New Zealand University Stands for Free Speech
My University makes a powerful statement in support of Free Speech; yet I fear it needs more than a few paragraphs on its website to eradicate the rot that is Woke ideology.
The University of Otago; can it regain its mystique of yesteryear? The pursuit of truth above ideology? Or will it continue to falter, as indeed much of the West has?
The University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, has preempted the Protection of Freedom of Expression Bill hopefully passed later this year, by declaring a powerful statement in support of Freedom of Speech and Expression. One hopes this straight left jab at the closed jaw of censorship is the first of a flurry of attacks, not just in our country, but in the wider Western world. The question, once thought resigned to fantasy, now needs to be asked: Can tertiary institutions save themselves? Can New Zealand become a bastion of Free Speech; a beacon lit on the stormy mountain ranges that define our current age?
Yet, as I am personally reminded on a weekly basis, the University of Otago’s foundations are compromised. Like termites wielding rainbow flags and screaming high-pitched DEI salutes, administration and students alike eat our once great Gothic mystique alive from the inside. The recent statement, powerful as it is, needs to be checked against the ground; and, as anyone who believes tertiary institutions primary goal should be the pursuit of truth, we have ceded much ground over past decades.
My experience at my University reflected what I read and saw online. Free speech was getting stifled, “chilled”; in 2022 my own research lab replicated a survey by Heterodox Academy that confirmed our fears. Freedom of speech and expression, arguably the most fundamental of human rights, and necessary for the pursuit of truth, was being starved by the very people supposed to uphold such a value, the university administration and leadership.
Whether cowardice or malevolence or both, it’s hard to say. Certainly, in the hallways and in the courtyards and in the classrooms, to question the status quo was to isolate oneself. I would get horrified looks if I questioned whether Jacinda Ardern was really a saint; whether her lockdowns were really protecting us and not instead a tyrannical misuse of power. I would be called a transphobe if I asked whether physically transitioning young children really ‘treated their condition’ or whether it instead ‘reinforced their delusion’, and resigned them to life of pain.
But the wider New Zealand population began to realise that the Jacinda progressive mission was instead a cunning deception; a plan devised by elites to keep and hold power. And, as we all know, the best way to keep power is to control the narrative; to censor speech.
New Zealanders had seen the UK and Canada go down the hate speech route; introducing laws that could jail people for their ‘unpopular opinions’. We saw our own progressive ministers angling toward the same ‘ideal’, under the guise of protecting minorities from harm.
Luckily, we were smart enough to not only throw out the progressives, but elect a stabilising, masculine force in the form of Winston Peters, the New Zealand First Party leader. Though a cunning politician, he, in strong support from the ACT Party, picked up the Free Speech Union’s drafted legislation, which would require tertiary institutions to protect Freedom of Speech and Expression. Upon hearing his legislation picked up by the current Government, Jonathan Ayling, Chief Executive of the Free Speech Union, said:
It’s not acceptable for public venues to pick and choose whose voices they platform. Our democracy depends on all voices getting their say, no matter how disagreeable or provocative they may be to some.
And so, my University - the University of Otago - has presented their statement on Free Speech. Emeritus Professor James Maclaurin led “a working group of staff and student representatives”, that I wrote input for. You can read the full statement here, but I want to direct you in particular to this paragraph:
…
The University affirms that it will not restrict debate or deliberation simply because the ideas put forth are thought by some to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed. It is for the members of the University community – its students and staff – to make those judgments for themselves. The University is not a place for safety from ideas – it is a place to engage in critical thought and debate in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. Our students will not be prepared for a complex and challenging world unless they have experience negotiating conflict and disagreement.
One of the working group’s major influences was the University of Chicago, an institution with a long historical record of the promotion of Free Speech. The quoted paragraph above is very similar to the one on the University of Chicago’s website:
In a word, the University’s fundamental commitment is to the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed. It is for the individual members of the University community, not for the University as an institution, to make those judgments for themselves, and to act on those judgments not by seeking to suppress speech, but by openly and vigorously contesting the ideas that they oppose.
…
I read our own statement with excitement. Maybe, as I have heard others say, the tide is turning; the university is defrosting in its hate of heterodox opinion.
Yet just last week I attempted in my psychology lab the Street Epistemology exercise, made famous by
, whom I admire greatly. I posed several controversial statements, including those on race, sex, and even the war in the Middle East. Despite much positive discussion, some doubted whether I was allowed to pose such questions, whether the colour of my skin and which chromosomes I was born with, determined certain “privileges” that prevented me from speaking on such topics.Furthermore, I have discovered that a group of activist students, by way of vicious and pathetic complaining to powerful third-parties, have attempted to label the content of my supervisor’s lectures as “transphobic” and “homophobic”.
Despite such a positive Free Speech Statement, much of the university environment is dominated by people who are practiced in the most underhanded of methods to restrict one from sharing heterodox opinions. I urge you, those who believe in the power of Freedom of Speech and Expression, to maintain vigilance in the face of this multi-faceted hydra.
We need not stand alone any longer.
Thank you all for reading.
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Chur, and have a good day and night,
The Delinquent Academic
Students coming for one of the most charitable professors in the department could be a 'red guards' moment. Perhaps I'm catastrophizing, but it's a sad day when this happens in our neck of the woods. Hopefully this may give the wider university pause for concern as to what kind of culture they've been empowering, before the golem really solidifies.
All of this is under the assumption that freedom of speech was more free in the past, maybe so, but only for some. I’d argue that women, people of colour and the wider gender diverse communities have historically had less access to freedom of speech.
I would wager that these minority groups recently acquired access to freedom of speech, coincides with the newly perceived reduction to freedom of speech from certain groups within society.
In my opinion, the freedom of speech movement is less about protecting freedom of speech and more about protecting their dominant knowledge producing position in society. This is being informed by a continually increasing list of people challenging their opinion—the dominant discourse.
As someone who was at that discussion, I have come to agree with them. 1/5 women who attend university have admitted are sexually assaulted by a male during their time at university. The statistics for males are less than 1/100, and often is committed by another male. The question you posed which got the most vocal response was centred around this topic. It is a sensitive personal issue for 20% of your female classmates, and only triggering for 1% of your male classmates.
Great read though JD and I appreciate the position you hold, and I will enjoy seeing how this debate unravels through the coming years. I certainly don’t agree with the student unrest against Jamin, and hope he can stay strong in the face of protest.