Beware the uni seeking to limit freedom of speech
The Education and Training Act enshrines academic freedom in law. It distinguishes aspects of academic freedom over which the university itself has jurisdiction from aspects that protect its students and academic staff from institutional interference.
An example of the former is “the freedom of the institution and its staff to regulate the subject matter of courses taught at the institution”. This makes clear that academic staff cannot unilaterally decide to teach whatever courses they like. They must negotiate the content and format of courses with the university as an institution.
Another aspect of academic freedom over which universities have no institutional authority is “the freedom of academic staff and students, within the law, to question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas, and to state controversial or unpopular opinions”. Unlike in the first example, “the institution” is not mentioned. This clause prohibits universities from censoring academic staff or students unless their speech breaks the law.
New draft principles to guide “public discourse conversations” from Victoria University of Wellington appear to be an attempt to customise the academic freedom provisions of the act. VUW seeks to impose institutional restrictions on what its academics and students can say in public forums.
Some principles pertain to the conduct of discourse, rather than to its content. One asserts that “views should be presented in the spirt [sic] of … the pursuit of knowledge”. This accords with the intent of the act. The purpose of universities is indeed the pursuit of knowledge.
Even so, deciding whether or not a statement or discussion is in the pursuit of knowledge would be fraught. Sometimes knowledge is revealed in the unlikeliest of ways.
Another principle is that “public discourse conversations should be manapreserving and respectful for all involved parties”. To be sure, we should always try to be polite in debates. But principles like this could be used to shut down legitimate criticism of ideas.
Things can get heated in disagreements, especially when the ideas at stake are the mainstay of an academic’s career. And if a scholar’s ideas are shown to be wrong, isn’t it inevitable that he or she will lose a certain amount of mana? A perceived lack of respect ought not be grounds for censorship. Intellectual discourse is not for the fainthearted.
Some of the other principles would be a direct assault on the free expression of ideas on campus. Perhaps the most chilling is the assertion that public discourse conversations should “ensure … that the content of the conversations aligns with the University’s values”. A key word here is “content.” This principle is not concerned merely with how scholars express their ideas, but with the substance of those ideas.
VUW says its values are to be demonstrated in its commitment to “equity”, “diversity” and ”inclusivity“, among other things. If this principle is adopted, there is a serious risk of ideas being censored.
For example, under equity-based employment policies, underrepresented groups may be given preference for positions. Might criticising such a policy be taken to violate the university’s valuebased commitment to equity?
Who would decide whether an idea should or should not be expressed under such a principle? The vice-chancellor? The academic board? Noisy pressure groups? It really doesn’t matter. Under the act, the principle is simply illegitimate. Individual academics and students, irrespective of the university’s values, can express whatever ideas they wish, within the law.
In recent years, universities have not covered themselves in glory in defence of academic freedom. In a well-publicised example in 2021, seven professors at the University of Auckland published a letter in The Listener criticising the Ardern government’s decision to include mātauranga Māori in the school science curriculum. In the ensuing furore, their vice-chancellor, Dawn Freshwater, publicly threw the seven under the proverbial bus, saying they had “caused considerable hurt and dismay among our staff, students and alumni”. Causing ostensible hurt and dismay may well be grounds for censoring the expression of views under VUW’s draft principles.
Perhaps VUW’s new vice-chancellor, Nic Smith, is cut from a different cloth than Freshwater. Time will tell. But the “Listener Seven” incident demonstrates that university hierarchies should never be allowed to control the discourse of their academic staff and students. Inevitably, such control would result in elements of the university community putting pressure on management to shut down ideas they don’t like. That would put at risk not only the intellectual standing of the universities, but also their capacity for knowledge production.
The act makes it clear that neither vice-chancellors, nor senior university management, nor pressure groups within universities, have licence to control what kinds of “public discourse conversations” take place on our campuses. If that isn’t sufficiently clear to them in the existing legislation, new legislation may be required to remind our vice-chancellors of their obligations.
Michael Johnston and James Keirstead are senior fellows at the New Zealand Initiative and former Victoria University of Wellington academics. The authors are the co-hosts of the Free Kiwis! podcast, which seeks to establish liberalism in New Zealand.