Why Universities who don’t protect free speech should lose public money
ACT wants to cut funding to universities that block free speech
David Seymour has withdrawn a Bill that would have repealed parts of the law which made insulting and offensive speech unlawful.
Instead, he’s drafting a new one which would force tertiary institutions to “take all reasonable steps to protect academic freedom and free speech” or face funding cuts, following a number of events being shut down over claims of health and safety fears.
“I think there’s a more urgent need now because it’s become clear that the most pressing threat to free expression in New Zealand is not our current laws,” Seymour told Newshub Nation on Saturday.
“Our current laws are not bad – I think they could be improved, and that’s what my previous Bill would have done. The most pressing threat is that some people are genuinely concerned about their health and safety obligations as a person conducting a business undertaking, and they are not sure if they can let people speak on their premises. Others are abusing it.”
Since 2018, Massey University has cancelled events, including a speech by former ACT leader Don Brash and the Feminism 2020 summit, on health and safety grounds. Dr Brash attracted protests over his views on race, and trans activists have accused the group behind Feminism 2020 – Speak Up For Women – of being bigots.
Seymour instead hosted Feminism 2020 at Parliament on Friday, calling it a “delightfully informative and uneventful discussion”.
“It’s a ridiculous situation. An MP shouldn’t be giving sanctuary to feminists to have their views expressed at Parliament in 2019, but that’s what happened.
“We need to clarify the obligations – particularly of the public sector – of health and safety versus freedom of expression,” he said, before launching an attack on Massey.
It is indeed insane that David Seymour had to offer a Feminism Conference sanctuary at Parliament because a University was too cowardly to hold it!
NZ Universities have a legally mandated obligation to be the social conscience of society and they uphold that obligation with academic free speech. Those obligations are to the wider society, and are part of their social contract with a liberal progressive democracy.
If a University refuses to fulfil this obligation to Society, then they shouldn’t get public funding!
They also have an obligation to provide a work environment and study environment that protects staff and students from physical harm and harassment. To conflate this obligation into a health and safety responsibility to protect staff and students from ideas that will trigger them however is intellectually dishonest.
A University doesn’t have an obligation to shield staff and students from ideas that might trigger them, that is the relationship between a parent and a child. A University has an obligation to challenge their staff and students and provide support that enables their ability to cope with that challenge.
What Massey have done is conflate the relationship between University and staff/students to that of a parent protecting their children from unpleasant content, that’s not their responsibility.
It is intellectual cowardice to circumvent their obligations as a critic of society by conflating health and safety issues to protect staff and students from being triggered. Massey’s job is to challenge and support their students and staff, not wrap them in cotton wool and protect them from thought crimes.
That’s what The Spinoff does, that’s not what a modern University does!
We all lose out when a University is prepared to self censor themselves in this manner and if Massey can’t live up to its mandated obligations as a critic of society, hand back all the public money and set up as a private club.
Agree with, he’s drafting a new one which would force tertiary institutions to “take all reasonable steps to protect academic freedom and free speech”
but don’t agree with the penalty being funding cuts to the institution, – instead it should be warnings and cuts to the salary of the leaders and lecturers removing academic freedom and free speech and in extreme cases being fired and it should be in law.
Personally I think removing specialist libraries and destroying books to save money is removing academic freedom as well which also needs to be urgently stopped in law before we become a laughing stock of the world, and also there is a growing issue that that funding and clout between the different departments with some in fashion and some are not, being treated unequally. Aka arts vs science courses and business, cookery and IT courses just being froth to get a fake degree. That should be a jailable offence!
savenz – I have the address for the OU NZ Public Health critique. (It was you, wasn’t it ? )
otago.ac.nz/otagomagazine Professor Sir Davis Skegg’s Health of the People.
I totally agree with you about destroying libraries, except that it can be seen as almost sinister; the bad thing about crap degrees in nebulous subjects, is students getting into debt with student loans for subjects of little worth or use to them. Even some slightly ” better” subjects don’t necessarily guarantee employment, because they still may not be good enough for employing authorities and employers. Surveyed this for the Open Polytech, round about the late 90’s.
Sean – because David Seymour’s doing their work for them, and I hope he keeps it up.
Yes and lets trace that obligation back to its source, government. In this case the Labour led alliance. Why are we not hearing more from them?
I’ll be really impressed when Seymour hosts a “Free Hong Kong from the CPP” symposium at parliament in response to Massey Uni’s cowardly move to take down their posters. We all know he won’t do that though, because his electorate is 20% mainland Chinese.
Money, mouth and all that David…
New Zealand universities exist to provide a pathway for middle class children to become middle class adults. We can talk all we like about how they are supposed to be the critics and conscience of society, but that’s not really what they do. It’s now about pleasing customers and grant panels. It’s been a long time since they were anything else.
The average New Zealander doesn’t care about what academics think, and if they do, their opinion of it is more likely than not to be strongly negative. As it is, the average NZ academic is more concerned with their career trajectory and publication record to engage in politically risky behaviour. Many of them aren’t particularly informed about anything beyond their own tightly-focused specialisation, which makes them ill-suited to useful public interventions.
Also, the average university administrator sees academic freedom as a risk to be managed, not a principle to uphold. Those few academics who speak out are often regarded as troublemakers, especially if they have politically or financially inconvenient views.
It’s really too late to do anything. The time for intervention was two decades ago, and nobody could be bothered then.