HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Grad student who showed debate on gender-neutral pronouns: My class was canceled with no explanation.

“I wonder if my mere presence is simply too triggering now.”

That’s how graduate student Lindsay Shepherd, who caused an uproar at Canada’s Wilfrid Laurier University by showing undergraduates a gender-neutral pronoun debate, makes sense of the unexplained cancellation of her department-wide class this week.

As she has become a campus celebrity among defenders of free speech, Shepherd has taken to Twitter to joust with critics who call her a white supremacist and threat to students who do not identify with their birth sex.

Wilfrid Laurier’s critics are calling on the school to reckon with its speech codes – under which Shepherd faced possible discipline – as the university launches a task force on freedom of expression.

When taxpayers tire of funding this sort of thing, it’ll be blamed on “anti-intellectualism.”