SHEPHERD SUING WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY

   TORONTO – A university teaching assistant who gained prominence after being disciplined for showing students a TV clip of a controversial professor discussing gender-neutral pronouns is suing the school, claiming Wilfrid Laurier University behaved negligently, leaving her unemployable in academia.
After the outcry erupted, the university’s president apologized to her, saying there had been an “institutional failure,” that Shepherd had done nothing wrong, and the school was taking steps to ensure similar events did not recur.
   However, Shepherd maintains she has received no redress, and in fact has been subjected to “continuing abuse and a toxic climate from the university and its representatives,” according to her statement of claim.
The suit alleges the school failed to follow its own policies, and that attacks on her by “predators” amounted to harassment, intentional infliction of nervous shock, and constructive dismissal.