The President’s Office hosted the conservative public intellectual Jordan Peterson in Firestone Fieldhouse on April 7.
The event, part of the ongoing President’s Speaker Series initiated during President Jim Gash’s administration, drew around 2,600 attendees. Peterson’s appearance consisted of a 30-minute lecture on Christian morality and a 45-minute conversation with Gash.
“It’s quite something to be at a friendly university,” Peterson said, after walking on stage.
The audience cheered multiple times throughout the event, signaling support for Peterson’s ideologies.
Biography
Peterson is a Canadian clinical psychologist, podcast host, author and political commentator. He was a professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto from 1998 until 2021.
The following year, he signed a media deal with The Daily Wire, a conservative media company whose current roster of podcasters includes right-wing commentators such as Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles.
His rise to internet fame began in late 2016 with a series of YouTube videos criticizing the Canadian Bill C-16, which added “gender identity” and “gender expression” as prohibited grounds of discrimination, according to the BBC. Peterson claimed the bill could result in a criminal hate speech conviction for someone like him, who refuses to use gender-neutral pronouns in the classroom. Legal experts have said they disagree with Peterson’s assertion.
Peterson has a long history of controversial remarks. His self-help book “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos” characterizes femininity as “chaos” and women as “choosy maters.” In 2023, Peterson posted on X that “There is nothing Christian about #SocialJustice.” He denied the scientific near-consensus on climate change on the Joe Rogan Experience in 2022.
The New Yorker called him “one of the most influential — and polarizing — public intellectuals in the English-speaking world” in 2018.
The President’s Speaker Series
As part of Gash’s administration, the President’s Speaker Series started in 2021. Previous guests have included the U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss, academic and best-selling author Jonathan Haidt, Yeshiva University President Rabbi Ari Berman and Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt.
Pepperdine announced the latest Speaker Series in early February, the same day of the 2nd Annual Religious Freedom for America Conference in Washington, D.C., which Gash and Peterson both spoke at. Gash has previously expressed admiration for Peterson’s work, such as when he told the Utah-based Deseret News in 2022 that he had read Peterson’s book “12 Rules for Life” twice.
Some Seaver students, such as senior Riley Benedict, said she enjoyed the opportunity to hear Peterson speak live.
“I think he really pushes people to be a better version of themselves,” Benedict said.
Not everyone was happy, though. A group of nearly 40, a mix of Malibu and Pepperdine community members, protested Peterson’s visit during the Speaker Series. Students held signs calling Peterson “misogynistic,” “transphobic” and “homophobic.” Another sign read, “Remember when Pepperdine was Christian?” according to Graphic reporting.
The morning of Peterson’s Speaker Series, event registrants received an official email with the subject line, “Instructions for Guests of the President’s Series Featuring Dr. Jordan B. Peterson.”
“Any disruption of the event will be addressed immediately, and disruptors will be removed and face discipline,” according to the April 7 email. “For Pepperdine students, this can also include disciplinary sanctions. For non-students and students alike, this can include law enforcement action and subsequent prosecution.”
No disruptions took place during the event.
The front five rows of floor seats were filled with Pepperdine administrators and donors. Among the executive leadership present were Sara Young Jackson, Jay Brewster, Danny DeWalt, Connie Horton, Phil Phillips, Tim Perrin and Tim Spivey. Board of Regents members, such as chair Dee Anna Smith, Dale Brown and Alan Beard also sat up front.
On the left side of the first row sat the Garrabrants family, whose child is a Seaver College student. Gregory Garrabrants, is the multimillionaire CEO and President of Axos Bank, which has deep ties to President Donald Trump, according to The Guardian. His father-in-law, who sat in the second row, sported a black MAGA hat.
The costs of Peterson’s appearance, whose booking fee ranges from $200,000 to $300,000 according to talent agency Gotham Artists, were covered by a “friend of the university,” per Elyse Jankowski, associate director of communications and public relations. The Graphic was unable to confirm the identity of the donor.
President Gash’s Introduction
President Jim Gash opened the Speaker Series by asking audience members who had never been on Pepperdine’s campus to raise their hands. Hundreds of hands shot up across the crowd.
“Our belief in the value of great stories is part of the reason I’m so pleased to welcome our guest today,” Gash said to the crowd. “A guest who for years has been helping millions of people around the globe find purpose and meaning in their lives through unlocking the transformative power of some of the greatest stories ever written and ever told.”
Once Peterson walked on the security-surrounded stage, the crowd gave a standing ovation.
“We Who Wrestle With God”
Peterson’s half-hour lecture revolved around his latest book, “We Who Wrestle With God: Perceptions of the Divine,” published late last year. Each chapter revolves around an Old Testament story, with Peterson ruminating on wisdom to be gained from each biblical narrative. Peterson does not identify as a Christian; his book treats scripture as allegorical and uses an anthropological and psychological lens in deriving moral meaning, according to Christianity Today.
Peterson started by discussing the story of Jacob and Esau, characterizing it as a story about the dangers of striving for power. He used Jacob’s Ladder to describe self-improvement as a “sacrificial gesture” in the direction of heaven, referencing a recurring theme in his book.
“One of the things that our students are miseducated about on a regular basis is that all conceptions of up and down, morally speaking, are relative and that there’s no real point of orientation in the world and, you know, that means I suppose that you don’t have to upgrade yourself with guilt when you make a mistake because there’s no such thing as a mistake,” Peterson said.
The story of Abraham was next. Peterson described the first 70 years of Abraham’s life as a “socialist paradise” where “everything that he could require in the manner that an infant might require is delivered to him without effort,” until God invited him to operate outside his comfort zone. He compared Abraham’s journey to Jacob’s transformation.
“You want to be on the edge that transforms you, and that’s the edge of adventure, and that’s what God represents in the story of Abraham,” Peterson said.
He said embarking on this “adventure” is the way to “become a blessing to yourself,” and that all of society would be “abundant, just as the American society that you all inhabit has become” if they did the same.
“You have to conduct yourself so that you believe your existence is a blessing,” Peterson said. “Well maybe your existence is an adventure, and maybe it’s a daring and difficult and ultimately challenging adventure and not a search for infantile security or the pursuit of power or hedonic pleasure. And that’s the offering that the spirit of adventure makes Abraham that he accepts.”
Peterson further elaborated on the implications of the story of Abraham, concluding that it “demolishes the claims of moral relativism.” He reiterated the importance of narratives in serving as a foundation for morality. The audience applauded once again.
For some in the audience, such as English Professor Jonathan Koch, attendance at the Speaker Series was a piece of their required participation in the Pepperdine Dialogue Dinners program, whose main event took place in the Brock House backyard April 4.
Roughly 100 Pepperdine faculty, staff and students met at the Dialogue Dinner to discuss Peterson’s 2024 book, according to Gash. Participants were given a $100 stipend and a free copy of the book.
Attendees were assigned to read five chapters of the book and watch an hour-long lecture by Peterson, which they discussed in groups of eight. Each table had a designated leader, who relied on a handout with written questions about Peterson’s arguments in the book. One question on the handout read, “How might Peterson’s book and Peterson’s visit to our campus give us an opportunity to clarify and advance our Christian mission as a Christian University?”
“As a Christian, I found his account of Christian morality was missing a key piece of the gospel, which is grace,” Koch said in an interview with the Graphic. “So there was a lot of discussion of muscular Christian ethics that you could debate about the validity of or whatever you want to do there. But without grace, it’s actually missing kind of the most important thing and the most interesting and beautiful thing in the gospel to me.”
Participants of the Dialogue Dinner agreed to keep all conversations private, according to the dinner’s code of conduct.
A Conversation with Jim Gash
Immediately after the lecture, Gash joined Peterson on stage for a conversation, in which they discussed religion, politics and the influence of Peterson’s career.
Gash began their Q&A session by asking Peterson what got him interested in Scripture. Peterson began his response succinctly: “Death and evil.”
“I was very cognizant of the fact that these horrors, these political-economic horrors were very very real and I was very curious about their source,” Peterson said.
Citing his experience in clinical psychology, Peterson said individual sin was the primary cause in the establishment of totalitarian states. He related this conclusion to the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Gash asked Peterson to speak about when he first received public attention in 2016, alluding to Peterson’s controversial public criticism against the Canadian Bill C-16, and what came next.
“There was that moment that you were like, ‘I can’t — going back to Jonah — I can’t hold the truth that I believe inside me when I know what I believe I’m called to say,’” Gash said.
Peterson, who made no explicit mention of gender-based discrimination, explained in non-specific terms how his “idiot government decided that it was OK to tell me what to say.”
“I didn’t keep saying what I was saying because I’m brave, I kept saying what I was saying because I was a lot more afraid of God than of Justin Trudeau,” Peterson said.
Peterson elaborated on what he called the “collapse” of his academic career, voicing frustration with the College of Psychologists of Ontario, the regulatory body for practicing psychologists in Ontario, which has repeatedly sparred with Peterson.
In 2022, the CPO’s Inquiries, Complaints and Reports Committee ordered that Peterson undergo social media training after finding he “may be reasonably regarded by members of the profession as disgraceful, dishonourable and/or unprofessional” and “posed moderate risks of harm to the public” by “undermining public trust in the profession of psychology.”
“They’re supposed to be re-educating me at the moment, which of course is an impossibility,” Peterson said.
Gash interrupted Peterson.
“Come to Pepperdine and we’ll help,” Gash said.
Peterson continued speaking about his rise to internet fame and how he gained an audience of young men. He described their situation as “desperate” and “painful.”
“60 years of turning young men over to the bloody progressives who do nothing but demoralize them for their masculinity from the time they’re boys to the time they’re men while simultaneously lying in every possible way to young women,” Peterson said. The audience responded to this comment with applause.
Peterson began to tear up while speaking about fans coming up to him and sharing their life stories. In continuing their conversation on Peterson’s impact on young men, Gash read aloud two positive emails from Pepperdine students about Peterson’s appearance. One student wrote, “Dr. Jordan Peterson was my gateway drug to Christianity.”
“I want you to understand that there are times where you’re gonna be shot with arrows, there’s that you’re going to be criticized, there’s times that you’re going to be exhausted, but I want you to carry with you when you do the encouragement the life-changing impact you have had on students not just across the country but here in this room at Pepperdine,” Gash said. “So I want to say thank you for that.”
Gash then asked Peterson to “react to” the various effects he’s had on his followers. Peterson responded by continuing to talk about self-improvement through the lens of Old Testament stories. He referenced the tale of God sending venomous snakes to bite the Israelites in Numbers 21, sarcastically framing their complaints toward God as a rebellion “against the evil patriarchy.”
“It’s just an indication that you can take a bad situation and if you turn yourself into a whiny, rebellious, narcissistic, hedonistically-oriented, demented victim that hell’s just going to get deeper,” Peterson said.
Gash asked Peterson to give the audience advice on where to begin their self-help journey. His response revolved around confession, repentance and atonement.
“Maybe you could stop doing the stupid things that you’re doing and then terrible things wouldn’t happen as much,” Peterson said. “At least it’s worth a crack.”
The Speaker Series event concluded with Gash handing Peterson the 2025 President’s Award for Excellence in Freedom, a reference to the year’s “freedom” theme. Last October, the 2024 award was given to entrepreneur Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus VR and Anduril Industries.
Peterson received another standing ovation, admired the shape of the trophy and posed for a photo with Gash.
“That’s the goal of this President’s Speaker Series,” Gash said. “We want to put the most important voices in conversation on campus for the good, not just of our students, but for the entire community. We hope you’ll join us for future events in this series.”
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Contact Henry Adams via email: henry.adams@pepperdine.edu
