How Heterodox Academy is Influencing Anti-Cancel Culture Discourse Across Social Media
Trigger Warning: The topic of suicide is discussed in this article.
Heterodox Academy is a group of 5,000+ professors, administrators, K-12 educators, staff & students who believe “diverse viewpoints and open inquiry are critical to research and learning.” It was founded in 2015 by Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist, and Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, a constitutional law scholar.
“Our commitment to heterodoxy within the academy has taken shape as a response to the rise of orthodoxy within scholarly culture — when people fear shame, ostracism, or any other form of social or professional retaliation for questioning or challenging a commonly held idea. We believe that the best way to prevent orthodoxy from taking root within the academy is by fostering three key principles: open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement.” — Heterodox Academy
In other words, Heterodox Academy would like to erase the “paradox of tolerance” across academia — and in society. The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Philosopher Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.
According to William Reusch, a moderator of Heterodox Academy K-12 Education Group and a high school teacher in Los Angeles, “critical race theory (CRT) does not promote healthy ways to communicate with another and that is what we need!”
CRT is an academic movement of civil rights scholars and activists in the United States who seek to critically examine the law as it intersects with issues of race and to challenge mainstream liberal approaches to racial justice. CRT examines social, cultural and legal issues as they relate to race and racism.
William states that he is “actively working with Heterodox Academy and Fair For All independently to try and offer alternatives.”
Heterodox Academy heavily pushes the work of Jordan B. Peterson (JBP), an Alt-Right Canadian professor of psychology who inserted himself into a national Canadian debate over transgender rights — specifically by refusing to refer to a student by their gender pronouns.
“I have been told that Jordan Peterson is a cult leader. Well, OK, let’s say that he is… What’s it for? The power grab? Power to do what? What is his aim as a ‘cult leader’?” — William Reusch
Considering how many members of the Heterodox Academy worship the work of JBP, it is safe to say that the aim is the same: to remove CRT from academia, push back against Black feminist theory, and defang our movements. This brings us back to the influencers who are priming us through social media to be confused about critical race theory, identity politics, consent, and aboliton.
Seerut K. Chawla, a “trauma-informed” integrative psychotherapist and self-described Heterodox, has over 130k followers on instagram. Seerut is known amongst many of her followers as a trusted person who called out Dr. Nicole LePera (The Holistic Psychologist) for her push of QAnon rhetoric and support of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January. After this performance however, she quickly backtracked and expressed regret at participating in “cancel culture.”
Jay Manicom-Marquis LeSoleil, who wrote their master’s thesis on the Alt-Right, graduated with a Degree of Master of Arts (Social and Cultural Anthropology) from Concordia University in Montreal under thesis advisor Marc LaFrance in 2019. Jay and their partner Clementine Morrigan have adapted Pastel QAnon and Alt-Right tactics to a “punk anarchist socialist” aesthetic to fit their group targets: abuse survivors and white queer leftists and liberals who are afraid of the shifting culture where people are being held accountable for abuse — especially racism, ableism, and sexual abuse — on a community level. Clementine has publicly praised Jay for “twisting the rules of academia to meet their sense of ethics.”
Interestingly enough, the term “Pastel QAnon” was actually coined at Concordia University by Marc-Andre Argentino. According to Concordia’s Website, Marc-Andre focuses on “the nexus of technology and extremist groups.” The Nexus is also what Jay and Clementine call the phenomenon of survivors asking for accountability from our abusers.
@douconsideryourselfafeminist was an Instagram account that was active between 2016–2019 under the identity of “Sarah” from Montreal. Sarah befriended me during a very vulnerable time where I was coming to terms with the abuse I endured throughout my life. Sarah spent a lot of time talking about feminism, but it quickly turned toxic when Sarah would create smear campaigns against multiple influencers for “stealing her work”. When it was eventually exposed that Sarah was not who she said she was, she expressed suicidal ideation to me and even went so far as to send me a fake message from her mother about being in the hospital. This was right after I had just lost a friend who was struggling with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to suicide. I was devastated and in turn was suicidal myself.
“Sarah” is cited in a thesis paper that came out of the same cohort as Jay at Concordia University in 2019.
Is it possible that Marc LaFrance, Marc-Andre Argentino, and Jay Manicom-Marquis (LeSoleil) are members of Heterodox Academy representing at Concordia University? And if so — is it possible that Heterodox Academy is trying to control the conversation around QAnon to soft influence people across social media? Is Heterodox Academy encouraging their members to pretend to be leftists in an attempt to pull in victims and influence their political beliefs and mental health through writing and memes on social media?
According to Vox, Heterodox Academy advances conversative viewpoints on college campuses by playing into or presenting the argument that their views are suppressed by left-wing bias or political correctness. Heterodox Academy is being speculated as a re-branding of Campus Reform — a website funded by the right-wing Leadership Institute, which is funded by the Koch family.
In a survey that asked faculty who had been targeted by the website Campus Reform what sort of consequences they experienced, it was found that 40 percent of respondents had been threatened, including threats of “physical violence or death, following Campus Reform stories about them.” A disproportionate percentage of those facing threats were African American, and the vast majority of stories Campus Reform had covered involved public speech, outside the classroom or other professional contexts.
When I first began to expose Jay Manicom-Marquis (LeSoleil) and other influencers involved, I was threatened with violence and experienced a lot of xenophobic harassment.
The anti-cancel culture rhetoric being spread by Heterodox Academy is a suicide risk. As a survivor of multiple types of abuse and suicide, it is deeply troubling to see how Heterdox Academy is targeting mentally ill, chronically ill, and disabled folks on social media. For many of us, especially during a global pandemic, this is our only connection to community. For many survivors “cancel culture”, also known as simply speaking the truths of our traumatic lived experiences out loud to our communities, is the only tool we have to, at the very least, find community away from our abusers.
Survivors of abuse have a much higher suicide risk than the perpetrators of said abuse, and many survivors are currently living in acute suicide crisis due to the work of those supporting anti-cancel culture rhetoric — what is essentially an abuse cult indoctrination.
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***Update August 22, 2023: Ongoing Harassment and Urgent Insights***
Amplifying the Harassment: An Unsettling Reality
Since writing this article, I have endured extreme online harassment from Clementine’s cult following. Clementine’s partner Jay and an account falsely portraying themselves as a healthcare worker, @the.wellness.therapist, have both armchair diagnosed me as schizophrenic and paranoid, despite receiving ongoing mental healthcare from qualified professionals for PTSD stemming from the ongoing cyberstalking and harassment. Both Jay and “Azadeh” have also accused me of faking my Indigeneity. The cult has a distinct pattern of targeting reconnecting Indigenous people.
Clementine’s Eery Admission of Tactics
Clementine has written in one of her Substack articles titled “You Don’t Have to Like Them but You Have to Love Them,” about the ease of employing calculated actions to harm others. She contemplates using burner accounts to spread slander and rumors, alluding to the ability to exact revenge on individuals. Astonishingly, this exact strategy has been carried out against me since naming her connection to the NXIVM cult. Here are the documented instances and a map of some of the cult members who have employed these harassment tactics against me (viewable on desktop only).
The Grim Trail of Evidence
The harassment campaigns I have endured are documented with alarming evidence. This ranges from the utilisation of multiple burner accounts adorned with blackface, to the creation of entire profiles dedicated to doxxing my Indigenous family and coercing me into suicidal thoughts. In this disturbing context, a crucial question surfaces: If Clementine stands by her principles, why does she not intervene as her cult following systematically harasses me? Moreover, the uncanny colour similarity between the profile picture of @the.wellness.therapist and the original Concordia University account @douconsideryourselfafeminist (along with similar behaviour and writing style) raises suspicions, considering the connection between Jay and @douconsideryourselfafeminist is what inspired me to dig deeper in the first place. Dr. Christine Marie also happens to use the same colour for her logos on Facebook and her website.
Unraveling Disturbing Connections: A Distinct Pattern
As further pieces fall into place, a disconcerting connection emerges: Jay Marquis-Manicom and the Instagram account @douconsideryourselfafeminist (“Sarah” from Montreal) are linked to the same Concordia University cohort. This revelation aligns eerily with the roots of “whistleblower” and Concordia alumni Sarah Edmonson, known for recruiting young women into the NXIVM cult, Concordia-based project Queering the Map which documents the experiences and locations of LGBTQIA+ people across the globe, and Marc-Andre Argentino who coined the term/tactic Pastel QAnon at Concordia. Additionally, my investigation reveals Clementine’s reliance on a dissertation authored by NXIVM’s marketing expert, Dr. Christine Marie, to substantiate her arguments against cancel culture. Clemetine regularly offers “Anti-Oppression & Pro-Solidarity training” at Concordia. The intricate connections continue to multiply.
A Complex Web of Manipulation: Azadeh Ghafari @the.wellness.therapist
@the.wellness.therapist claims to be Iranian psychotherapist, social worker, & researcher Azadeh Ghafari. She claims to work for UCLA Health and is featured in multiple books, articles, and podcasts about NXIVM, cults, conspiricies, and the alt-right. However, I was notified by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that Azadeh Ghafari is not a public entity providing health and social services as she claims. I was also informed by UCLA that she is not employed there as she claims.
Unveiling Disturbing Agendas: Shielding Abusers
Beyond the realm of harassment and manipulation, a stark reality emerges: Clementine Morrigan’s actions serve as a diversion, shielding celebrities and powerful individuals who seek to evade accountability for their racism, ableism, and sexual abuse. This sinister tactic aims to silence marginalised voices, preventing them from voicing complaints against these wrongdoings.
Challenging the Manipulative Strategy
By delving into the intricate layers of manipulation, it becomes clear that these actions are not isolated incidents. They form part of a broader strategy aimed at protecting the interests of those who perpetuate racism, ableism, and abuse. The urgency to continue questioning, probing, and advocating for accountability remains undiminished.
As this unsettling journey unfolds, it’s imperative to remain vigilant against attempts to manipulate narratives and divert attention from crucial issues. By exposing the truth behind these calculated tactics, we stand a chance to disrupt the cycle of abuse and exploitation that threatens to persist unchecked.
