Brash ban an ‘over-reaction’
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has called Massey University’s refusal to host former politician Don Brash at the Manawatu¯ campus an ‘‘over-reaction’’.
He was invited to speak to a students’ politics club in Palmerston North, but vice-chancellor Jan Thomas stopped the event after club members alerted the university to their concerns about ensuring security and public safety, igniting a furore about free speech.
Ardern said over the years there had been numerous examples of politicians and expoliticians speaking on university campuses, often causing ‘‘a stir’’.
‘‘This seems to me to be an over-reaction.’’
The university considered putting on extra security, but decided the risk of harm to students, staff and the public was too high against a backdrop of Brash’s ‘‘support’’ for controversial Canadian speakers Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux.
Thomas said she supported free speech on campus, but totally opposed hate speech.
Free Speech Coalition spokesman David Cumin said Thomas’ capitulation in the face of veiled threats about consequences from protesters was ‘‘disgraceful’’.
‘‘Publicly funded universities in New Zealand and across the Western world have a proud tradition of upholding freedom of speech.
‘‘If we allow the ‘heckler’s veto’ to shut down contentious speech at a university, a place that should be a bastion of free expression, what hope can we have for free speech anywhere else?’’
The man who lit the fuse leading to Don Brash’s ban from speaking at Massey University’s Manawatu¯ campus has no regrets, and denies ever threatening anyone.
‘‘Kardinal’’ Karl Pearce said the students who organised it were naive if they thought there was no potential for conflict at the event.
But he never intended to do anything more than wave a sign and make a statement in protest.
Pearce’s letter to Thomas prompted the vice-chancellor to pull the plug on the event.
Pearce said he supported her decision, but he thought commentators had misinterpreted what he wrote if they thought it was some sort of security threat.
‘‘Remember in light of their type of ‘Free Speech’ does not come Free of Consequences,’’ he said.
Pearce said the consequences he was talking about were the hurt and possible backlash against those vilified by Brash’s type of ‘‘separatist and supremacist rhetoric’’.
ACT leader David Seymour has also climbed into the debate, calling for Thomas’ resignation.
He said the former Reserve Bank governor and Opposition leader should be able to speak and express views some might disagree with.
Seymour said Education Minister Chris Hipkins should stop funding universities that won’t protect free speech.
Hipkins said universities should have a very high threshold around allowing free speech and robust debate.
Hipkins said he would be surprised if the decision had been made on security grounds alone, but to threaten the university’s funding would, itself, be an infringement of its autonomy.