or was it effectively part the disciplinary process without the usual procedural and legal safeguards for Peterson?  If it was the latter it is unreasonable to describe it as the former.

At the Court, Peterson’s constitutional argument of freedom of expression was weak, as was his being “off-duty” when making his criticized remarks.  There had been too many judicial decisions rejecting these arguments.  A professional does not have unlimited freedom of expression and is never off-duty when making public statements that are deemed to be unprofessional.  I am not saying that Peterson calling someone a “pri*k” is professional. Even Peterson had earlier offered to be monitored for his language. But two wrongs don’t make a right. The College’s order to Peterson is opaque, raising concerns about an agenda with a virtually inevitable negative outcome for Peterson.

The College’s order delegates to a coach of its choice (Peterson could select from one of two names the College chose) the power to decide Peterson’s future as a psychologist. That’s because if the coach sends the College a negative report on Peterson’s attitude adjustment the College will almost certainly have to find him guilty of professional misconduct and expel him. The College calls the appointed person a coach, but in effect that person becomes his judge. Keeping his licence will depend on this judge’s personal opinion of Peterson’s success in their coaching sessions. That’s more than just a coaching relationship. It might more accurately be called non-consensual psychotherapy, to change his attitudes. Since this coaching process is interpersonal, if the coach doesn’t like Peterson, or just isn’t the right person to coach him, Peterson’s licence is gone.

Provincial legislation empowers regulators of professions like law, medicine, nursing or psychology to regulate their professions, with almost unlimited self-governing authority.  The Supreme Court of Canada, in its Vavilov decision, instructed our courts not to overrule regulators, even if their decisions are not legally correct, but to show deference to their decisions. Deference has been so enthusiastically applied that it now almost amounts to “hands off”.

The three judges who decided to uphold the College are all top flight, and highly respected. The problem is not with the judges but with the Vavilov requirements they felt obligated to apply, and with the facts as the College presented them.  The College’s order was disciplinary in its effect, but was described as being merely remedial media coaching or training.  The Court accepted that description.

The College ordered Peterson to complete successfully what the College called its “specified continuing education or remedial program” (abbreviated as “SCERP”) to “ameliorate” his alleged lack of professionalism. But the SCERP acronym and words it represents are opaque. 

There is a fundamental difference between a continuing education program and a remedial program.  By using the acronym SCERP for both, that difference is obscured. The former, called “continuing education“, involves education in current developments of interest to the profession; the latter, called a “remedial program” requires a remedy to the member’s conduct.  The former is harmless education; the latter creates the risk of discipline by stealth.  Why is this a risk?  Because anyone subject to disciplinary action is protected by certain legal safeguards, but mere education – whether labelled continuing or remedial – is not protected.  The Court’s description of the College’s order was taken from the College’s description of it.  That description was, arguably, unreasonable.

With his highly successful use of print, TV and social media and his huge global following, the last thing Peterson really needs is media training.  But that’s not what this training is intended to be. The complaints against Peterson were about his attitude, not his aptitude.  

The Divisional Court wrote (at para 63 of its decision) that the College’s order

 “.. simply requires him to have coaching “to review, reflect on, and ameliorate his professionalism in public statements” in order to avoid making demeaning and degrading statements about people that may be harmful to them and to the profession.”

Ameliorate, here, means he must change his attitude, to the satisfaction of the compulsory coach.  Although the coach can end Peterson’s career by reporting that his amelioration wasn’t good enough there is no appeal to a court from the coach’s judgment. That’s an unreviewable discretion that requires the protection of the law. The Court didn’t provide that protection.

The case law on deference imposes some limits, the main one being whether the regulator’s decision falls within the range of reasonable outcomes. But here’s the contradiction: if judges are required to defer to decisions of regulatory bodies because they don’t know enough to overrule their specialist decisions, then how do they know enough to know whether the decision falls with the range of reasonable outcomes? And if they know enough to know whether the decision falls within the range of reasonable outcomes, why should judges defer to the regulator’s decision? This case law needs to be reconsidered.

The College had the legal authority to impose disciplinary measures on Peterson.  However, it should not have the authority make what is essentially a disciplinary order and call it something else, like coaching or training.  The Court was led to mistake the SCERP trap as merely education. 

Peterson’s compelled submission to re-education has no legal protection. How is that reasonable?

Full Analysis

I will discuss this case from two perspectives: first, what is at stake for Peterson, and second, why judicial review has become too deferential to regulators, to the detriment of the regulated.

The coaching Peterson was ordered to take raises a reasonableness issue: was the College’s order to complete his “media training” successfully really an order for his education, or was it actually the beginning of a disciplinary process without the usually applicable legal safeguards for him?  I won’t keep you in unbearable suspense: it was the latter.

Background

Rather than governments themselves regulating these specialized professions directly, they delegate substantial self-governing authority to the members of the profession.  However, like all creatures of statute, these regulators are, at least in theory, subject to judicial overruling for decisions that fail to meet certain standards of procedural fairness and substantive reasonableness.

The legal issue in this case was whether to set aside the decision of the Inquiries, Complaints and Reports Committee (the “ICRC” or the “Committee”) of the College of Psychologists of Ontario, regarding Peterson. The Court upheld the College. For the reasons that follow, I will argue that the Court should have identified the unreasonableness of the College’s order and sent it back to the College to be changed or rescinded.

The Ontario Court and the Newfoundland and Labrador Court applied the same law but with Opposite Results

The two problems the Ontario judges faced, which will also be the problems as this case goes up the judicial ladder, is with the applicable case law that they felt obligated to apply, and with the way the College presented the facts to the Court.

At the centre of that applicable law is the authoritative Supreme Court of Canada decision in the Vavilov case (2019 SCC 65).  You may wish to review my analysis of Vavilov posted here. 

The Ontario Court could have applied Vavilov differently, because the fact situation in Peterson’s case was so different from that in Vavilov.  In contrast, the June 6, 2023 Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal decision in Law Society of Newfoundland and Labrador v. Buckingham, (2023 NLCA 17), also applied the Vavilov principles but arrived at the opposite conclusion in somewhat similar circumstances.

The NLCA case also involved complaints about statements to the media that a committee (the Complaints Authorization Committee (“CAC”)) of the Law Society of Newfoundland and Labrador dealt with by issuing a letter of “counsel or caution” to a lawyer.  The Law Society denied that this letter was really disciplinary in its nature or effect, and was merely investigative and remedial. The NLCA also applied Vavilov, but held against the Law Society.  In doing so it looked through the Law Society’s description of the CAC’s functions as merely investigative, and of the supposedly remedial nature of the “counsel or caution” letter.

The NLCA held (at para 52):

“However, I would not characterize the CAC’s role as always investigative. …. Making a decision to resolve a disputed matter is more of an adjudicative function than an investigative one.”

Similarly, the Ontario College’s role is not always screening.  Compelling Peterson to have his conduct “ameliorated” by a trainer who can end his career is an adjudicative function rather than a screening one.  Unfortunately, the Ontario Court didn’t recognize this.

The College’s Order to Peterson: The SCERP Trap

The College’s order was to complete what it called its “specified continuing education or remedial program” (abbreviates as a “SCERP”) to ameliorate his alleged lack of professionalism in some of his public statements.

The SCERP acronym is misleading.  There is a fundamental difference between a continuing education program and a remedial program.  By using the acronym SCERP for both, the difference between these two requirements is obscured. The former involves education in current developments in the field of practice of the profession; the latter requires a remedy to the member’s conduct.  The former is harmless education; the latter creates the risk of discipline by stealth.  Why is this a risk?  Because anyone subject to disciplinary action is protected by certain legal safeguards, but mere education – whether labelled continuing or remedial – is not protected.  The Court’s description of the College’s order was taken from the College’s description of it.  That description was opaque, and therefore, arguably, unreasonable.

A professional regulator will naturally want to avoid the risk of judicial overruling.  It will have an incentive to characterize decisions that are essentially disciplinary and subject to legal protections as being merely educational, and therefore, not subject to overruling.  Unfortunately, it has been difficult in SCERP cases to persuade a court to penetrate the educational veil.  Adding to the opacity of the veil is ordering “education” through a committee that is presented as having merely a screening or investigative function and no disciplinary function.  Deference implies not looking at every tiny detail of a regulator’s decision, but, in an appropriate case, a court should look through self-protective labelling to examine what is actually going on. Deference still requires vigilance.

Peterson was ordered to take what the Committee called media training or coaching, from one of the two named instructors, for as long as a whole year.  The College effectively delegated to the instructor the authority to decide whether Peterson was adequately trained in how to make acceptable public statements, and if so, could have the training concluded without disciplinary action.  However, if Peterson failed to impress this instructor with his change in attitude, the training could be deemed a failure — not the trainer’s failure, but Peterson’s.  Then the next step would be formal disciplinary proceedings, probably resulting in Peterson’s expulsion.

Consider the incentives in mandatory remedial training.  The trainer’s self-interest lies in (i) prolonging the training ineffectively, to ensure a full 12 months’ income, and (ii) ensuring that the outcome of the training is what the College wants, so as to be awarded more such training assignments.  This makes it possible — perhaps even probable — that a trainer would continue the training for as long as Peterson is willing to take it (up to a year), and then report to the College that he has failed.  There is no appeal to a court from that report. A report of failure would help the College to get rid of the high profile Peterson while making it look as if this result was Peterson’s failure or refusal to be trained properly. 

With his highly successful use of print, TV and social media and his huge following, the last thing Peterson really needs is media training.  That’s not what this training is intended to be. The complaints against Peterson were about his attitude, not his aptitude. The goal of the training, therefore, would be a form of mandatory psychotherapy, to change his attitude.

Forced attitudinal training (sometimes also called “re-education”) that would require the trainee to show, and actually to have, a fundamental change in attitude has a spotty success record.  It usually doesn’t work with mature adults.  Forced training will often result in the trainee faking a new set of beliefs and a reformed personality, to get over the training hurdle, and often that claimed change is disbelieved.  For example, in the recent case involving mandatory “Indigenous cultural competency training” for Canadian Senator Lynn Beyak the trainers reported that she displayed:

“overtly biased views, prejudiced opinions, and insolent behaviors”

Beyak denied these accusations, but the trainers’ opinion was accepted rather than hers.  She then resigned from the Senate prior to a vote to expel her.  

Peterson is likely to suffer the same fate if he agrees to take the prescribed re-education. The complaints against Peterson are all about the style and tone of his social media communication. The College’s judgment of style and tone is inherently subjective and speculative: what will the public out there think of the profession if he is allowed to say this? What the Peterson-viewing public will think about Ontario’s psychologists — if anything — and whether Peterson’s communications poses any risk to the public, can only be guessed at without any statistically valid public opinion research.  There does not appear to be any compelling reason why a court should defer to such inexpert guesses about public responses: your guess is as good as mine.

Where does this order leave Peterson? Trapped, in a no win situation. Unless he appeals the Divisional Court decision or resigns, as Beyak did, his options are limited and unpalatable. He could pretend to experience a sudden attitudinal conversion.  But that would be insincere, inauthentic, and a forced denial of who he really is.  And probably not believable to his trainer. Not an attractive option. 

Or he could continue to believe, and to say to his trainer with honesty, that although he will try to be more respectful and polite in his use of colourful language, his views, to which he is entitled, remain largely unchanged — because that is who he is. That would likely get him a report similar to Beyak’s, with a similar outcome. That’s why I call the College’s order to Peterson is “the SCERP trap”.

I turn now to my analysis of the Court’s decision and the applicable law.

The Issue in Judicial Review

There is only one real issue in all judicial review: is the decision under review OK under the applicable standard of review, and therefore, it should be allowed to stand; or is it not OK, and should be quashed?  All of the case law on judicial review has been a continuing debate about how a court should arrive at and explain its conclusion that a decision under review is either OK or not OK.

After going through numerous endlessly debated verbal tests, like “jurisdictional”, “patently unreasonable”, etc., the current test is whether “the decision falls within a range of reasonable outcomes”. But the current test also requires the court to apply a large dollop of deference.

None of these verbal tests actually determine the judicial decision, which will necessarily be based on subjective judgement; their main function is to provide a uniform vocabulary for justifying the decision. “Deference” is now the key word in the vocabulary.

Professional Regulation and Charter Rights

The Peterson case raised the issue of the constitutional right to freedom of expression – a powerful right, but not absolute, and always subject to certain limits. As Professor Bruce Pardy has well explained, the Divisional Court decision in this case shows why the protection of freedom of expression in the Charter of Rights may not protect a member of a profession when its regulator (such as the College) imposes a disciplinary decision.  That’s because the regulator’s specialized knowledge, that generalist judges usually don’t have, entitles its decisions to deference from a court.

But specialized knowledge is overrated. It is not a measure of the fairness or reasonableness of a decision. And many of the findings and assumptions of specialist regulators are of a general nature, requiring no specialized expertise, yet still have to be treated with deference. Thus, claims of specialized knowledge requiring deference can become a shield against court control of unfair or unreasonable regulatory decisions.

What Does Deference Mean?

In Vavilov the SCC emphasized that the proper approach to judicial review was deference, provided that the decision under review fell within the range of reasonable outcomes. What is deference? Deference is an attitude, not a law.

In practice, if a judge agrees with the decision below she will usually say she is exercising deference; if she disagrees she will also say she is exercising deference, but, because the decision is unreasonable she must overrule it. In practice, how helpful is the deference mantra?  It can be used to obscure rather than explain the judge’s real reasons for decision.  

The vagueness of this deference requirement reminded me of a funny, but telling, personal experience. Some years ago I was invited to make a presentation to a conference of judges. At that time one of the judicial review tests was whether the decision under review was “patently unreasonable”.  I asked the audience “what do we mean by patently unreasonable?” A judge quickly answered:  “A patently unreasonable decision is one that is so unreasonable that even I can see it.” And everyone laughed a knowing laugh; no one can define it, but if I so find, then it is patently unreasonable – that is, unless a higher court says that it is not.

For good historical reasons, deference gradually became the required attitude because, all too often, a tired judge on a Friday afternoon might set aside, for technical legal reasons, a complex regulatory system that had been operating without major problems for many years. Deference was mandated to control the judicial hubris in saying, in effect, “I wouldn’t do it that way, so neither should you.”  On the other hand, if professional regulatory agencies today are too often evading necessary judicial control due to the deference pendulum having swung too far, the time has come to bring it back to the centre.  A court should not serve as the deferential apologist for any regulatory body.

The Contradiction in Vavilov

The main constraint on deference set out in Vavilov is whether the decision falls within the range of reasonable outcomes.  But here’s the contradiction: if judges are required to defer to decisions of regulatory bodies because they don’t know enough to overrule their specialist decisions, then how do they know enough to know whether the decision falls with the range of reasonable outcomes?  And if they know enough to know that the decision falls within the range of reasonable outcomes, why require judges to defer to the regulator’s decision? 

The enthusiastic and overly prescriptive language of Vavilov on the universal importance of deference needs some moderation. Vavilov has been cited more that 800 times, so the harm it is causing is more than trivial.

The Social Media Context of Peterson’s Comments

Peterson’s comments in issue were made on social media. For better or worse, politeness is not a prominent feature of X/Twitter or other social media.  Name calling and vulgarity are common, just part of the expected experience. This is not a space for emotional hemophiliacs.

When a regulator considers the complaints against a member’s comments it should take into account the context and environment in which the comments were made. Communications in those media should not be expected to emulate the restrained politeness of counsel appearing in a court of law. In the social media everyone — even a regulated psychologist — should not be expected to have to “take it” without also having the freedom to “dish it out”.  

The Coach is Peterson’s “Judge and Jury”

The Divisional Court wrote (at para 63) that the College’s order

… simply requires him to have coaching “to review, reflect on, and ameliorate his professionalism in public statements” in order to avoid making demeaning and degrading statements about people that may be harmful to them and to the profession.

The key words are ameliorate and “may be harmful”.  Ameliorate, here, means change his attitude for the better, in the opinion of the mandatory “coach”.  In effect, the coach becomes Peterson’s attitudinal judge. 

If the coach gives Peterson an “F” grade or feels that Peterson’s amelioration is not sincere and durable, reporting that to the College is likely to result in Peterson’s expulsion. This would be the result even in the absence of any empirical evidence that Peterson’s public statements were actually harmful to anyone, as distinguished from the hypothetical “may be harmful”.

The Courts are as Expert as the College in Reviewing Ordinary Language

When psychologists debate the intricacies of psychology it is appropriate for courts to defer to their expertise. On the other hand, whether Peterson’s statements were demeaning or degrading in the social media context is an ordinary linguistic judgment in which psychologists are no more expert than judges.

For example, in a tweet on January 2, 2022, Peterson responded to an individual who expressed concern about overpopulation of the planet by stating: “You’re free to leave at any point.” It was complained that this was advising or encouraging the person to commit suicide. But, more likely, it was a facetious comment not intended to be taken literally. A judge is as well placed as the College to make that finding. Deference is unnecessary.

Similarly, in a January 25, 2022 appearance on the podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience”, when Peterson was speaking about deaths from air pollution, he said: “it’s just poor children, and the world has too many people on it anyways.” Taken literally, this can be seen as an insensitive insult to poor children. But it is more likely an ironic reference to the well known fact that wealthy countries can afford to protect their children from local air pollution with strong and fully enforced air emissions regulations, which poor countries cannot. Wealthy countries heat homes and cook with electricity and natural gas, while poor countries have a high death rate from indoor air pollution.  That comes from burning wood and animal dung indoors for heating and cooking.  Peterson’s ironic meaning was probably that it is unfortunate and cruel that children in third world countries have serious death risks from air pollution, for which the developed countries show little or no concern. Again, a judge is as well placed as the College to make that finding.

Peterson’s Case is Not Like Vavilov’s

The Vavilov reasoning may have been an acceptable response to the unusual facts of that case, but it is not universally applicable to all regulators.  In Vavilov, Canada’s Registrar of Citizenship cancelled Vavilov’s certificate of Canadian citizenship, preventing him from obtaining a passport. He challenged her decision in court and won. A Registrar of Citizenship is a low level bureaucratic position that routinely applies relatively simple regulations, which give that decision maker limited discretion. You either have citizenship or you don’t.

But that is the opposite of the virtually unlimited discretion of the College to decide what statements are not merely silly or rude, but actually likely to harm the public interest or damage the reputation of the profession. The College can decide to prohibit a psychologist from continuing to work in the profession, based on nothing more than its judgement of something as amorphous as harm to the public interest.

Justification, Transparency and Intelligibility

To help to decide whether a decision under review falls within the range of reasonable outcomes, Vavilov required that the tribunal’s reasons for decision must demonstrate “justification, transparency and intelligibility”.  The obvious problem with this test is that it is largely about the style of the decision under review rather than its effect; form over substance. A well written decision may pass that test and still be an injustice.

Mandatory deference was intended to make it more difficult to succeed in a judicial review application, and that has been its result.  That is because to a deferential court the range of seemingly reasonable outcomes can be very wide; and also because it will be a rare case in which a regulatory decision maker (or its lawyers) will be so inept as to write reasons for decision that lack justification, are opaque or unintelligible. This test is too easy to pass.

What the Court Missed

In its Paragraphs 62 and 63 the Divisional Court discussed which College committee made what order. I will break up these key paragraphs into several parts, and insert my comments in square brackets and bold font.

Para 62:

The ICRC [a College Committee] is, essentially, a screening body …

[It is also much more than that if it can decide to order Peterson to attend attitude adjustment training.]

It reviews complaints and investigations and, where appropriate, sends cases to a disciplinary hearing for adjudication, in which case its decision is not even subject to judicial review as the process has not run its course: [citation omitted] The ICRC, however, also has other, less serious options available to it to address concerns that may be raised by a complaint or complaints, including directing a SCERP, which is not disciplinary, but remedial. 

[This characterization of a SCERP as not disciplinary but remedial is incorrect. It assumes away a key issue the Court had to decide in determining whether the College’s order was reasonable.  Labelling it remedial does not determine whether it is reasonable. That can only be determined by looking at what it actually did to Peterson.  The Court uncritically accepted the College’s inaccurate characterization of its essentially disciplinary order to Peterson.

However, this College was by no means the first to direct a SCERP.  The SCERP is a well-established technique, judicially approved in several cases. When this case gets to the Court of Appeal it should consider no longer following those cases.]

Para 63:

The ICRC had, effectively, three options in dealing with Dr. Peterson’s case: send the matter to discipline, do nothing, or direct a SCERP.  

[The three options mentioned are not the only ones that could be effective.  Negotiation through counsel has often been successful in resolving issues without using any of the three identified options.  For example, Peterson could have been asked to send written apologies to the persons the College identified as having been insulted and to undertake not to use similar language in criticizing someone he disagreed with.

Or, he could have been referred directly to a disciplinary proceeding, where he could call evidence and present legal arguments, unlike the SCERP trap. Now, unless Peterson succeeds in court, he can be expelled simply for refusal to undergo the “amelioration” coaching, without ever being given the chance to defend himself.]

By directing a SCERP, the ICRC pursued a proportionate and reasonable option to further its objective of maintaining professional standards, and which will have a minimal impact on Dr. Peterson’s right to freedom of expression

[Freedom of expression is not the only issue or even the most important one.  If Peterson is forced into the SCERP trap that will probably result in his expulsion from the profession.  He would have been better off if the College had sent the matter straight to its discipline committee for a formal hearing, where he could have defended himself, instead of to coaching, where he is defenceless against his judge, the trainer.]

Admittedly, the ICRC Decision is not benign; the direction to submit to a SCERP will be placed on Dr. Peterson’s public record with the College, but it is a remedial order, not a disciplinary finding, … 

[“Not benign” is an understatement. It is cleverly cruel psychological punishment. Unlike the Ontario Divisional Court, the NLCA correctly held that placing such a serious measure on the public record constitutes a disciplinary decision; it is not merely remedial.]

…. The Decision simply requires him to have coaching “to review, reflect on, and ameliorate his professionalism in public statements” in order to avoid making demeaning and degrading statements about people that may be harmful to them and to the profession.

[There has been no adjudication at the College as to whether Peterson’s statements were demeaning and degrading or harmful to anyone.  The College has simply assumed this, and based its disciplinary decision on that assumption.  Arguably, this falls outside the range of reasonable outcomes.]

The College had clear authority to impose disciplinary measures on Peterson.  But it should not have been held to have the authority make a disciplinary order and call it something else, like coaching or SCERP, to avoid judicial review.  The College’s order to Peterson to “ameliorate” was no more reasonable than the Registrar’s cancellation of Vavilov’s Canadian citizenship.     

Conclusion

The threat to Peterson is clear. As the Divisional Court noted in its Paragraph 27, the College’s Committee stated that Peterson’s failure to comply with its order “may result in an allegation of professional misconduct”, and that unless the trainer provided a “final report indicating that the concerns…have been appropriately remediated in the public interest, Dr. Peterson will not be considered to have successfully complied …”, which “may constitute professional misconduct.” 

The Committee’s language leaves lots of room for subjective judgments. What’s a “concern”? Whatever the trainer decides is a concern. When are the concerns “appropriately remediated”? Whenever the trainer decides that Peterson has remediated the trainer’s concerns appropriately.  This gives the trainer full control over Peterson, with the power to end his career as a psychologist, but without any effective judicial mechanism for reviewing and perhaps over-ruling the trainer’s subjective judgment. 

The Court concluded, in Para 75 that:

“In any event, the ICRC’s reasons are transparent, intelligible, justifiable, and reasonable.” 

However, it’s all too likely that any Canadian court, required by deference not to look too closely at what the College ordered, would find its actions reasonable, especially if the Court has misunderstood what the College is really doing to Peterson.

Peterson is already a well educated man with great success in the media.  He doesn’t need any media education from anyone. He was not ordered to take educational courses for learning purpose, but rather, to be re-educated in his attitudes. To describe this mandatory re-education as anything but disciplinary is to deny the very meaning of the word “disciplinary”.

Unless the trainer’s final report had said that Peterson’s attitude has been “appropriately remediated in the public interest” the College would probably have charged him with professional misconduct.  It is difficult to imagine what else the College could do in the circumstances.    

If Peterson’s case goes up the judicial ladder and the argument is not limited to constitutional freedom of expression, one of the higher courts may correct the Vavilov deference problem: too much deference, too little scrutiny. That correction would require looking into, rather than overlooking, what is actually being done in these attitude re-education SCERP cases.  A court owes applicants for judicial review more than a quick glance at, and deferential acceptance of, the self-protective euphemisms like “coaching” and “amelioration”.  What Peterson was really ordered to do was to submit himself to compelled psychotherapy to change his attitude.  Perhaps I am missing something, but why is that reasonable?