Employees Melt Down After Learning Their Company Is Publishing Prominent Conservative's Book: Report
Penguin Random House Canada employees were reportedly upset when the company announced it would be publishing a new book by Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson.
The subsidiary of Penguin Random House announced Monday that it would be publishing Peterson’s new book “Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life” in March 2021, Vice World News reported.
Peterson is a University of Toronto professor of psychology who became well known after he posted a lecture on YouTube in September 2016.
During that lecture, he said he refused to use gender-neutral pronouns for students and spoke against “legislation that increased protections for trans and non-binary Canadians,” according to Vice.
He has become a popular right-wing voice, appearing as a guest on Joe Rogan’s podcast and gaining 3.25 million YouTube subscribers.
Four Penguin Random House Canada employees told Vice about an “emotional town hall” the company held to defend the decision to publish Peterson’s new book in the face of employee concerns.
“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,” one anonymous LGBT junior employee told Vice.
Another worker said that “people were crying in the meeting about how Jordan Peterson has affected their lives.”
“The company since June has been doing all these anti-racist and allyship things and them publishing Peterson’s book completely goes against this,” the employee said.
“It just makes all of their previous efforts seem completely performative.”
Peterson’s daughter responded to the reported complaints and linked to Vice’s report on Twitter.
“How to improve business in 2 steps: Step 1: identify crying adults Step 2: fire,” Mikhaila Peterson tweeted.
“… staff CRIED and expressed dismay with the decision to publish ‘Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life.’”
How to improve business in 2 steps:
Step 1: identify crying adults
Step 2: firePenguin Staff Confront Publisher About New Jordan Peterson Book – https://t.co/hFBJPS2SmA
— Mikhaila Peterson (@MikhailaAleksis) November 24, 2020
Penguin Random House Canada told Vice it held the forum to provide “a space for our employees to express their views and offer feedback.”
“Our employees have started an anonymous feedback channel, which we fully support,” the company said in a statement.
“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.”
“12 Rules for Life” was incredibly successful, and the publishing house sold millions of copies, according to Peterson’s website.
Disgruntled employees told Vice that they believe Penguin Random House Canada is publishing the new book to piggy-back off of that success.
“They’re not going to acknowledge the reason they’re doing it is for money,” one employee said.
“I feel that would be the more honest route to go rather than making up excuses for Jordan Peterson.”
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