Opinion
Word to the wise, University of Auckland: quit while you’re ahead.
Here in Australia we’ve already seen the debate over racially segregated spaces at universities played out, and it did not work out well for the segregators. And that was without even a firebrand senior government member on the case.
Oh, but it’s not segregation, you blither? Really? As I always advise in such cases: flip the script. If the university had “a designated area for white Anglo-Saxon students”, would it be segregation? Of course, it would: might as well put up a good, old Jim Crow “Whites/Coloreds” sign. Which is pretty much exactly what the University of Auckland have done.
Deputy Prime Minister and New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters says the University of Auckland’s action of having designated areas for Maori and Pasifika students were comparable to alt-right racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.
“It is phenomenal that we not only would accept this as New Zealanders, but that some people have not learnt the lessons of our world’s history of horrors with this type of thinking,” Peters said.
The Act Party is trying to shut down segregated sections in universities, an action which is being slammed by Te Pati Maori as “damaging and inflammatory”.
NZ Herald
Hmm. A race-based party trying to defend race-based segregation? Quelle Surprise.
But, as I said, we’ve already seen a near-identical case play out in Australia, a decade ago.
On May 28, 2013, [Alex Wood, Calum Thwaites and Jackson Powell] were using a QUT computer lab when [Cindy Prior] asked them whether they were indigenous. They replied they weren’t. Prior then asked them to leave.
Later that day, on the “QUT Stalkerspace” Facebook page, Wood posted:
Just got kicked out of the unsigned Indigenous computer room. QUT stopping segregation with segregation…?
Many people commented. Powell posted:
I wonder where the white supremacist computer lab is….
As you can imagine, it very quickly got nasty. Someone appeared to spoof Thwaite’s account, and posted “ITT niggers”. Thwaites has always categorically denied it was him and provided evidence to show that it could not have been. Prior provided no evidence to the contrary, despite having many opportunities to.
The woman who kicked them out of the “Aborigines-Only” space, administrative assistant Cindy Prior, decided to launch legal action with the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), claiming they had breached the notorious Section 18C, the “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” clause of the Racial Discrimination Act. Here, it went from nasty to downright Kafka-esque.
The AHRC conciliated Prior’s complaint. However, it did not contact the students directly about the complaint or the conciliation conference. Instead, it left this task to QUT. Powell did not know about Prior’s complaint until after the conciliation conference.
Conciliation failed, and Prior commenced proceedings in the Federal Circuit Court against QUT, certain QUT employees, and a number of QUT students including Wood, Thwaites and Powell. Prior’s claim was for A$247,570.52. Prior alleged that the students had breached 18C. She also alleged that QUT and its employees had breached section 9 of the RDA.
A number of students, as was clearly intended, panicked and settled with Prior. Wood, Thwaites and Powell were made of sterner stuff. Especially as they could clearly see that, for the rest of their lives, every time they applied for a job, a loan, etc., the finding that they were “racist” would be brought up against them. With a QC representing them pro bono, they fought the case.
And won.
In a decision that was seen as a litmus test for the controversial section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) (RDA), the Federal Circuit Court has dismissed Cindy Prior’s case against Queensland University of Technology students Alex Wood, Calum Thwaites and Jackson Powell. Prior had alleged that these students breached section 18C. Judge Michael Jarrett concluded that Prior’s claim against them had no reasonable prospect of success […]
For Wood and Powell, Judge Jarrett concluded that an ordinary and reasonable member of a group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (either students or generally), who had the characteristics of a member of a fair and tolerant society, would not be reasonably likely to find their statements offensive, insulting, humiliating or intimidating […] neither Wood or Powell made their statements because of Prior’s race, or because of the race of the relevant groups.
The Conversation
In Thwaites’ case, as mentioned earlier, the defendant provided exculpatory evidence; the accuser, none. Hence, Judge Jarrett concluded Prior could not sustain a case against Thwaites.
The case became a litmus test for both the Section 18C and the AHRC. It was exposed for all to see that the process was the punishment. If Tony Morris QC had not acted pro bono, legal fees for the three students would have run into the hundreds of thousands. No wonder most of the other students decided to settle and bear the opprobrium of “racist” for the rest of their lives. The AHRC was exposed for its disgraceful actions in running a star chamber, with the accused kept completely in the dark for some 18 months.
And the finger-pointer? Cindy Prior initially raked in $10,000 from the students who settled, but declared bankruptcy in 2019, unable to pay over a quarter of a million dollars in legal fees and settlements with the three students who fought back.
Take note, University of Auckland.