DCU ‘has no issue’ with bid to smear cyber safety expert
Academic questioned bona fides of Prof Mary Aiken in email to TD
DUBLIN City University has said it has ‘no issue whatsoever’ with an email sent by one of its professors in which he attempted to smear a fellow academic during a debate on protecting children online.
The Irish Daily Mail revealed yesterday that DCU Professor James O’Higgins Norman tried to undermine the qualifications of cyber-psychologist Professor Mary Aiken during discussions on the digital age of consent.
Prof. O’Higgins Norman backed setting the age at 13, while Dr Aiken supported consent at 16. In an email to independent TD Mattie McGrath, sent from his DCU email account last May, Prof. O’Higgins Norman alleged that ‘as far as we are aware’, Prof. Aiken had not conducted any original research in the field.
He went on to question her academic bona fides, saying: ‘She is a self-proclaimed “criminologist” and as such will take a view that is coloured by crime rather than life.’ He went on: ‘Asking a criminologist for advice is like asking a prison guard in Mountjoy how to run society. That view will necessarily be skewed by a very narrow experience of life.’
When Prof. Aiken became aware of Prof. O’Higgins Norman’s email, she sought legal advice and asked him to apologise, to retract the false statements he made and demanded a copy of the retraction also be sent to Mr McGrath.
Prof. O’Higgins Norman responded by issuing a complete apology. He added that his comments were made in ‘good faith and in the context of the debate’ over the digital age of consent and that it was an ‘honest mistake’.
He wrote: ‘I see now your full credentials, that you lecture in criminology and that you are a cyber-psychologist. I did not appreciate that you had conducted the level of research in the area which you had undertaken… please again accept my apologies for my error on this issue as well.’ A copy was sent to Mr McGrath.
Prof. Aiken told the Mail that although she regarded herself to be ‘resilient’, the targeted personal attacks had been ‘profoundly disturbing’.
Yesterday, Dublin City University told the Mail ‘there is no issue from the university’s perspective with Prof. O’Higgins Norman’s conduct whatsoever’. It added: ‘In May 2018, 17 international and Irish academics working in the field of child internet safety, wrote to all TDs regarding the age of digital consent. The letter outlined the views of the world’s leading scholars in this field and reflected the views of all the major child protection organisations, including the ISPCC and the Children’s Rights Alliance.
‘Subsequent to that letter, there was engagement with Mattie McGrath TD and Professor Mary Aiken on the details of the corre- spondence, on foot of which an apology was issued and accepted by Professor Aiken in writing.’
Prof. O’Higgins Norman is director of the Anti-Bullying Centre at DCU and was recently appointed to the Government’s National Advisory Council on Online Safety. On Wednesday, the Anti-Bullying Centre announced a €330,000 partnership with Facebook. The social media giant has been embroiled in a series of controversies over the last year, including a damning Channel 4 Dispatches documentary which showed savage videos of child abuse being allowed to remain on its site.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Today With Sean O’Rourke, Prof. O’Higgins Norman denied there was a conflict of interest in having Facebook involved. ‘This is a programme we have set up based on 20 years of research at the centre.’