Random House Staffers Whine and Cry Over Jordan Peterson Book

Following in the not-so-proud footsteps of New York Times staffers who pressured the paper into rejecting an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton earlier this year because it made them “less safe,” employees of Penguin Random House are in open revolt after the publisher announced plans to release Jordan Peterson’s “Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life” in March. Staffers for the publisher are (literally) crying and claiming that they are ashamed to work for a company that would promote a white supremacist (he’s not) who refuses to use newfangled gender-neutral pronouns (that part is true).

Instead of doing their level best to ignore these tantrums, Penguin Random House actually organized a “town hall” meeting with their staffers so they could let fly with their cancel-culture complaints.

“People were crying in the meeting about how Jordan Peterson has affected their lives,” one attendee told Vice News.

The employee continued: “The company since June has been doing all these anti-racist and allyship things and them publishing Peterson’s book completely goes against this. It just makes all of their previous efforts seem completely performative.”

There are three terms in that one sentence – antiracist, allyship, and performative – that tell you everything you need to know about this particular employee and what kinds of Twitter accounts they follow. Suffice to say, a Jordan Peterson book – which is the polar opposite of wokeness – is not going to be their cup of tea. And, like all leftists who buy into the “critical race theory” view of the world, they see life as an unending power struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed. Therefore, it’s no surprise that they would oppose the publication of a book that goes against everything they believe in.

The only surprise (though, to be fair, it’s a mild one) is that Random House would pay any attention to these people at all.

“He is an icon of hate speech and transphobia and the fact that he’s an icon of white supremacy, regardless of the content of his book, I’m not proud to work for a company that publishes him,” another employee told Vice.

Rather than fire the complaining staffers, the publisher told Vice News: “We announced yesterday that we will publish Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order this coming March. Immediately following the announcement, we held a forum and provided a space for our employees to express their views and offer feedback. Our employees have started an anonymous feedback channel, which we fully support. We are open to hearing our employees’ feedback and answering all of their questions. We remain committed to publishing a range of voices and viewpoints.”

Yeah. We’ll see how long that courage persists.