A Pleasing Reaction

Not a Bad Day All Round

Yesterday was a good day for the defence of free speech.  Firstly, the media did a pretty sound job of summarising the conspiracy of Massey University Vice Chancellor, Jan Thomas to stomp upon the free speech rights of students, student groups, and Dr Don Brash.  As we mentioned yesterday, Thomas had used the pretext of protecting public order to prevent Brash from speaking at the university because he and his speech were (wait for it) raaaaacist!  

A Freedom of Information Request showed that Thomas was an active partisan pushing for the university to shut the door on Brash because Thomas (and some others, presumably) judged him to be racist.  She finally seized upon the pretext of maintaining public order in desperation in the final days to ban him.

An (unnamed) "official" Massey U. spokesperson told the media yesterday that the university "stood by" the decision to ban Dr Brash on the grounds of public safety.  This unfortunately makes Massey University as a whole complicit in Thomas's conspiracy, duplicity, and breach of trust. It appears that at Massey, free speech is goneburger, or as Kris Kristofferson would say, is like "Yesterday, dead and gone, And tomorrow's out of sight . . ."

This from the NZ Herald's account:

The former National Party leader was barred from speaking at Massey University after Thomas cited security concerns - but the documents reveal a different story.  In the [OIA] request documents show that security was not the main concern for the University canning the talk, but Thomas saying she didn't want a "te tiriti led university be seen to be endorsing racist behaviours".

Brash was due to give a speech to the University's Politics Society in August, speaking about his life in politics, but after a threat to security, the university canned the talk.  It was revealed in an Official Information Act request, by right-wing blogger David Farrar, documents show that security was not the main concern, but Thomas saying she didn't want a "te tiriti led university be seen to be endorsing racist behaviours".

This has provided Dr Brash with an opportunity publicly to flay the Massey University's Vice Chancellor.

Brash, speaking to the Herald from Beijing today, said it was clear in the press statement made the day before the Politics Society event was going to take place that security concern was a pretext, it was not the real reason for its cancellation.

"She has no alternative but to resign.  Frankly I don't think she has got any other alternative. She has been dishonest about the whole thing and clearly hoodwinked many involved, including me," Brash said today.

"The press statement alludes briefly to security concerns, but then talks about my so-called support for the two right-wing Canadians and talks about at some greater length about Hobson's Pledge.  It implies we are engaged in hate speech, it was always a pretext."

Brash said he was "totally stunned" by the emails' contents and said they showed "weeks and weeks" of planning had gone into trying to ban him from the campus.  I knew nothing of this until the day before the speech was due to take place.

"I think she should very seriously consider her position as vice-chancellor, she has seen to be totally misleading, if not lying."  Brash said Thomas had misled the public and him.  "She pretended there was security, even though it was pretty clear from an early stage it was a pretext.  It is an extraordinary situation, I know of no precedent of this kind in anywhere in New Zealand."

Brash then went on to explode the Vice Chancellor's allegations that he was racist.

"I regard the question as ridiculous and offensive quite frankly. I am one of two spokespeople for Hobson's Pledge. We are very strongly committed to having all New Zealanders treated equally, irrespective of race.  "To call us racist is effectively Orwellian, it's the very opposite of what we are."

He pointed to an article in the Herald where she was defending her belief in free speech and said it didn't extend to hate speech.  "How anyone can say you are guilty of hate speech for advocating for equal right for all citizens is totally beyond me."

Various student organizations have also lowered the boom on the Massey Vice Chancellor's infamous duplicity and Orwellian double-speak.

The New Zealand Union of Students' Associations (NZUSA) is outraged by recent revelations that a Vice-Chancellor threatened to cut funding to a students' association due to actions they disagreed with.  National President Jonathan Gee said, "We should be able to have robust debate on campus with people we disagree with, including our university leaders.  But to consider cutting funding to a group that disagrees with your actions is just foul play."

Gee said these tactics have stemmed from Voluntary Student Membership, where tertiary institutions' management now hold all the cards.  "Students' associations have for too long been silenced from criticising our institutions for fear of 'biting the hand that feeds us'.  "These emails from the Vice-Chancellor are the purest example of the silencing effect that Voluntary Student Membership has had on student voice," he said.

Albany Students' Association President Jason Woodroofe said two wrongs do not make a right.  "Threatening cuts to funding key student services in order to get what you want is not fair game. Everybody loses," he said.  "We join Massey's students' associations in their call for their University Council to clarify its stance on funding independent students' associations. The Vice-Chancellor has broken the trust we have with our institutions, and we want to rebuild that."

Commentator Mike Hosking also weighed in, arguing that Thomas should be fired on the grounds of a dishonest breach of trust and a paranoid misuse of authority.

The university of 2018 is a hijacked enclave of hand wringing and political correctness.  It's where offence is guarded, if not policed against, where views held must adhere to hierarchies, where there is a gate keeper driven by the Treaty of Waitangi and its politically correct outworking.  It's where what was once welcomed is now to be closed down at all costs. And, tragically, seemingly done so with dishonesty, subterfuge and underhand tactics. . . .

There is nothing wrong with holding a view as clearly Thomas does. But to me the protection of that view at the expense of other views, especially on a place like a campus, is a crime, certainly morally.  And to go to such extent and effort to have your view, and your view alone, enforced smacks of an extraordinary level of paranoia.

A view well held is a view that can be defended and debated.  But so far this seems a basic abuse of power by dishonesty. I would have thought it is a sackable offence. You'd like to think she'd quit in humiliation. But I hope the university doesn't give her the chance.

Not a bad day for maintaining and defending free speech and opinion.