It’s the British royal media that’s becoming irrelevant

On the face of it, a letter that surfaced this week from the University of Auckland to a student seemed a cruel way to inform a distressed young person that her time there was up. It began by describing the student’s recent suicide attempt, apparently as a result of sexual assault. The tone of the letter was – ah – brusque at best.

‘‘It is clear there has been a change to the state of your mental health . . . and you did not promptly inform the International Office about this change as you were required to do under your enrolment conditions (attached),’’ wrote Deputy Vice-chancellor Angela Cleland.

The letter says doctors had advised she could not be kept safe, and therefore to allow her to stay would be a breach of its code of conduct.

‘‘The university has cancelled your Student Agreement for your breach of enrolment conditions, thereby terminating your enrolment at the university,’’ the letter concludes.

Responding to the predictably horrified reaction online, the university claimed it had to write it that way.

‘‘The letter . . . was necessarily formal as part of a complex legal process, was delivered in the context of her mental health care, and formed a small part of a significant body of correspondence from the university that demonstrates the compassion that has been shown to the student during her time with us,’’ it said.

It’s hard to say whether the expulsion was warranted. We just don’t know. The university can’t tell us anything, because, you know, privacy – and then it uses that as a shield to gaslight us all.

It cannot prove adequate care, it cannot show the ‘‘compassion’’ used to guide its actions – the university just says, ‘‘you have to trust us’’.

Once upon a time, we might have readily done that. But recent years have shown that to ‘‘just trust’’ our major universities would be rather foolish.

We know that the tertiary sector likes to offload responsibility for issues of student care – we learned that in the aftermath of the death of Mason Pendrous in September. Mason’s stepfather is still searching for the truth months later.

In the middle of a major Stuff investigation into sexual assaults in New Zealand universities in 2019, an Otago University communications staffer told me our coverage ‘‘could make the situation more difficult and traumatic for the students allegedly involved’’.

Concerned, I phoned one of the complainants and asked whether this was true. She laughed and said the stories had given them the impetus they’d needed to talk to each other about the importance of respect and consent.

The disparity between what students, their teachers and care staff, and the upper management at all our major universities were saying was puzzling. It still is. The schism between caring and uncaring seems inexplicable – but multiple sources told me their university would not admit to having a problem which could affect its international reputation.

This week I asked that question again, and got the same answer.

‘‘I think unis (are) worried about standing up and saying it’s a problem here, because to do so risks being labelled the ‘rape uni’ or something ridiculous like that,’’ one PhD graduate with expertise in the area told me.

It’s the students who suffer. We found most had no clear way of finding out how to report when they had been harmed. We found shockingly high numbers of students in need of a better system. And in at least one other case, there seemed to be only one way for a victim of sexual assault on campus to go – and that was out the door.

Reading between the lines, it’s clear the University of Auckland’s letter was legally drafted to ready the university for an appeal. But did it have to be so cold? I’m no lawyer, so I asked for advice.

Law Lecturer at Victoria University, Eddie Clark, obligingly took a close look at the very Code of Conduct Cleland cites in the letter. He found ‘‘absolutely no’’ legal reason for the wording.

Again, we can’t know whether leaving is the right thing for the young woman involved. But you have to ask, what would be the impact on an already vulnerable student, of receiving a letter like that?