Information
Satire
The Committee of Disobedient Women has intercepted an email from Dr Emma Eejut, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Massey University to the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Jan Thomas.
Dear Jan,
Thank you for your courageous move. I think 10 pages of blether** should tie any of the students game enough to try holding a feminist meeting in knots for weeks. However, I think we may have missed a media and social media opportunity to really develop out the harm, fairness and duty of care concepts that we have to our students in the media.
So I’ve run this up the flag pole to see if it flies. Think of this as a supportive move. Would be good to have a few academics comment just to show we are right behind you in our duty of care – and so here is my modest effort. What do you think? If you think its OK it could go out via the communications team asap in time for the morning papers.
Here we go – deep breath!
Massey Academics support new (restraint), sorry, freedom of speech arrangements.
Caring, sharing daring – Massey’s new free speech standard.
Commenting after the announcement of the new Free Speech: Critic and Conscience Provisions in the University’s updated guideline, Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies Dr. Emma Eejut said that many staff fully support the University’s stance.
“From my perspective,” Dr Eejut said, “the hegemonic bio-political regime of gender which we teach at Massey implies that disobedient feminists cannot or should not exist. Yet as the need to cancel a feminist booking shows, they obviously do exist. This therefore becomes the justification for the actions taken by Massey University to ensure that our students should never become aware that, in fact, disobedient feminists do exist.”
“Our new policy,” said Dr Eejut, “just encodes in updated caring, compassionate language based on our first principles that peace is war, feminism is null and void, and our precious young people must not be assaulted with views because of the well-known and evidence-based experience that facts, just like nuts and broken glass, can cause inestimable harm.
“I for one,” said Dr Eejut, “believe it would be a cold day in Hell before we at Massey would allow our unique role as critic and conscience, not to say our income stream, to be put at risk by so-called disobedient feminism or supporters of Hong Kong students. Without good recruitment to our classes and attractive and popular courses there can be no real learning. It would be most irresponsible of us to do otherwise than prevent the promulgation of difficult ideas which would unnecessarily upset our students or override our teaching responsibilities to them. They are, after all, the people who pay our salaries.”
** I see it’s 12 pages now – all to the good!