Patrick Corish
Co-ordinator
Free Speech Coalition
While the Free Speech Coalition focuses exclusively on freedom of expression in New Zealand, we like to keep tabs on free speech developments in our Western democratic cousins.
Sadly, last week the Federal Court of Australia heard an appeal against a professor’s right to speech and ruled in favour of the his employer, James Cook University.
Peter Ridd, a professor of 27 years at James Cook University, Queensland, has been fired for speaking his mind on the university’s climate change publications. His crime: he broke the university’s Code of Conduct for failing to act “in the collegial and academic spirit” and tarnishing the reputation of his fellow academics.
This is even though the Professor’s employment agreement states that the Code of Conduct cannot detract from his intellectual freedom! But the Court makes a strange distinction between “intellectual freedom” and “academic freedom” (both we see as freedom of expression) and goes on to say Prof Ridd’s protections do not apply to his speech.
The Court’s regard for free speech is telling:
[94] There is little to be gained in resorting to historical concepts and definitions of academic freedom. Whatever the concept once meant, it has evolved to take into account contemporary circumstances which present a challenge to it, including the internet, social media and trolling, none of which informed the view of persons such as J S Mill, John Locke, Isaiah Berlin and others who have written on the topic.
The Court then uses an authoritative quote by a Professor Jennifer Lackey to justify this departure from liberal principles:
Professor Lackey says further (at 19):
Academic freedom plays an indispensable role in fulfilling the mission of the university… But a host of new challenges have arisen in recent years in response to the changing norms and expectations of the university. With the increasing role of the Internet in research, the rise of social media in both professional and extramural exchanges, and student demands for accommodations such as content warnings and safe spaces, the parameters of, and challenges to, academic freedom often leave us in unchartered territory.
While there are claims of breached confidentiality thrown throughout the case, the ramifications on free speech in Australia are clear. It is likely that that judges have destroyed the assumed protections of academic freedom and will reinterpret is as the situation demands, but will hide behind it technically being a contract case.
You can read the full judgment here.
With our own Court of Appeal proceeding next week, this serves as a powerful reminder of what is at stake.
We hope that Professor Ridd appeals this decision to the High Court of Australia (equivalent to our Supreme Court), and saner heads prevail.
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